Malta

I left Daryl, Jay and the boat in St Augustine, Florida and flew to England.  Having spent a few days there, I headed to Malta for my annual trip to visit my Mum, sister and family.

Mum is 93 now and in good spirits, usually at about 6pm, when it is time for a drink!  We chatted away the two weeks I was there and caught up on all the news together.

My sister, Jane, is mad about horses and so loved all the space that her new place has.  This photo is taken from the roof of the house and you can see that the horses have plenty of room in the paddock, but it is August here and so there is little greenery for them to chew on.

Having so much space, Jane ofter looks after dogs when their owners go away on holiday.  There are no kennels and the dogs enjoy running around the garden freely.  They often do not want to go home!

The maltese language is amazing, this truck belongs to Sean, who helps Jane with the building work at the farmhouse.  It basically says that he does all types of building work with stone.  'Gebel' are stones!  It's pretty hard to pronounce too!

Jane was the first woman in Malta to race trotters and still owns one now.  So before I left the island, she took me for a ride around the local countryside in the 'charetta'.  It was a wonderful trip out and we stayed out until it was just about dark.  

The last supper before I left to head back to New Zealand and a bit of time in our house there.

Daryl and Jay are also on their way back, but decided to have a break on the way and are spending some time in Bangkok and Cambodia.  Having worked so hard on the boat together, they wanted a bit of a break, instead of heading directly home.  So we shall meet up there.

St Augustine, Florida

We head north to St Augustine.  Jay has been helping out in a gallery here, gaining a bit of experience in the retail side of the art business.  He certainly looks the part!

Meanwhile, back on the good ship 'No Rehearsal', we are having a refit.  Lots of things on the list, new generator, engines, water maker, and the list goes on.  We have decided to head south to Panama next year and into the Pacific and so we want the boat to be all up together for that.  Exciting time ahead, and we are really looking forward to the next adventure.
  Here is Daryl chipping up the old teak and it will be replaced by new.

Our new Northern Lights generator is now fitted and working a treat.                                                                         

Jay is now back on the boat and helping us with the jobs.   We are replacing all the ceilings on the boat, the surfaces need to be sanded for the silicone to adhere well.

Hard work, but look great when they are done.                                                                                                                 

Time out to celebrate the 4th July and watch the fireworks over the bay with friends from the gallery.                          

A great day for me!  Decided to replace the old 3kg washing machine with a larger 6kg one! Measured the cupboard about ten times before ordering and it fit like a dream.   No more taking heavy bags to the local laundry in future, I shall be able to do it all on board.  Such a luxury, and the new water maker, soon to be installed, will easily cope with the extra demand on water. 

Isn't she beautiful!!!!
Well, it has to be a her hasn't it?


So, I am off to England tomorrow 2nd July and then on to Malta to see my family for a couple of weeks.  Ending up in New Zealand on the 27th August.  So lots of travelling ahead.
Daryl and Jay are staying on, and lifting the boat on Monday, carrying on the good work for a couple more weeks, before heading off.                                                                                                                                                        

The Berry Islands

So left Nassau and sailed to The Berry Islands, keen to meet up with some other cruisers we had not seen for a while.

Annie and Liam from 'Gone with the Wind' crossed the Atlantic at the same time as we did.   It was great to catch up with them and chat about our travels in the last two years since we last shared a bottle of wine together!

Another wonderful sunset, with 'Wyuna', Gina and Bruce in the foreground and 'Gone with the Wind' behind them.

A dingy ride up the river to spot the turtles, we only spotted a couple, but it was fun motoring through the mangroves on the lookout.

Lunch at 'Flo's',  over rated and over priced, but the company was good.                                                                       

Daryl playing dead with one of the local mutts on one of the islands, supposedly part owned by Shakira, the pop star!

There's nothing to beat a good G and T at the end of the day!  And Liam was mixing some rather strong ones, while the barman prepared us some excellent conch cerviche.
 
Then it is time to say 'Goodbye' to our friends and start to head north to St Augustine.  The work is piling up and the list is getting longer, so time to head to the shipyard for some hard work.                                                                                      

Nassau

So, we say Goodbye to Puerto de Vito and head north, back to the Ragged Islands and then the chain of Exumas.

Back in Georgetown, Jay volunteers to repair a sail for our friends on 'Taipan', an Australian couple that wanted to head off to Florida and then pulled the clew out of their headsail.  Good to keep his hand in!

So Jay left us and flew to Florida from here.  Sad to see him go, but he needs to get on with his life, we shall meet up with there in a couple of months.

