Karin

27
Dec
2024
A rearranged triangle relationship

A rearranged triangle relationship

Back on Mabul! Time for a brief review.

2024 is the year when everything changes again. It is also the year of a boat timeout. When we arrive in San Blas in Panama in January, we think we’ll be sailing through the canal and across the Pacific with our friends from SV My Motu shortly afterwards – but we don’t. Alex has nightmares for nights on end and constantly dreams of our rig failing. We listened to his gut feeling and stayed on the Caribbean side – as it turned out later: with good reason. Here is our review of 2024.

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12
Jul
2024
Guna Yala

Guna Yala

San Blas – The Mystical Paradise of the Guna

From Providencia, we’re cruising 270 nautical miles to San Blas, Panama. The archipelago consists of over 350 islands and islets and is governed by the indigenous Guna people, who call it Guna Yala. We clear into Panama on the main island, El Porvenir, and pay our contribution to the autonomous Guna authority. Porvenir is tiny, with little more than an airstrip and a few houses. While clearing in, one officer is mowing the grass while the other stamps our passports. Here, everyone does a bit of everything.

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21
Jun
2024
Charming cocaine island

Charming cocaine island

On the nautical chart, you’ll only see Providencia if you zoom in very closely; that’s how tiny and charming the cocaine island is. Although Providencia belongs to Colombia, it’s much closer to Nicaragua. Here, traditions are upheld, and mass tourism is nonexistent. In 2020, a hurricane nearly devastated the island’s infrastructure, yet the islanders didn’t complain; instead, they considered the hurricane a blessing.

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05
Jun
2024
Night ride through pirate territory

Night ride through pirate territory

After four and a half months at the shipyard in Guatemala, we leave. We are relieved and sad at the same time. Relieved that we can leave the heat, the endless boat problems, all the work and the shipyard behind us; sad because we are leaving our friends Riki and Martin and their daughters Naia and Kira, as well as single-handed sailor Thomas, behind and probably won’t see them again for a long time. Again and again we have to say goodbye, but then we actually are sailing from Guatemala to Providencia.

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21
Sep
2023
Against the current

Against the current

When a year comes to an end, we celebrate with fireworks and champagne. If a sailing season comes to an end, that’s also a reason to celebrate. After all, our boat is still afloat and neither Alex threw me nor I him overboard, even if we sometimes came close. We want to spend the rest of the hurricane season in the Rio Dulce, and so we are sailing from Mexico to Guatemala. However, we don’t feel like celebrating during the last days of our first sailing season. The blame lies with a sandbar, a tiny creature called Cyclospora cayetan, and our drone. In other words, our season is coming to an end with a crisis in several acts. To anticipate: We survived, so did Mabul, only the drone, it’s dead.

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23
Aug
2023
Mystery Mexico

Mystery Mexico

After more than three days of crossing, exhausted and satisfied, we drop anchor in the bay on the northwest side of Isla Mujeres. The anchorage is calm with a light breeze. Here we want to clear in to continue sailing south in Mexico later. We go ashore and first of all have dinner in a marina. The island is a tourist hell, but after Cuba Mexico seems to us like a gourmet temple: guacamole and tacos, fresh fruit juices and juicy meat.

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02
Jul
2023
Sailing Log: Cuba to Mexico

Sailing Log: Cuba to Mexico

As we leave Cayo Largo and Cuba, we are not alone. El Russo, the employee of the turtle center, has given us twenty freshly hatched turtles. We pack them in a Tupperware and carry them back to Mabul. We cast off and finally we are sailing from Cuba to Mexico. One by one we drop the tiny ones into the sea near the coast. May they have an exciting, long life without shark encounters!

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17
Jun
2023
Cuba’s wild south coast

Cuba’s wild south coast

As we approach Cuba on an early morning in May, after three days and three nights on the open sea, we immediately realize that everything is different here. In the bay off Santiago de Cuba, on the eastern edge of the big island, men drift across the water on truck tubes, a paddle in one hand and a fishing line in the other. The sailing itself should also be somewhat unusual here in Cuba.

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14
Apr
2023
Paradise found and lost

Paradise found and lost

Our journey from Antigua via Barbuda to St. Maarten.

On the morning of January 21, we leave Montserrat and set course for the neighboring island of Antigua. The distance to Jolly Harbor would be 22 nautical miles by direct route, but we have to tack upwind and that takes time. The waves are high and the ride is rough. We have one reef in the mainsail and initially one in the genua. Mabul rides the waves up and down so that the seawater flows over the bow and deck into the cockpit and from there back into the sea.

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