Still no good weather forecasts, therefore we are basically stuck in Falmouth; however, we haven’t got that much to complain about. Of course we are hoping and prying for good weather everyday so we can take off to sunny Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile, we are trying to make the most of our stay here in Falmouth. There are lots of things to do; our days are fully booked with everything from fishing, killing and gutting the fish and then making a tasteful makril dinner out of it, playing with the Danish children on the beach to looking fabulous at parties with UK Custom Service and waking up at noon…

Today is a rainy foggy day here in Falmouth, a perfect day for visiting The National Maritime Museum Cornwall, situated here in the harbor. We are heading there now and then it is time to consider opening the day’s first bottle of Cornish beer. /First Mate

We have changed the oil in the engine. Baked cookies and shared them with our neighbours. We have disengaged the autopilot, which didn't work and was causing trouble for our windvane. We have tried Fish 'n' Chips and we have had a few beers at the Norwegian boats. We are ready to leave! But the weather forecast predicts SW winds, again. We don't want to go out with the wind against us and with wave height of 5 meters. Therefore we are still in Falmouth and will probably be for a few more days, waiting and waiting for a weather window. / The Captain

We are still moored in Port Pendennis, don't know for sure when we are able to leave for the Bay of Biscay. Now we are on our way to the Danish boat for dinner and later on tonight we gonna meet with the Norwegians and check different weather forecasts and plan our departure, we really hope we can leave on Saturday. On the other hand it is really nice staying here too, we are making lots of new friends and what really makes it worth staying is the outstanding harbor master of Port Pendennis!

Sailing is about enjoying life and that is exactly what we are doing at the moment! We are in Falmouth and probably staying there for the whole week. Tomorrow the hurricane Bill will hit the Bay of Biscay, wouldn’t be that nice bumping into Bill at sea so we are gladly staying here in the beautiful port Pendennis. In our opinion, Port Pendennis is the best marina in Falmouth, especially due to the lovely harbor master and his crew: outstanding service!

Yesterday felt like Sunday even though it was Monday, we didn’t accomplish that much so to speak, however we managed to do our laundry. We were rather lazy yesterday. Sunday night it was a great party in the other marina at Tom’s and Susanne’s place, a Bavaria 42 called Escape, or now we call it the party boat. The party went on all night and resulted in a little warning from the harbor master the next day who tried to threaten with his useful contacts with the police and if he would get more complains he would definitely call the police. (Just a elucidation, I am now talking about the harbor master in the other marina not our friendly harbor master.) Anyway, Norwegians sure know how to party!

Today we are hosting a little coffee party, the Danish family is invited. We have promised something home made, we are thinking about making an apple pie and then serve a little Swedish surprise very suitable for the children: "negerbollar". By the way, we need to do some more baking before hitting the Biscay, so we wont risk running out of biscuits and other sweets to eat when it’s ruff sailing. If you have any good tips of tasty easy made cookies, feel free to drop the recipes here in the comments! Mummy, I was thinking about your "kokoskakor", can you email me the recipe? Now we are off to the supermarket to get some ingredients. Have a nice day! /First Mate

I know there are lots of you faithful readers who are longing for something in Swedish to read about us. And as they say, everything comes to those who wait! I have written a little wrap up of our first month at the insurance company Europeiska’s blog. Click here to read it. Now it is time to find the showers in Falmouth, it’s almost been a week since last proper shower… First Mate

8 pm last night we could see the lights from Falmouth, but we had 3 more hours to sail before it was time to take down the sails and start the engine. It was dark by then, in the pilot book we had read that Falmouth was an easy harbour to enter during night, and it was. With the help of our plotter and the many light buoys we steered into the port. In Falmouth you have many choices of where to moor. Since it was quite hard to distinct the marina lights from all the city lights we decided to anchor outside. When the anchor light was lit we took a glass of wine and celebrated our arrival to the last harbour before the Biscay. Then we slept for 10 hours! Now we are moored in Port Pendennis and they have intenet here, hopefully there will be new pictures on our homepage soon. But we haven't decided whether we shall stay in this marina or move to another less fancy without internet. It depends on how good the ARC discount is here. More updates to come. / The Captain

After two nights in Calais it was time to move on towards Dover in Great Britain. Before leaving the harbour we went over to an English yacht and asked them for tips on how to best cross the TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) and whether it would be cheapest to buy diesel in France or in Great Britain. They were really nice and told us that it is quite easy to cross the Channel, all you have to do is look out for the big boats. According to them diesel is cheaper in Great Britain. We left the harbour at 11.45 am and when we got out on the Channel it was blowing about 5 m/s and the sun was shining. We had a lovely afternoon, and when the wind picked up, 10 m/s, we were able to go really fast, around 6 knots. After two hours we had crossed the TSS, it wasn’t difficult at all, the big boats went behind or in front of us without us having to alter our course. Then when we had called Dover port for information about when we would be able to enter the harbour the wind increased to gale strength and we got a rocky last hour before we could moor in the tidal harbour at 4 pm. Now we are sitting on the market square watching the athletics on a big screen. Tomorrow we will climb the hill and look at the famous Dover Castle and maybe go out to sea again in the evening to avoid the very expensive tariff here. / The Captain

