Good morning from BVI

With shame, we notice that our last blog post was three ages ago but here we are – back with an update from our cruising life in the Caribbean. We have had a great time sailing most of the Lesser Antilles from the Windward Islands in the south to the Leeward Islands in the north.

This morning, we woke up at anchor next to a white sand beach on the northwest coast of Virgin Gorda of British Virgin Islands. We can see the bottom a few meters down in the turquoise water. Just north of us is Richard Branson’s Necker Island. The sun is shining, and the wind has calmed down to the normal fresh breeze after a week of strong easterly trade winds of 20-30 knots. Life is good.

Today is a special day and nothing less than Linnea’s birthday which was celebrated with cake breakfast in bed with a kit-built cake with spray cream on top. Linnea did a fantastic job pretending that she was asleep and that the cake was the best ever. She is a star.

Life onboard is good and more intense than we had pictured. Usually, we are at anchor and often wake up shortly after sunrise around 6 am. The kids run the show onboard until the school starts around 9 am. We take care of shopping, work on the boat when needed, and carry out everyday chores in the mornings. In the afternoon we often get off the boat to explore the surroundings or go swimming, snorkeling, diving, or to hang out with friends. After dinner before the sunset at 6 pm pace drops and we play games, watch movies, or read books. We sometimes wish we were more detached from news and social media, but we are not there yet. Most nights we go to bed around 10 pm. Felix or Ida usually sleep outside in a hammock under the mizzen boom. They read in the light of a headlamp or watch the stars until they fall asleep in the wind. The last few weeks we have had many squalls during the nights so often their sleep will be suddenly interrupted by a rain shower, and they will crawl inside for shelter.

The Lesser Antilles have been a diverse and heartwarming experience. After more than three weeks in Martinique, we got moving again and set off to Dominica. Dominica does not have an international airport and can only host a few cruise ships. Its authentic Caribbean vibe with friendly people, warm smiles, and playing music is welcoming. Our intended one-night stop at the capital Roseau turned into four days to make room for exploring some of the highlights of the southern part of the island. We snorkeled at Champagne Beach where volcanic gases bubble up from the sea bottom to make the water look like champagne with a bit of imagination. We hiked around Scott’s head, the southernmost point of the the island, and we checked out the colorful and lively town of Roseau where the annual carnival was celebrated. We had a great sperm whale safari onboard our friends’ boat Ocean Crosser to try to find some of the 200 sperm whales that inhabit the waters around Dominica. Great company made up for the lack of sightings. After Roseau, we set course to Portsmouth at the north end of the island and explored the Indian river flowing through mangrove and dense jungle with exotic birds, huge river crabs, and leguans in the trees.

After a week in Dominica, we set off in hard easterly winds towards Guadeloupe. With double reefed mainsail, full mizzen, and a bit of genoa we had a fast close-hauled reach to Basse-Terre in the southwest corner of the island. After all the downwind sailing across the Atlantic, we have enjoyed the more closed reaches the last months, and Frenesi behaves well in the harder wind and at times unruly seas. We stayed at Guadeloupe for two weeks, exploring the small island Terre-de-Haut in the south, the snorkeling paradise Jacques Cousteau reserve in the west, and Port-Louis in the north. The latter was a spectacular spot that allowed us to anchor just next to a great surf reef. We bought surfboards and with some assistance from the legendary surf instructor Xavier who engaged pro-bono in helping us and our friends onboard LinneaX with the surfing, the kids quickly got the hang of it. We postponed our departure from Port-Louis twice to get only “one more day” in the waves.

After Guadeloupe, we admired super yachts in the famous Nelson’s dockyard of Antigua, hung out on the paradise beaches of Barbuda (clearly another highlight of the Caribbean!), went flight spotting and looked for signs of the Swedish colonial time on luxurious St Barth and took care of provisioning and explored the island St Martin.

Now we shortly wrapping up the school day and Eirik on Ocean Crosser and Martin will set off to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda to clear customs and immigration while the others will check if the beach is just as perfect as it looks.

With love,

Linnea, Martin, Ida, Felix and Jesper