Finally! After spending 4 whole months back in Sweden we are finally back on the big blue again! It took us more than 5 days to get back to Bay Dreamer and an air strike in Tahiti almost made it mission impossible to get back to the boat.
With a little bit of charm and A LOT of lying we managed to get on-board one of the few “emergency flights” that was leaving once in a while to support the remote island with health-care and other important things!
Our new little friend Olivia is a hero and besides been trying out 4 different air-crafts (Boing 777 is her favorite) she has also been sailing 500 nm miles- and all of this before she has celebrated her second months in the real world!
Vera has been living with our friend Adrian and his family aboard our boat during the time we have been away! It was a lot of happiness going on when we all met up again! I think Vera was the most happiest of us all!
On our way down to Tahiti we were cruising the first 3 days side by side with Adrian and his boat S/Y Attila, we forgot to activate his Satellite phone before we left and we had to be able to provide him with weather information until he got a “signal”. As soon as he was “game” we launched our Gennaker and managed to speed up a little bit!
The original plan was to go close to Fakarava (a small atoll 500 miles south of the Marquesas) and proceed to Tahiti without stopping. Really strong winds and a minor problem with the autopilot made us change that plan and we decided it was fro the best to seek shelter and rest for a day or two before we continue our last 240 miles on a south-west heading.
Baby aboard!
A lot of friends and family are probably wondering how it is working out with little Olivia on the boat!? She is doing great; there is a lot of sleeping, eating and throwing up going on aboard the boat now a days. One thing is for sure- she does not mind sailing at all, I think the movement is making her happy as a fish in the water and she seems to enjoy her new bed on-top of the fridge in the saloon.
A sailing boat is probably not the easiest way to raise an infant for the parents though. The boat normally demands a bit of love on an everyday basis and with this new little human around us it is harder to find the time needed for maintainance and service. During sailing one of us is almost always occupied with changing dipers or feeding her formula so there is very little sleep opportunities for the skipper! I guess it will take a couple of days more to really get used to our new routines!
I am sorry for this rather boring post but it is what it is, we are planning to set of tomorrow morning and it will be a challenging sail. We have pretty strong winds coming in from south east and we will go with storm reefs all the way. We have a lot of work onboard that needs to be done before our “Fiji” crew arrives on the first of July and we don’t have the luxury to sit around and wait it out!
Keep smiling…..
//Daniel, Anna, Olivia and our fat little dog Vera.
Ps. sorry for all the baby pictures but we are new with this baby-thing and we need to feed our families with pictures 🙂
Åh så skönt att äntligen få information om mitt älskade lilla barnbarn. Litar naturligtvis på er älskade ungar och att ni tar väl hand om “lillskruttan” men kan ändå inte låta bli att vara lite orolig. Nu känns det bra efter att ha sett dessa fantastiska bilder på er lilla fam. Längtar redan väldans mycket fler er. I ärlighetens namn MEST efter lilla Olivia. Mång kramar till er alla.