This time the North Sea was much nicer and welcomed us with proper winds blowing from the north west. However, the winds faded and we had to use the engine during the night. It was 4.30 am, I was steering and due to heavy co current we made good speed, around 6-7 knots. I was listening to an interesting sound book when I suddenly heard a crashing sound. The speed quickly decreased, the accelerator didn’t work, smoke was coming out from the stern and it smelled like burned rubber. What happened?!? Shit, this is not too good I thought and woke Maria up. We checked a couple of things that could be the problem and then we could draw the solution that something must have hit the propeller, making it unmaneuverable which made the engine overloaded. By that point, luckily, the wind had increased and we could start sailing again and the engine got a well deserved rest.

We arrived in the busy port of Calais yesterday at 13.30. Before we could enter we had to call the port on the radio asking for permission to enter and then we had to let some huge ferries go first, then we could enter. And what a relief, the engine cooperated smoothly and caused us no worries when waiting for the ferries at the busy port.

I heard it is raining a lot back home in Sweden; I’ll try to send you some sunshine from France, the weather is lovely. However, if I am allowed to complain, it wasn’t that pleasant sunbathing today due to the wind causing a sandstorm at the beach. But on the other hand, we can stand some sand, as long as it is warm and it really is, it is lovely having found true summer temperature. We will see for how long the warmer temperatures will last though; tomorrow we are leaving France for England. The plan is to cross the English Channel and reach Dover tomorrow.

PS. The radio called us pretty early yesterday. You find the radio clip here. Have a nice weekend! /First Mate

The little town Willemstad with its 4000 inhabitants had a little bit more to offer than we first thought. We finally found some gas, and I made a Spaghetti Bolognese and served it with harricot vert and a head of cauliflower. A warm dinner was very much longed for and I cannot remember the last time pure boiled vegetables tasted so good. Later we had a baileys chocolate at a very fancy restaurant and the evening ended in a wine cellar with some Dutchmen and Belgians in their fifties, haha, we had a great time!

Before leaving Willemstad this morning our Dutch neighbours onboard Blue Pearl showed us the quickest way out to the North Sea. Thank you so much, that really saved us some time! Now we are moored in Stellendam and tomorrow we are going out to the real sea again, heading for Calais. The distance to Calais from here is about 120 M so if we keep an average speed of 4 knots, it will take us around 30 hours to get there. We’re planning on reaching Calais on Friday late afternoon in order to time the tides, but one never know when sailing. I am going to download some weather files now to make up to the weather we’ve gotten from DMI.

By the way, I’ve just talked to Johanna from the insurance company Europeiska about our guest blogging at their webpage. There will soon be a little summary (in Swedish!!!) of our journey so far, I’ll let you know where to find it. /First Mate

Due to technical problems yesterday, the bridge couldn't open and we had to stay on more night in Amsterdam. However, I wouldn't say it was a pitty staying a little longer, we have had a wonderful, relaxing Saturday in a cool city. Now we have been told that the bridge should open in any minute, so we are running the engine and getting ready to spend a long night on the canals. There are a lot of bridges to cross in order to get out of the city, and not until we have passed all of them we can go to sleep. However, one step at a time, first we will see whether the bridge really is gonna open, as you might have noticed; in a sailor´s world anything can happen. /First Mate

7 pm we arrived at the first bridge, around ten other yachts were waiting in front of it. When we had payed the fee we were all allowed to pass at the same time. We were told to moor along the starboard quay until about 2 am when the railway bridge would open. But the bridge master told us to stay awake since the time could be changed. We started with dinner, moved on to Sex and the City, after two episodes we began to get rather tired. We heated water in the electric water kettle, it runs on 12 V, therefore it takes like an hour to get the water hot. You have to start in time, but we're glad to have it, especially now when we have run out of gas. The tea helped for a short while, then we tried chocolate, but we got more and more tired. 2.15 am when the bridge was supposed to open according to the pilot there was no movement among the other yachts. A short while later the neighbours that we are moored along knocked on Cantare. They told us there was a computer problem on the bridge and that they wouldn't open it at all tonight. The next opening will be a day later. After trying so hard not to fall asleep I was suddenly wide awake. We had talked about reaching Gouda in the afternoon, now we have to stay in Amsterdam one more day. Not to bad though, we are moored in the city center, no fee so far and free WiFi. Life as a sailor is unpredictable. / The Captain

