It’s time!

The big test is here, is this our way of life? Are we going to live on a boat as long as we can and are happy? This is it! The true test for our family! At least 2 weeks at sea, how on earth are the kids going to take it? Not to be able to play and run on land for so “long”?!

I was nervous and had butterflies at the same time!

Here we are,15 days later, 2090NM after, In Martinique, Caribbean!

All alive!! Hahaha!

The passage was…….. WONDERFUL, over all…

Our sea monsters did perfectly! Like nothing out of the ordinary, just the way things are..

The only time it felt “oohhh” was at day 10 or so and Kai said, “Mami, I don’t want to sail anymore, I want to run”

The first days where hard on the crew, Angelica, Jakop and Gaya where all sea sick, puking in buckets and over the side. We told them that it was going to pass, and as always no one believe us.. except Gaya maybe as she knows the sailing and she did it hard core, driving and puking at the same time.

Day 4 Angelica said “I hope I never have to go to the bathroom again”  her seasickness had still not passed, but she was doing much better.

We normally share the chores of cleaning and cooking with the crew, but this time it all went a little like how we where feeling. Markus as the Captain stepped up as usual and cooked every meal for the first week i think. Gayathri got over her seasickness the fastest and helped a lot with the kids when we needed a break.

The weather was great! We had perfect wind and seas, not to strong and no big waves! In the beginning of the passage we had like a cloudy horizon and it held up for a week o so, in the  middle of the passage we got some rain, and at the end we could feel that we where coming to warmer waters!

We had some highlights of the trip for sure and here they are:

The day Jakop saw the whale! He was on his morning watch and Im about to come up on my shift and i go up to say “hello” and he tells me that he just saw a whale like 15 minutes ago!! We where all very jealous and it was the only whale we saw on the hole trip… lucky Jakop!

The day everything broke

We where almost half way… sailing along super nicely, going straight downwind, goose-wing are way across the Atlantic, with some waves seas, but nothing major. When suddenly a big wave came and scared Gayathri that was on the helm, so she accidentally gibed the headsail and the spinnaker boom brook! We had to rollaway the sail and se what we could do.. Markus was not happy, but shit happens. It didn’t get better that during the night the freaking steering brook, AGAIN! and poor Gayathri was on the helm again! no luck there at all! she did awesome steering with the emergency tiler. We had to move the kids that where sleeping to the foorpik, so we could get to the chain that had broken again. This time it was on the other side. I was “happy” that Markus knew exactly what to do and as we had fixed it once before.

Poor Gaya, she was not having a good day. She felt that she didn’t want to steer Marionette at all anymore. It was a long night for Markus, Gaya and me, as we where awake al night trying to fix the steering and it did not help that we where done at around 4 in the morning and the kids where going to wake up in 2 hours. Just 10 minutes before Gayas morning watch, Jakop woke us up and the mainsail had ripped! OH NO! what was going on!!!! Everything was just breaking! We where all “happy” it didn’t happened on Gayas watch because that wold had definitely pushed her over to not steering Marionette anymore.

During the day Markus got out the spear mainsail, that meant that he had to go digging furriest down in the cockpit! big mess everywhere, but it got done. Then he actually manage to fix the spinnaker boom as well, and we where sailing with good speed again.

Movie night 

Kai was watching a lot of movies while on passage, his favourite was “Time long ago” (landet för länge sedan) but one evening we connived him to watch “Moana”. We set up the computer outside, got the chips and peanuts and had a great “movie night” in the middle of the Atlantic.  The movie is buy the way AWSOME! 

Dolphin night

Jakops luck hit again, during the night some dolphins came to say “hi”, and this time he actually woke us up, so everyone (except the kids) came up on deck and we got to enjoy little dolphins jump around in front of the boat. I went all the way up to the bow, and it was really dark so you could not see them very clearly, but they where so small! I never seen dolphins that little before, except baby dolphins. Im always going to wonder what type of dolphins they where.

Christmas day.

This was special for the kids and specially Kai. Ever senesce Markus had bought the christmas light we been singing a song. Its a song that my mum used to sing to us when we where little. “Viejito pascuero acuerdate de mi, me porto bien en case tambien en el jardin” . I had explained to Kai that if he is a good boy Santa will come to the boat and leave some presents, and he will find the boat thanks to the christmas lights. He was soon excited, and was asking almost every day when Santa will come.

On christmas day, we put Kai down for a Siesta and decided that he was going to get his presents when he woke up. The crew was asking “is he up now? did he wake up? “ hahaha.. it was funny how everyone was excited to se how he wold react. When he finally woke up i told him that when he was sleeping Santa came, Alizé saw him, and he left a lot of gifts! He got up and was sooo Happy when he saw the gifts and it was really nice to see them open the presents and play with them.

The most popular gift was the spiderman with a disco ball that has the song “what dose the fox say” when you press a button on it! We are now hoping that the battery will run out as soon as possible! Thank you Angelica for that one… hahaha..

Every sundowner with Gotham city

This was a thing that just happened after the first week. We noticed that Jakop listened to Gotham city with R-kelly, everyday! And it kind of became a thing for every sunset. we put the speaker on high volume and then had our little glass of whine and sang the song and watch the sunset. Good memories.

Moon night

The last nights before arriving to Martinique we got to enjoy the full moon! It was so magical! To see the moon rice up from the sea and be so red and bright its something else! We where all mesmerised and to be so fully in the moment and in silence  was such a special moment. After a little moment we put on the perfect song  “Halo” sang by Ane Brun, and it became our Moon song. We know that we all are going to remember this special moment.

And day of arrival! ❤

AFTER 15 DAYS WE MADE IT! We got to La Marain in the morning, and everyone was super excited! We made it We crossed the Atlantic! After so many up and downs we where all happy and we where all looking forward to get to shore and have a cold drink and good food and a BIG ICE-cream.

And of course talk to our family and friends to tell them the good news that we had arrived.

Well that was our passage! The days after arriving we concentrated to get the boat nice and clean and to make the  most of the last week with our crew. We wanted to give them a great last week so we sailed to another anchorage, we went to the beach, when snorkelling, padelboarding, hiking, etc.

We really enjoyed having you on Marionette and thank you for everything!

During that time I didn’t do any internet, and that’s why so long for the blogpost, and after they left we all got sick! We got a awful stomach flue with everything, the hole family and the motivation for writing was zero. So, now that we are all felling good and got some good rest, I’m going to try to get you more updated!

We are enjoying Martinique and time as a family. But we are hoping that soon we have new friends on board.

Wold you like to come and visit us? We are going to put up some dates on Facebook soon keep an eye open!

Much love

Cathy and family