on the way to emden

after a break in den helder, holland, where mama, susanne, siddy and emily visited us, we tried to get to emden yesterday. but it was a very hard day. winds were hi and we had to beat against the wind. we got drenched the whole way and decided to stop at an island for the night. now the wind has stopped and we are motoring to emden. we are hoping that there will be a breeze during the night. motoring sucks.
90 NM to go.

Axel

up and down

24.04.
after we were doing an average speed of 9 knots this morning for 6 h, we are now doing between 3-4 knots for the last 6 h. very exhausting! i miss the tradewinds...
almost in dover now. we will decide later if we stop there or not. axel

25.04.
passed dover last night, had customs for two hours on board in the middle of the night, they searched everything with 5 person but couldnt find anything. Now the wind is blowing again and we are fast. if the wind doesnt stop we should be in emden in two days time.

everything is fine on board.

stormy nights

after two stormy nights (the coast guards warnings said 8 beaufaut) we are now heading for boulogne or dover for a rest. at the moment we are flying away, after a very slow day yesterday in the eye. ships everywhere so we have to hold a sharp outlook. chris is sleeping since hours, relaxing from the exhausting night. i think we will arrive in the harbour during the next night. axel

channel islands

after a very windy night we are now in the eye of the low and the wind is almost gone...
we are just passing the channel islands, but too far away to see anything. everybody is fine and tired on board.
axel

in the channel

its windy since 3 this morning but everything is fine....
axel

english canal

we just decided to keep on sailing... we will reach the channel in 3 h. The low what will pass our way looks quite weak, so we go for it.
otherwise we have to stay in brest for too long. the next low is coming after this one and we will have no chance to get freefall to germany in time.
everything is fine on board.
axel

heading for brest

we will sail to brest and wait for better weather there. a depression is passing our way...so no lymington.
we should arrive in brest by this evening... everything fine on board.

windy and wet

we are getting closer to the english channel...winds are high and its a tough trip...
everyone and everything is fine on board...
axel

kap finisterre / bay of biscay

we started the trip at 1000h and were beating against wind and current for the first 20 h with average speed of 4 knots. now we are away from land and getting faster. bumpy and windy but fine. freefall doing well.

couldnt get propagation to send e-mails. Now we have 300 NM to go to Brest, 500NM to Lymington.

axel

Bay of Biscay

Freefall is ready to set sail to England and Germany!

We (Chris and I) are trying to get going by tommorrow morning. Weather is wet and windy but the forecast is good to get North.

Axel

we did it!!!!!!!!!

yipieeeehhhhh, after 23 days, 3010 NM (5580 KM or 3460 Miles) with an average speed of 5.5 knots we arrived save and happy at the beautiful island "islas cies". we are anchored direct at a nice white beach with a little bar. tomorrow we are continuing sailing to vigo (only on the other side 10 NM from here!! we had already our san miguel and are longing for a full night sleep. the last two day we had to handsteer the boat and that is exhausting with only two persons on board.

trey and axel

ole ole ole oleeeeeeee

we are motoring since yesterday and have no wind but we are happy to have only 64 NM to go. tomorrow morning we will be in spain....

390 to go....

since yesterday afternoon we have favorable winds from the SW and are doing good mileages. if the wind blows its always strong and variable so we have to be careful. the waves are choppy and its a tough ride, but we are happy to get closer and closer...
everything fine on board,
axel

506 NM to go

the last 500 miles!! thats good, we are exhausted and would like to have a good nightsleep.
the last 20 h we had almost no wind but just enough to get her going with around 4 knots, not worth to turn on the engine! The sails were flapping and it was not too nice. just 30 min ago the wind picked up and we are goosewinging now with around 6 knots towards vigo. hope we have wind for the last little bit of the passage, then we will see land on the 31. of july...fingers crossed.
everything is fine on board,
axel

wind change

we had two days of good weather and wind from SW with good milage! 640 NM to go!! but yesterday afternoon from one to the other minute the wind changed from SW to NNE and we had the whole night rain. now the wind is still from N but the rain just stopped and i can see the front moving from us and the blue sky is coming. we are sailing close haul at the moment but i hope that the wind turns a bit to NNW and we can sail easy to spain...
everything is fine on board,
axel

heading east...

we have nice wind and i think we got around that low...everything is fine, 850 NM to vigo, axel

low

two nights ago i checked the weather forecast and had a not so good feeling with a low building in the west. so we decided to go south. we ran away from the depression. we did that for 30 h although we have lost a day because of that. but when i checked the weather fax yesterday and they had storm force winds in this depression of more than 60 knots, i was no more sad about the lost day...
at the moment it looks like we just got around the depression and i hope it will not get to bad for the next hours. we are not on course for vigo right now, but we are going ESE for the moment and are getting closer to spain. 925 NM to go.
everything is fine,

axel

some wind...

we did not motor too much this morning and have had a light breeze for the day, sailing with around 5 knots, now its nice wind, and we do 6-7 knots, would be nice if we would have that a bit longer...
we said hello to warship 42 today, who were on the way to florida...thats all,
axel

motoring again

its unbelieable, the gale stops and now we have no wind again and are motoring!!
rest is fine,
axel

no between...

the calm days are over and the gale days are back...triple reef, little cutter sail and we are getting blown away...during the night the wind was getting stronger and stronger and now we are again in the upper 30, lower forties...i wish we would get sometimes wind around 20 knots but nothing yet. the wind is blowing from NW and we are surfing down the waves with 10+ knots! the fastest surf so far was 14.2 knots! its bumpy and unpleasant but we are doing progress.
i wonder who is doing the weather forecast, it hasn´t once been right yet...

everything else is fine,
axel