Position N 20° 54,900' W 72° 25,308' 2100 UTC

We did indeed spend a lot of time repairing the toilet and cleaning the boat, but Grand Turk had luckily lot more than shitty/dirty/disgusting/bad smelling work to offer. Grand Turk, one of the many islands the country Turks and Caicos consist of, inhabits around 3500 people with different backgrounds and nationalities. Until the 1960s Grand Turk relied upon salt exportation, salt produced from the island's many salt ponds. Then salt production suffered hard from competition and was eventually not profitable. However, Turks and Caicos were again put in the spotlight when the US military built a military base on Grand Turk. When the military base closed in the 1980s many people left Grand Turk since there weren't any jobs. Not until the cruise ship dock was built a couple of years ago and the opening of a cruise ship center Grand Turk recovered. Now the islands primary income and I wouldn't exaggerate too much if I said it was the only income, can be derived from the in general 5 cruise ships per week that enter Grand Turk. The cruise ship center is built next to the dock and all that the passengers need to do is to wander off the ship and they enter a shopping paradise with tax free products and local made necklaces mixed together. There are restaurants in true American spirit, a beach full of beach chairs, swimming pools, water activities like diving, snorkeling, dinghy driving, and etcetera. Pretty much everything a vacationist could ask for. This is one part of Grand Turk, when the cruise ships leave in the late afternoon the other part of Grand Turk remain, that is the sleepy friendly island with the most stunning sunsets I have seen in a long time. Everybody knows everyone and is acquainted with everything that is happening on the island; consequently it didn't take long until the whole island knew about the three Swedish girls that had sailed there. The fact that we most of the time where the only sail yacht anchored off Grand Turk should maybe be added to the story.

One night we had dinner on the place everybody gathers on Fridays, the Grand Turk Inn. Tasty food (like Grand Turk's local delicacy - conch, a little sea creature that lives in shells) and good live band entertainment which kept us dancing until late. Therefore we where kind of tired when Maria and I went morning diving the next dive. However, there were people who parted harder, the dive master who was suppose to take us out diving had had too many rum shots the other night, and yeah, he was in a very good mood when we left the restaurant, so he had to be replaced. Safety and diving aren't that equal in Carribean, I for instance got a broken depth control and had to glimpse at Maria's from time to time to have any idea of the depth. But apparently that's the way it is around here, we have experienced it on all the dive centers we've been but luckily the dive masters seem to know what they are doing and so far we haven't heard of any accidents. Feels good though being fully insured by, yeah, I think you all know by now, the insurance company Europeiska. We got two good dives among the beautiful corals but we both felt that they could have been even better if we had gone to bed little earlier the night before.

The little town, Cockburn, which also, despite its size, is the capital of Turks and Caicos, got a certain rustic charm; it is beautiful in its own way with a lot of interesting architecture. There's a national museum in town which we visited, we haven't been to museums since Europe so it was exciting!

What struck me the most on Grand Turk, were the happy friendly people. They are genuinely friendly and welcoming and before we left the island I hade made a lot of new friends and begun to understand the life of a small island like Grand Turk.

We left Grand Turk yesterday in the sunset. The full moon later lightened the sky but then something happened that forced me put on my sea clothes which I haven't worn since the Atlantic crossing. When Catrine woke me up at 4 am the rain had started pouring down and refused to stop. As a result I ended up spending 2,5 hours in downpour and 1,5 hours in drizzle with bad visibility. I wont complain though, in Carribean fresh water is often in short supply so it was pretty nice to have a morning fresh water shower, or maybe I should correct myself, it was nice until the sea clothes stopped being waterproof and it was getting cold.

Now it has stopped raining and the sun is trying to come through, we have about 200 Miles left to Cuba, where we are estimating to arrive sometime on Good Friday. Over and Out/ First Mate (a First Mate who can use her computer again thanks to a very nice local named Tim on Grand Turk who helped her fix the broken computer cord. Thanks again Tim!)

Position N 21° 32,090' W 69° 41,358' 2000 UTC

Onboard Cantare it is not working 9-5 as in Dolly Parton's case. No, we are new thinkers and have divided our 8 hours of working into two different 4 hours watches. Little before 4 am Catrine wakes me up and it is time for my morning watch. When slowly awakening and abandoning my dreams I always think; it is already my watch? And hoping Catrine would have mistaken the time so I can continue my sweet dreaming. So far no awakeners have mistaken the time, I wonder why… However, after having climbed out the bunk, stowed away the beddings and found some clothes to put on I'm sort of ready to hit the cockpit and get some fresh air to further awake. Before entering the cockpit the lifejacket is put on and a lifeline is secured to one of the safety steal handles. Before the tired old watch keeper can stumble in bed she makes notes of current position, course, wind, speed and so on in the logbook. After a little informal relief of the watch containing a little chit chat about the happenings of the past watch, like if there are any boats to consider, how Cantare is behaving, things needed to be done, etcetera, Catrine is free and off to bed leaving me to my destiny with Cantare. The first hour of watch keeping is usually over before I even noticed it started. Then on the other hand 3 more hours remain, not only 2 hours as usual! Not since Maria and I crossed the Bay of Bicay we have had 4 hours watches. So now it is time to be creative and figure things out to do to stay awake and kill time. Since we are sailing downwind at the moment with the mainsail and one foresail poled out on a spinnaker pole and the wind vane is steering there are not that very many things keeping you busy.  

