Planing the New Year

After a nice and relaxed Christmas back home in Schrevendorf/ Laboe at the Baltic Sea, its time to think about cruising again.

Emma and I will be back on Freefall on the 31.12.06 and we are ready to leave Richards Bay. We used the time in Richards Bay for refitting all the broken things and to get ready for the next Sea, the Atlantic Ocean.

Here the plan for next year:

mid January: leaving Cape Town for St. Helena and Brazil.

We have to hurry a bit, because we do not want to miss the Carnival in Brazil on the 15.th of February.

From Brazil goes our route to the Caribbean Sea.

I am not 100% sure on which islands we will drop our anchor but i think:

Trinidad and Tobago,

St. Lucia,

Antigua and Barbuda,

Virgin Islands,

Cuba.

From Cuba we will pop over to Key West, what will close my circle for the circumnavigation.

what will be around April/May.

Then in May starts our 2. Atlantic Crossing in between 5 month and the stopovers will be:

Miami,

Bahamas,

Bermudas,

Azores.

 

From the Azores we will head for the English Channel............ 

That's the plan and plans on a boat are made to change.

Happy New Year to everybody,

Axel

Christmas at home...

I am off today for my 30 h trip back to germany. I am coming back on the 31.12 for new years and we will try to head down to Cape Town the next possible weather window in 2007...
axel

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Boat work before holiday

Hi
All is well here. We´re cramming in lots of jobs this week; fridge should arrive today and everything is almost set up and ready to install this exciting arrival!!

This weekend we head off for Christmas - Axel back to Germany to spend time with his family and I´m off to Zambia to stay with my girlfriend Ali who has recently moved there and I hope to play Polo & Polocrosse while there!!

Then its back to Richard´s Bay for a big New Year´s party here at the Zululand Yacht Club, Richard´s Bay. If anyone would like to write to us please send c\o my cousins´ house in Cape Town:

New Year here will be a scorcher!

Em x

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Fridge

Wow, after almost 3 years of sailing without having the luxurious of a cold food and drinks, i bought yesterday a fridge and am busy building it in Freefall.
I hope the power consumption will not drive me crazy and the tasty fresh food will make us happy...

I also put some rod holders on my kayak and am going fishing every morning.

Axel

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FUER MAMA UND PAPA

HERZLICHEN GLUECKWUNSCH ZUM 40. HOCHZEITSTAG!!!!

Ich denk an Euch,
Euer Axel und Emma

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Lesotho and the Drakensberg mountains

hello all

We´re not long back from a wonderful week away in Lesotho, where we went deep into the beautiful Drakensburg mountains. What a lovely adventure 4 of us (our friends from Cisnecito) have had. We squashed into a little 1.4l VW Citi; the original VW which is still manufactured here, crammed with luggage, tent, sleeping bags and mega picnic, and off we drove for 14 hours to Semonkong!

Yachties own and run Semonkong Lodge at 2500m high, which is where we stayed when we were not pony-trekking through the mountains and canyons for 3 days The pony-trek was fab and tough-going - we went where not even 4 wheel drives can go, stayed in tiny villages with the locals in their traditional round huts. The Lesotho ponies are tough and amazingly adapted as they carefully pick their way through rocky, narrow, steep mountain passes, tracks and rivers as we climbed to nearly 3000m! There were a few acting bums & legs after those 3 days!

We also did the Guinness Book of Records highest commercial abseil in the world - 204m down the side of the great Maletsunyane Falls!! Wow!!!!

The scenary and views up there are gorgeous. Life is as it was hundreds of years ago in alot of the villages. Farming is the main source of income with big and small flocks of sheep and goats everywhere, always attended by shepards. Fields are ploughed by Oxen which they rear. Lesotho exports alot of Angora Goat wool for Mohair.
The traditional dress up the mountains consists of big blankets wrapped around you and also a balaclava as the wind can really bite. Most people travel by pony or by foot with kids walking through the mountains for 1 hours in bare feet every day to get to school.

Em xx

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Lesoto - Semonkong Lodge

That is the place we have been:

 

http://www.placeofsmoke.co.ls/

 

who ever wants to have a great holiday, that is the place. Together with Chris and Julie from Cisnecito we rented a car and drove the 13 hours to Semonkong, the place of smoke. The road trip alone was an amazing experience. It lead us threw the Drakensberge north of Durban with one stopover in the Champagne Valley.

The last three hours of the trip is on a mountain gravel road…better to have a 4 wheel drive, but our VW Golf I (what they are still building in South Africa) did a good job.

 

A bit exhausted but happy because of the amazing surroundings and the friendly people, we checked in to the Semonkong Lodge what is owned by the lovely people and Yachties Jonathan & Armelle.  The first day we made a hike to the Maletsunyane falls, a 200 m deep waterfall. After hiking up and down the canyon to the foot of the waterfall in around 2300 m altitude our muscles were burning and the sailors legs were tired and needed a rest. So we decided to make a horse back trip for the next three days.

