30.03.2013

Happy Easter

Wishing all our friends and blog followers a happy Easter celebration!

Today we have more wind and thus more waves / unruly sea, but this makes the trip shorter ;-). Average travel speed today over 7 knots.
Current position: 30deg20,8'S and 084deg52,8'S

Michaela

P.S. Alles Gute zum Geburtstag an Markus H.- hoffe, Du liest das.

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29.03.2013

Out on the pacific ocean

Days like today are the most beautiful. Blue skies, sunshine, easy wind letting us travel at 4,8-7 knots with a nice wave which softly rocks us but does not thorw us around. We're listening to relaxing classical music and everybody is relaxing, enjoying and happy.

Yesterday morning, on the 28th of march 2013, at around 9am local time, we left Isla Robinson Crusoe (Juan Fernandez). We had a great 2 days there with hiking, horsebackriding, Gyuri and Thomas eating Lobster - a specialty there. The island is beautiful, a mixture of desert, tropical rainforest and volcano. All mountains up to 1000m high, only the small spot where the viallge is can be inhabited. THe rest is too mountainious. Around 600 people live there together with many beautiful dogs and probably live off the few tourists that come there. Max 15 per week travel there by plane and once in a while a sailor comes by. There is a beautiful lodge, probably the most expensive hotel on the island - 40yrs in business already. All the "down"town, meaning the town not on the hill, had been devasted 2 years ago in a tsunami created by an earthquake on Chile mainland. They are still in the middle of reconstruction. Everything is new and actually made of hig quality woods. There are parks, at least 3 children's playgrounds, a soccer field, a public gymn, 3 little supermarkets etc. Flowers bloom everywhere out of desert dirt floor with colibri rushing around between the blossoms singing their happy songs. Butterflies share the smell and looks of the blossoms with them. Happiness and peace lies over this little place.

When I hiked up the mountain to Alander Selkirk's lookout you can feel how it must have been 300 years ago, alone on the island for 4,5 years hoping one day a ship would find him. The Scotish guy gave the story for Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe. That's why the island is called Robinson Crusoe island. And Isla Juan Fernandez - the guy who later found the island. When you walk up to the lookout you pass by a part where supposedly Alexander (or Alejandro, how they call him there) used to live. Just like the Goombay Dance Band sings in their song "Robinson Crusoe" (which I put on when we arrived at the island): he learned to be a carpenter, a farmer, a scientist, fisherman....You can definitely survive on this island, but you have to help yourself...

There are 3 ways to explore the island: hike for hours, ride on a horseback - or better muleback, and by boat. That's also the way to get from the airport to the town. You choose when you book. Hiking takes hrs up and down the mountain, horseback takes 5hrs, boat probably an hour. For the first time in my life did I ride on a muleback (Maultier). It was great, a lot safer on the steep mountains than a horse. And the canter (galopp) as good as horses, mine was very soft, just great. Poor thing had to climb up the ountain so steep and path so narrow that even hiking myself I would have become nervous on some parts. All went well and I got to see more desert and the volcano part of the island.

Our current position is: 31deg 49,6' S and 082deg 02,7'W, water temp about 21deg C. Wonderful deep blue ocean, seagulls flying around our boat. This is peace.

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