Amsterdam is a lovely city, we like it a lot. After a quick look on the city center on Tuesday evening we stayed in the Sixhaven harbour until late Wednesday afternoon. The sun was shining and it was too hot to go into the city center. But that was alright, then we had time to relax on the foredeck. During Wednesday another Swedish yacht arrived, S/Y Candela, it's a 40 ft Jeaneau with 8 persons about our age. They are going to sail to New Zeeland in 19 months, their schedule are much tighter than ours and they will probably move on a lot quicker. Maybe we'll see them again in La Coruña if we speed up. Wednesday evening we met up with the crew of S/Y Candela and took the ferry to the city centre. It was hard finding a table for ten, but we did and enjoyed our second dinner out. Still no LPG on Cantare so we can choose between going out or eating cold food. The rest of the evening we cruised around different bars, trying local beers. Don't worry mothers we didn't go to any coffeshops. But the smell of cannabis was everywhere and on our way back towards the ferry we ended up in the Red Light District. It was strange seeing all tourist watch the prostitutes in their windows. We didn't stay long.

Yesterday we borrowed some charts from S/Y Candela and took them to a local printing store where they copied them for us. Now we have charts to the Canaries, and hopefully someone in the ARC will lend us theirs for the Caribbean. That way we save a lot of money, since we use our digital charts all the time they are for back up only.

After a quick lunch aboard we decided to finally explore the city during day light. Erik, a friend from Sweden, was in Amsterdam for two days and joined us. We walked through the Red Light District ones again towards the Anne Frank house and an area called Jordaan. The queue to Anne Frank house was long and we decided to go back later. We strolled around Jordaan and it was much less crowded with tourists. The houses are very nice, tall and narrow with big windows looking out over the canals. On the canals small boats stride up and down between the houseboats and barges. We stopped for ice-cream and enjoyed sitting down for a while, then continued on. When returning to the Anne Frank house the queue was just as long, we'll save that visit for another time. Instead we tried a local specialty, miniature pancakes. They were very sweet and quite nice.

In the evening we had dinner in the cockpit, afterwards we went over to Candela where they held a pool party on foredeck. As the night crept on the neighbours started to hush, we went home to sleep around 2 am to the neighbours delight. Today the radio called us earlier than they usually do, we were still asleep. Maybe some of you missed us, then you can hear it here.

Today we will leave Amesterdam and continue southwards. The bridges in the city center opens up between 2 am and 4 am, probably because they want to disturb the traffic as little as possible. Therefore we will not leave the harbour until tonight. I have uploaded some new pictures from Amsterdam, you find them here. / The Captain

I have uploaded some new pictures, you can find them here. / Captain Ingerup

After having left Delfzilj yesterday we continued on the canals towards Groningen. The landscape surrounding the canals is really beautiful, it feels almost like sailing in the middle of a field with farms, windmills, lambs, cows and horses. Did I say we were sailing? That wasn’t true, we had to use the engine since there are so many bridges to cross and normally, the bridges won’t open right away, sometimes you have to wait a little.

We arrived in Groningen, the fifth largest city of The Netherlands, around 3 pm yesterday. Such a cool place! The canal goes through the city centre and there are several bridges to cross. Cantare felt little VIP when we went in the city and the bridges had to opened up exclusive for us and let cars, bicycles and walkers wait until we had passed. We moored outside a Dutch boat which belonged to a very nice Dutch couple. Since we want to reach Amsterdam in a fair time to be able to spend some more time over there we didn’t stay very long in Groningen. However, we took the time to visit an interesting Cuba exhibition at Groninger Museum. We are planning on visiting Cuba for a quite a while when we reach the Caribbean so we found it funny false starting our visit little with some Cuban art and history from 1868 to today. Cuba began struggling for independence in 1868 and from then until today, Cuban art has been greatly colored and influenced by propaganda. The Cuba exhibition contained about 300 works of art that perfectly showed the late history of Cuba and as a matter of fact, Cuba is of great current interest, we are both looking forward to going there.

After the visit to the museum we continued and had to cross 20 bridges before getting out of Groningen, the last one at 6.59 pm, just one minute before the bridges would close for the evening. We really wanted to pass them all since they are closed until 9.00 am and at that point we were planning on waking up rather early, to be able put some miles behind us and faster reach Enkuizen and Amsterdam. When the bridges closed and we couldn’t get any further we called it a day. While Maria did some painting at the fore deck and enjoyed the sunset I turned up the music in the kitchen (yes, we were in the middle of a field so nobody to disturb) and prepared a little Chicken a la Cantare dinner. We had a relaxed Friday evening with nice dinner and wine.

Today the sun has been shining almost all day and we have continued in the beautiful but sometime very shallow canal. From time to time we have been able to wave at our dear Dutch friends we met in Delfzilj, skipper Henk and his friend also named Henk. Henkx2 have been very helpful and shown us the best ways in the canals in order to avoid the shallowest parts. Otherwise we would most certain have touched more sand than we did, thanks guys!

Now we are celebrating the Saturday evening in Leeuwarden, tomorrow we’ll continue on the Canals, don't know how far though, when sailing anything can happen:-) Nighty-night! /First Mate