This morning I was extra tired and had to make some wishy-washy coffee with expired coffee beans. Despite the expiry date was past ages ago the coffee gave me the needed kick and that's what matters. When it comes to kill time, reading with help of a red tacky head light is a popular pastime. Red light is used not to destroy night vision. Catrine and Maria easily engulf themselves in books while I find it little harder to be totally absorbed by them. I think I get enough of reading while studying when I'm basically is covered in books. Recently I have improved though and finished some literature. And at the moment I'm actually captured by the book Heavy Weather Sailing by Peter Bruce and meanwhile preparing myself for extreme weather scenarios that can occur on our long journey back to Europe.

Today is the second day of our sailing to Turks. This is actually the longest crossing I've ever done since when sailing back home we usually reach our goal after one days crossing. So for me it's exciting to try this out and get a feeling on how it will be on the Atlantic. 

Well, none of us has been seasick… yet.

All the way so far we have been sailing with downwind, which makes Cantare rock a bit from side to side. It's a peaceful way of sailing except from when you are trying to: sleep, cook food, go to the toilet, wash the dishes, walk around in the boat... Need I say more?

The waves aren't that big over here but the Atlantic swells on the other hand is up to 3 meters now (I'm guessing). That's a bit scary when you watch them from a distance and see them closing up on Cantare. It looks like they are going to wash over us but they just scoops up Cantare so that she surfs along with the swells in a cool way.

We are really hoping on catching a nice fish for dinner but so far we have had no luck on that. This morning I was wakened by the sound of Sofia screaming: "Fish! We've got fish!" So I rushed up from bed and grabbed my camera prepared to take photos of our nice catch. Maria rolled in the fishing line and we all watched with big curiosity. Was it a very small slim fish perhaps? No… it was just some seaweed. We cleaned the hock and threw it back in again. After some hours waiting I finally saw the fishing rod make some funny moves and I immediately started to fantasies about a nice fish soup. Maria started rolling in the fish and said that it was a heavy one, but then the pressure suddenly loosened and the fishing line went slack. When Maria had rolled it all in we saw that the fish had taken all of the parts from our lure. No fish soup tonight then…

Except from the failure fishing there hasn't happened much onboard Cantare today. We read books and plan what we should do on Cuba.  My hardest work today was opening a coconut!

/Deckhand Catrine

We had such a lovely time anchored in Big Trunk Bay that it was hard to make the decision to move back to Spanish Town. But we had to in order to prepare the boat for the coming month and the Atlantic crossing thereafter. We had planned to leave for Turks and Caicos last Thursday evening but when the list of things to do seemed endless we decided to postpone the departure one day. We bought more food, updated the homepage with pictures and a movie, applied for studies, replied to emails, fixed a few things on the boat and refilled a LPG bottle. Strangely our two small 2 kg propane bottles emptied in less than a week each. We hope that it was due to not being filled properly on St. Martin otherwise if that is how long they lasts we have a problem. We haven't been able to fill or exchange our butane bottles, Camping Gaz, for a while, they are now empty and we don't think it will be possible to get them exchanged until the Azores. The man who filled one of our propane bottles on Virgin Gorda was really nice and we are quite sure he did it properly, therefore we wait anxiously to see how long this one lasts, if it doesn't last more than a week we will have to eat cold food in the end of our next Atlantic crossing.

 Friday morning came and we were almost ready to leave in the afternoon. Then while we were having breakfast a familiar boat approached the bay and when she got closer we could make out the palms and sunset in the Safari logo. We last saw them on Antigua and the prospect of spending a last evening together with them made us change our departure plans, one more night on Virgin Gorda. They had caught a Kingfish on their way up to the BVIs and invited us for dinner. It was a fantastic evening, fish soup, Piña Coladas and splendid company. We showed them our movie and they played theirs, we all got rather excited about crossing the Atlantic, Catrine included, and talked about our coming crossing. The weather seems to be the biggest fear among us, we all wish to stay away from the low pressures building in the north and prefer to use the engine if we have to choose between that or facing a storm. Cecilie and Lars on Safari will leave together with a few other boats from St. Martin around the 5^th of May. Our plan is to leave Cuba earlier than that to be able to catch up with the other boats on the Azores. Emelie will take a plane to Havanna on the 23^rd of April and then we will do the final preparations and look for the right weather.

