Wow wees, what a crazy couple of months we’ve had since we last blogged. After an awesome transatlantic crossing of 11days and 23hours we partied it up in Antigua. Indeed we were sad to say goodbye to Martin, Woody, Dave, Conor and my Dad, Joe after such a fun crossing together. However, our next adventure awaited and we readied ourselves and Lush for Eddie, Marie and various guests who joined us on our 6 week Caribbean cruise.
We celebrated Christmas and New Years in the fanciest island of St Barts. As it’s a French island we stocked up on all sorts of meats, cheese and vino! Happy days! We came third in the Round St Barts race on New Year’s Eve and sailed back down south the following day to join the rest of the Oyster fleet for the start of this Oyster World Rally. New guests joined us on the 6th of Jan and we sailed further south in winds of 25knots plus pulling into Guadeloupe, Les Saintes, Dominica and Martinique. From there we sailed onto Bequia where four new guests joined us and along with Eddie and Marie we ventured further south to the private island Mustique and onto the stunning Grenadines and Grenada. We managed to catch some fish on route and picked up our fruit and veg from the local boat boys.
In Grenada everyone hopped off the yacht bar us four crew. Alan’s wife Kizzy joined us and we set sail for Bonaire, a Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela. After a few days off, kite surfing and diving some of the world’s most stunning reefs, we set sail, sailing west again, this time for the San Blas islands, just east of Panama. There was no shortage of breeze again for this passage and with the wind on our backs we sailed Lush hard, arriving into the San Blas three days later.
The San Blas are over 340 islands of incredible beauty with untouched stretches of rainforest along with stunning beaches and reefs. This vast archipelago is home to the Kuna Indians, who, according to our cruising guidebook, have best preserved their culture and traditions out of all the tribes in the Americas. Various Kunas have already rowed out to us in their “ulu”, which is a dugout canoe, selling us crabs, lobster and numerous fish along with Molas, which are one of Panama’s most famous handicrafts.
Will try update this more often from now on, it’s just the last two months have been sooo hectic trying to get the hang of this super yacht business, we’ve hardly even spoken to our families. Most of the time we don’t even have internet, which is really hard to imagine when we’ve all been used to having it on our fingertips, 24-7, back home. We update the blog through our Sat Phone but can’t surf online or use skype etc through it.
Must dash for now! I bought some crabs of the Kunas earlier and am keen to get cooking before they escape my bucket!
Love to one and all,
Audrey xxx
PS the rest of the crew will add to these details in time as there’s so much more to report from our first few months at sea! Please do join our facebook page too for more gos.
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oysters line up in antigua for the start of the rally
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another mighty night out
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sailing west team kit
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kunas selling to the yachts
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kuna tribe
