What we loved about our stay at the beautiful Sugar Ridge, was the variety of things to see and to do. Sugar Ridge hotel lays in a valley, quite high from sea level and thus have no private beach connected to it like most other resorts or hotels around in the Caribbean. But the location is nonetheless perfect, instead of having only one beach, they got at least six of them with just a five-minutes shuttle ride away. The beaches surrounding this area are some of the most beautiful on the island and if you for some reason would get tired of one, you have many more just a short walk or ride away. Other than beaches and two restaurants at the property (one of which was supreme, I'll tell you more about it a bit later), we had access to two gorgeous pool areas, an Aveda spa (where I had booked a full body massage for Alex that I thought he deserved after his hard work these past months), a stunning view over the Caribbean sea from our room and from most other parts of the property, friendly staff always willing to walk that extra mile for us and an overall peaceful and serene setting which truly did good for our souls after a few hectic months. Sugar Ridge is slightly lower in price than the other large resorts around making this a great value for both couples, newlyweds and singles in every age. It was also recently voted one of the top 25 trendiest hotels in the Caribbean by members of TripAdvisor and yes we must agree: the design and the style of this place is very well thought out and both the interior and the ambiance oozes youth and sexiness all the way through. Thank you Sugar Ridge for having us, can't wait to get back another time.

My red swimsuit is from Babajaan and my sandals from Ancient Greek Sandals.

Have spent much of the weekend in our private plunge pool overlooking the burning sunsets while discussing the purpose of life, future, family and love. Not sure if we got much wiser but energizing and spiritually fulfilling times were spent in an harmonic and stunning setting. It is for us a great thing to change environment from our regular boat life every once in a while. 

So this is one of Alex's latest design creations. A paddleboard rack made in carbon fiber, mounted on a Goldfish 36, one of the fastest RiB dinghies in the world. I'm sure many of you know what carbon fiber is and what it is used for but for you who don't have so much knowledge, I'd like to explain what I have learned during this process and tell you why this fiber is widely used and loved by engineers and designers in many industries. Carbon fiber is composed mostly of carbon atoms which are bonded together in crystals. Carbon fiber is a super strong material, five times stronger than steel, two times as stiff yet weights about two-thirds less. The fiber is basically very thin strands of carbon, much thinner than human hair, which is twisted into a yarn or woven into a cloth and can thereafter be used as it is or bought in stiff panels. When building up a surface or a permanent shape from the cloth (or twill), it can be laid over mold and then coated with layers after layers of a bonding agent like epoxy resin, and sanded in between coats, all done in pretty advanced and time consuming manners as what you aim for is a super sleek and glossy surface. 

Due to the lightweight and stiffness this fiber offers, it is incredibly popular in the sailing racing world, if not used for the complete boat, well enough for parts of it like the mast, boom, rudder and many other parts of the yacht. Compared to other common building materials like fiberglass, kevlar and wood, carbon fiber remains as the most expensive and not everyone can justify the high cost it is to produce from this fiber. 

Just a little fact that I found out while doing my research, we all know that most components of a car are made of steel right, imagine if they were made of carbon fiber instead, the cars would decrease their weight by around 60% and in turn this would reduce the cars fuel consumption by 30%. While reducing weight, the cars could also be built with smaller, more efficient engines or have the engines completely replaced with electric engines resulting in massive fuel savings. Fantastic for the environment but unfortunately the material is way too expensive. The cost of carbon fiber per pound is around $10, compared to steel which goes for less than one dollar a pound. But given the fact that carbon fiber had a price of $150 only ten years ago, the price development looks promising for the future. Another downside is unfortunately that the material isn't as easy to recycle as steel, just another problem to solve before it can be put into widespread use in cars.

The dinghy which this rack now is mounted on, is made at the most part of carbon already, so of course they needed a paddle-surfboard-rack matched in the same material. The paddleboards (can carry eight at a time) are to be laid (with cover of their own bags of course) on top of this rack and shall be tied up with lines at the ends where there is a thin spectra hook where to fasten the lines. I think the final product is very sleek having been constructed by hand, what do you think? And no, I had no idea either, that Alex knew how to do these kind of advanced molecular things with such immaculate precision, I get to learn something new about him and his hidden talents every day. Now he tells me he wants to reinforce some important parts of the hull of our boat with a mix of carbon and kevlar, all to make it safer and stronger..