Saturday, two days later than planned, we had decided to leave Virgin Gorda. But, while we still were asleep Starfire anchored in front of us. Alan and Emelie came over and woke us up, nice. We chatted for a while and had a pleasant breakfast in their company. By the time we were ready to start with the final preparations it was too hot, we had to take a swim. I swam over to Starfire and got Emelie and Alan to join us in the water, then we could continue to catch up in the water. When cooled down it was time for work again. The girls packed and stored Volare, made Monitor ready and lowered DuoGen to watermode, while I carefully planned our route on the computer and manually programmed waypoints into the handheld gps. Finally we were set to go. Emelie and Alan watched us take up our anchor and then waved to us while we headed out of the bay. Safari was anchored further out, Cecilie and Lars came on deck dressed in pink, Cantare colour, and toasted to our departure with Piña Coladas.  Half passed four in the afternoon we hoisted the sails and although the wind was weak we could enjoy butterfly sailing throughout the evening and night. Monitor handled the slow speed, 2.5 knots, surprisingly well. Today the wind has picked up and we doing around 6 knots. It feels almost like on the Atlantic, a great feeling. We started with 430 M to go and now we have left. Everything works well, DuoGen produces power and the watermaker fills our tank. Catrine is relaxed, we are doing four-hours-watches and it works fine. Life is almost perfect, one thing I miss though is a fish on our trailing pink lure, but maybe that is to wish for too much. / The Captain

Today I have had an amazing day!

We are anchored in the Big Trunk Bay at Virgin Gorda, very close to a beautiful sand beach with palm trees and surrounded with turquoise water. After a lazy morning we all tried to pull ourselves together and do one useful chore each. Sofia pumped Volare (our dingy), Maria changed the oil in Volares engine and I lubricated all the small locks we have onboard. Puh, it was exhausting!  After that I had to coal down so I went for a snorkeling expedition. The water here is really clear so it is fun to snorkel around and see what fishes you can spot. I saw some cute blue ones, some yellow with black stripes and a really big grey one!

Later on at lunch time we decided to swim in to the beach and see if we could walk to the nearest town called "Spanish town". To get to the road leading to Spanish town we had to walk along the beach, climb some rock and walk through a bit of a jungle. It was great fun and I was stunned by the fantastic scenery along the way. This I truly a paradise! And as if that wasn't enough to make my day the next thing happening really did. Just as we were going to leave the beach and take of to the road leading to Spanish town a woman started shouting "Hey ladys, are you hungry?". Apparently we had walked by a group of women who were chartering a big bout called "Cuan Law" and they were just finishing of their lunch and wondered if we wanted some of the food that was left. There were ribs of lamb and pork, hamburgers, sausage, salad, watermelon, brownies and a lot more delicious stuff so of course we gratefully toke them up on their offer. We even got a bag of leftover food to take with us home! After that perfect lunch we headed of to Spanish town. The town was very small but we got our coke at a café, new bananas and Carib beer at a grocery store, and what more could you ask for on a fine day like this? Nothing, I'm fully satisfied with this day!  We are going to finish it of with the lamb and pork ribs that we got from the nice people att Cuan Law … and perhaps a sundowner in the cockpit! /Dechand Catrine

We were unable to find a replacement plotter, nun that they sold on St. Martin worked with our Navionics charts. So in the end we had to settle for our backup plan, we will use the charts on our computers and get the gps position from our handheld gps. Maybe we will buy another small handheld as a second backup plan. It is not a perfect solution, but it will work, with the help of our newly purchased paper charts over Cuba and our pilot books we will be able to navigate safely. On Wednesday evening we left St. Martin after another nice evening together with Emelie and Alan. The wind was steady, 20 knots from the NE, Monitor did the steering and we had a relaxed night with three hours watches. When the morning light came we could see BVI, British Virgin Islands, ahead of us. The last days have been overcast and rainy, so when we sailed between Round Rock and Ginger Island which are stony islands it felt like coming home, home to Gothenburg and the smooth round rocks that make up the archipelago outside Gotheburg. On our way north to Spanish Town on the west coast of Virgin Gorda we passed the Baths, famous for its granite boulders and felt even more at home. The only odd things in the picture were the palms sticking up between the stones and the color of the water. In Spanish Town we cleared in, it wasn't as convenient as on the French Islands, back to a lot of paperwork. Today we took Cantare to the Baths, but there were no free mooring buoys so we tied up to Danish boat and took a short trip ashore. The weather was much better today which made the landscape even more beautiful. We were amazed by the place and decided to go back another day early in the morning to get a mooring buoy. Now we are anchored in a bay further north that isn't too bad either. Nice cream colored beach flanked by round big stones and palm trees, crystal clear water with rays and fishes and almost no other boats in the bay. Actually it's perfect here in Big Trunk Bay, we will stay for a few days before we go back to the Baths.

Talking about going back and coming home, we have decided to try to arrive in Sweden, Höganäs, on July the 10^th. Of course nothing is for sure, especially not since we have the Atlantic ocean to cross first, but if everything goes well we will reconfirm this date when we are back in Europe. We will bring rum for the party so be there! /The Captain