 

Up and down the mountains on a horse back sounds quite relaxing but on these little passes, where an average person gets problems by foot, it was an exhilarating  trip what needed every minute our full attention.

 

After 5 hours riding on the first day we were happy to get into our little Lesotho Hut and had a rest for the night.

 

Two more days of riding threw the amazing and beautiful mountains of the little Kingdom gave us a sore butt but we had an unforgettable time in a country were the horseback is the normal way to get from one village to the other and cars are banned because the roads are hiking trails what are not accessible for cars.

 

Being back in the Semonkong Lodge we still had not enough adrenalin rushes in the steep mountains so we decided to do the longest abseil in the world, what are 204 m down a rock wall…….

 

Axel

 

 

Lesoto

Yesterday we came back to Richards Bay from our roadtrip to Lesoto! What a beautiful and remote Country…..

Axel

What=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=B4?=s up in South Africa...

Dear All
We´re stil in Richards Bay, just north of Durban. Will prob sail south towards Cape Town on Sun\Mon when the next weather window opens...

4 of us hired a car & went on Safari in Hluhluwe & Imfolozi Game Parks (now joined as one) only 1.5 hrs from here, 2 days ago. We saw heaps of wildlife and lions finishing a kill with hyena hanging around. Couldn´t find the elephants and Saw a cat very similar 2 the Cheetah called a Serval - that was exciting. Dozens of black & white rhino. It is the oldest Game park in SA & also a nursery for some animals including the original breeding place set up 2 save the Rhino. It was a very long and lovely day out. TG nothing charged our car! They were very lush Game Parks so the animals were looking well fed - I´ve never seen such fat Wildebeest!

We´r staying in Zululand Yacht Club alongside their wall, for free - will move 2 a marina berth soon. Its nice here - even have bath tubs in the shower block, BBQs & a swimming pool, and lots of our friends are here too. We´ve been spending alot of time trying 2 get Freefall in shape again. Had 2 take up all the floorboards 2 clean ever inch of the steel bilges 2 get rid of the saltwater that came in during our last sail. Yes, we had a bit of an incident in the Mozambique Channel - got a rope (genoa sheet) caught in the prop (engine on) during a rough sail-change. The pressure of the rope pulled the engine back on its mounts which created a leak where the shaft enters the boat (boot\bellows). We discovered we were taking on water when we went down below after Axel finally came out of the sea having cut the rope free from the prop; the water was over the floorboard in the saloon so there was urgent bailing done- buckets of water! TG we could fix the leak!

The day we sailed into Richards Bay was pouring rain, crap visability, pretty strong winds & heaps of huge cargo ships around so we were all very glad 2 get safely into harbour. We plus 5 of our friends boats arrived on the same day and the party was huge!

Today, 24th Nov, we´r off to Lesotho to do some hiking & horse trekking in the Drakenburg Mountains. Yippee!
Will be in touch next week!
Em x

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Staying in Richards Bay

Last night we were close before leaving Richard Bay, but we changed our plans and are staying here for
Christmas and New Year! So we have time to get Freefall back in shape before crossing the Atlantic. New Antifouling and little bits and peaces what are broken….and hopefully we have time to get inland to see the Kruger National Park and more from Africa….

Axel

game park and weather window

Our daytrip to the Imfolozi and Hluhluwe Game Reserve was great. Getting up at 3 am and then driving only an our to the park entrance to get into the gate at 5 am at dawn. The animals are more active in the early morning hours and the late afternoon. We picked a cloudy day, what is also good, because we in the car and the animals are more fit. In the Park are living the BIG FIVE, the five most dangerous animals, what means they have the lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and black rhinoceros.
We were happy to see 3 of the big fives (we missed only the elephant and the leopard) and around 20 other kinds of animals like the hyaena, warthog, zebras, giraffes, waterbuck.
The amazing part is, that you get very very closed to the animals. Some are walking on or beside the little gravel roads and you get to them as closed as 5-10 m. Thats fine with the zebras and giraffes, but gets a bit exciting with the buffalo or rhinos.....
Back in Richards Bay we are waiting now for a good weather window to get down to Durban or East London.
The Southerly Blaster, what turns the sea into a boiling kettle , are blasting threw in a very short frequency, so tomorrow we only have 24h time to get to the next save harbour. I do not know if we will start, but the plan is to leave tonight at 3 am.

Axel

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zooo

south africa

Is there a picture????

Game Park, South Africa

What a day!! Zebras, Lions, Giraffes, Rhinos....

WELCOME IN AFRICA.........

Axel

test von sailmail

das waere toll!!!!!!!!!!!

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test

Immer noch in richards bay

Hey, we arrived in Richards Bay on the 13. Nov.
After a broken main, water over the floorboards, after getting a rope in the prop and crazy wind and current on the trip from Madagascar to South Africa.
Nice to be in a nice marina.