Monday, January 14, 2008

January, 2008







Welcome to 2008! We spent a great night on the beach celebrating New Year's Eve in Germany, Denmark, South Africa, England and the U.S. around a bonfire in Blanquilla. Great fun, great company, and absolutely wonderful cruising kids!!!
Hiked around the island and got stuck by many, many cactus thorns. OUCH! Thoroughly enjoyed Blanquilla. Ran out of wine so headed out at 4 a.m. on Friday, the 4th.
Let's see. supposed to be NE winds at around 15 and no rain????? Had a pretty good sail for 2 hours and then the wind kept changing. It was a day of putting out the jib, pulling it in, running out the stay, put the jib out, pull it in, take all sails down, turn the motor on, put everything out again .... keep repeating!! Oh, and constant grey skys and rain and squalls. Actually spent all day in our raincoats with long sleeved shirts underneath and chilled. We ended up being one of those idiots that pulled into an anchorage in the dark after trying to race the sun all day. The decks were awash all day and my clothes ended up getting wet when things started leaking after 8 hours that way. Then as we were heading into Juangriego we had some fishermen waving us down. We were making really good time, but we couldn't leave them out there if they were in trouble, could we? Heaved to and took all three sails down and motored over to them -- they wanted to make sure we knew they had a fish float out about 2 miles away!!!!!!!!! Followed our track back into Juangriego and dropped the anchor in 12 feet, took a hot shower, made soup and were in bed by 9 p.m.
Saturday morning dawned bright and calm and we took the dinghy into shore, locked up to a palm tree and wandered around. A delightful little beachside town.
Saturday night Rhythm, Odyssey and Daphne anchored, and then we all pulled up anchor around 7 the next morning to head back to Polarmar. We got lucky and hooked up a 4 foot mackeral. Into the anchorage in Polarmar and Infinity and Vindomar were there ahead of us. Good to meet up with old cruising friends. ~~_/)~~

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