Just sorted out a few bags full of books and some of our readings are already up in the shelves where they belong. More to come on the next round of home organizing. Little by little all things are getting in order and I have a feeling this boat will be the best home ever when we're done with her..

Fresh, colorful produce purchased, thinking to make a crispy summery potato-salad and serve it with a juicy steak tonight for my hard working man. While I'm glued to my computer with all my work projects most of my awake time, Alex works around 70 hours a week these days. All for us to be able to leave Antigua with a well prepared boat and enough money on our travel account so that we can cruise around the world without having to work for a long time. That's how we do it. Work like freaks for a few weeks or months, then relax and enjoy the world for at least as many. At least that's what we're dreaming of right now.. a few more projects to finalize and a couple of more months to go until we're completely free again. Good things come to those who work hard, or how was it?

Just got a nice quote sent to me that I wanted to share:

We have invited some of our friends from Antigua for a weekends sailing around the island next week, will be fun to take them and our new boat out for a ride around these beautiful turquoise waters. Sailing, snorkeling, fishing, barbeque and wine is of course on the schedule. Can't wait to share a bit of our world with our new friends.

I'm busy with tons of work this week so sorry for the lack of updates here in the blog. We will be taking two complete days and nights off from online projects, boat work and carbon fiber productions in the end of this week and escape to one beautiful resort so there's much to wrap up before that. I hear it's valentines day today, we don't celebrate such commercial things which are made for us to spend even more money on unnecessary things as we all know that things won't make us much happier, but have a nice Tuesday everyone however you choose to spend this February 14th. Speak soon!

Must find a good 12 volts blender for the boat asap. Any ideas on where to find?

This is what Alex is busy doing when he's not working on Duende. There are not so many other carbon fiber specialists around here in the Caribbean so he has a lot of things to do. Currently he's building this surfboard rack that you can see in the foreground, which Alex has designed for one of the mega yachts and their sexy little carbon dinghy that has a top speed of 80 knots.. will show the rack to you again when it's done and mounted. 

Snails, one of our all time favorites that is almost always ordered when we're eating at a French restaurant. I've promised Alex to give the snails a try at home one day, will let you know how that goes. If I can get a hold on them in Antigua that is. Canned ones shouldn't be a problem to find I assume.

And here's a piece of the interior of our new boat if you'd be interested in that. Kind of roomy, galley is on the right, chart-table down left, master cabin and head in front, two double-bunks on both sides in the back. We still haven't begun the refit of the interior and the woodwork is good as it is so no need for dismounting any of it for the moment. One of the first things to do in here though is to build a dining table. The table there is is basically the engine cover and too low to eat at. We are currently contemplating between different options on how to build a table that looks good, which is comfortable to sit at and that is easy to stove away/or perhaps one that doesn't need to get moved away..? Table will be made in mahogany as much else of the interior around. You see the hatch for the refrigerator on the right btw? It's huge. Fridge and freezer is much larger on this boat than our previous. Our last one had a volume of around 70 liters if I'm not mistaken, this one rooms 160 liters in total. Everything is a bit larger than on Caos, well naturally as the boat is 43 feet, not 35. The bed, the couches, the deck, the galley.. I love cooking onboard this boat as it has so much space and storage, will show detail photos of the galley a bit later as well.

More on the curves... the boat's that is. Look at that sensuous tumblehome. Just need to make a paint job on the hull but that'll have to wait for a while. New paint won't save our lives in a storm. A leakfree deck might do though, as well as new winches, rig and whatever else we have on that list. At least we don't have a teak deck no more, thank lord for that. Gelcoat non-skid is the way to go, not only because it looks better in photos as it does, but also because we don't have the patience to deal with the maintenance of a teak deck once again, particularly not here in the tropics where the sun is hard on the wood. It certainly is enough with what is in the cockpit. And yea, that might have to get replaced one day too when I think about it. Old and sad teak is never a beautiful thing.

First time of docking our "new" boat, had to fill up the water tanks and instead of forcing ourselves to take numerous dinghy rides to fill up jerry cans every second day we thought we should go to the dock to fill the tanks for once. Went pretty well I must say although it is interesting to learn to do things a bit differently than with the previous boat. And yes we know, our boat has beautiful lines, people stopped and asked us at least four times during 40 minutes "what's that" "what make is it" "how beautiful she is.."and all we can do is to agree. This Halsey Herreshoff is a damn gracious yacht with gorgeous lines. If only she wasn't such a mess inside hah.