At the Palm Cay Marina in Nassau.  We are cruising with 'Wyuna', Gina and Bruce, and 'Liberty Blue', Olivia, Alexis, Iris and Hugo.  Here we are celebrating Gina's birthday with a round of Mojitos, just any excuse for a drink really!

Back in the land of Starbucks.                                    

In the evening we went to the old part of Nassau to have a walk around and then had a fabulous meal at Cafe Matisse.  A lovely treat for our 12th wedding anniversary.

Cuba 2

Driving around the countryside, and loving the scenery.

Stopped to chat with the sugar cane harvesters and sample their produce.  It is cut each year and the re-seeds itself for the next year.

A typical farmer's cottage.  They make some wonderful fences out of cacti and trim  them to size, very ingenious.     

The courtyard inside one of the beautiful old houses in Havana                                                                                    

And of course all the old cars in Havana, here's a whole row of them, a taxi line. waiting for the tourists to come ashore from the cruise ship.

Trinidad, one of the must see old towns in Cuba.  Very pretty, but full of visitors and noise and dirt.  We stayed a day and then high tailed it back to the civilisation of the city!

In Havana there is a huge renovation project underway and in one of the squares each reformed building had a sign showing old and new.  It will all be beautiful when they are finished.

We stayed in a 'casa particular' in a suburb of Havana called Vedado.  The family was wonderful and we usually had a drink with them in the evenings, excellent Mojitos.

And last of all, it was hard to miss the face of 'Che Guevara' on so many of the walls all over Cuba and signs supporting the revolution everywhere.
A great place to visit with so much history and culture to absorb, have bought a book on the history and will try and educate myself!

Cuba 1

We sailed south from the Ragged Islands in the Bahamas to Cuba.  It is a huge island and we were advised to base the boat in the Marina of Puerto de Vito and explore from there.  We had a great sail down and as we approached the port called us on the VHF and gave us instructions to enter to harbour.
We anchored out for the night until the next day when the officials came and sorted out the paperwork.  They were all extremely polite and it did not take too long.
We then went into the marina, and it was a stern to docking like in the Med, and a buoy for extra security.  Once the boat was secure we hired a car and went to explore the area around Holguin, where we stayed the night in a 'casa particular'.  There are hundreds of these around the island, where the owners rent out rooms to supplement their income.

Our 'casa' in Holguin

Came across a cigar factory en route and one of the ladies gave us some samples to try, behind the back of her supervisor, who was a very stern looking chap.

The boys smoking the samples!!!!  They only had a few puffs and then gave them to the security guards in the marina, who were delighted with their good fortune.

We were travelling with Gina and Bruce, their catamaran is called Wyuna.  Here we all are enjoying the local  Mojitos,  excellent after a long day sightseeing.

One of the local road side stalls, selling the locally grown produce.

In the smaller villages, the locals do not have cars, they get around  on bikes, carriages and a lot of horses too!  These little carriages are often taxis.

Jay in the Bahamas

Jay joins us in Georgetown in time to celebrate his 24th birthday, great to have him on board with us.

Getting together with some friends on the beach for a drink and a chat, all these folks are from  down under, and on boats in the bay.

Daryl and Jay had a good day hunting, four bigs ones.  Jay hadn't tried it before this and took to it rather well and now often does better than his teacher, but of course he has young lungs which helps diving deeper for longer.

We thought we were getting a little low on wine, and panic was setting in, and then we found three cases of NZ Savignon Blanc in one of the forward lockers, Oh Happy Day!!!

More of the Bahamas

A great evening with some younger cruisers.

The windward side of Great Exuma.

Daryl and I continue to cruise the Bahamas now Lisa has gone and look forward to picking Jay up in Georgetown.

We were anchored off Little Halls Pond Cay that is owned by Johnny Depp, there was a lot of activity there, preparing for his beach wedding at the weekend we were there.  The tents on the beach were presumably for the guest accommodation.  We were requested to move out of the bay and not allowed to return till after the festivities were over.  The photos on the web look great though!

There are some spectacular sunsets here in the islands.  I don't know about the old saying "Red sky at night, shepherd's delight', but this sky got us a little worried.  We had torrential rain through the night after this sunset.

The prevailing with in the islands in from the East and so the better anchorages tend to be on the west side.  We decided to take a walk across to the east side.  There are some wonderful tracks that go through the bush.

Enjoying meeting up with friends on the beach at Lee Stocking island.  Wine and toasted marshmallows!           

Celebrating my birthday on board, lots of wine and lots of laughter too.                                                              

OMG, I can't believe I'm 60! Friends from 'Our Rose', a kiwi boat made me a carrot cake and decorated it with yellow cherries and candles to match the boat.  Not only did it look good, it tasted delicious too.