So here we are again!.

Same lovely boat, same sleepless skipper, different crew and a very long journey ahead of us.

After a superb Atlantic crossing, Noeluna is now on her way to Australia thru the Panama Canal and the Pacific Ocean.

Our first leg is from St Lucia to the San Blas Islands (off the Panama Atlantic coast). 6 or 7 days of sailing. 1100 nautical miles.

Let me tell you first about the crew.  Ferdinand, first mate, obsessed with fishing (must be coming from his uncle Come – see ARC 2009 blog-). Long hair, bad attitude. Don’t get into an argument with him. Plays electric guitar with 30knts of wind. Will be easily able to replace me way before we reach Australia… Marguerite, mascot, happy and lively. If not it means that she is sea sick. But this is getting much better every day. Marie-anne, skipper’s better half. Everybody asking how I manage to convince her to do this incredible trip…This is my secret…

Those 3 and me will be the “core” crew all the way.

Now we will get friends and family joining us on different legs.

For this one we have two very nice guy on board. My cousin Christopher and my friend Henry. Just after 48 h of sailing I knew that I made a  very good choice.  Chris is just nice all around, patient and always willing to help. Henry just the same and gifted with an amazing skill……he fixes generators!. For those of you who remember our problem during the Atlantic crossing you will not believe it. Let me refresh here.. After 6 hours out of Las Palmas in the Canarias our generator broke down and despite days of work, emails and phone calls to the manufacturer, the Lagoon local dealers and other useless cast of characters we had to made the crossing without the help of our generator. Good bye frozen “Ribeye steak” and good bye “daily showers”… Once in St Lucia, a very good repair shop finally fixes the problem (a 5 cents tiny fuse that was wrongly fitted from the start). One more part had to be picked in Florida, which I did. So on January 4, 2 days before departure, the generator is working fine. Believe it or not, after 10h at sea on Wednesday….it broke again…Henry witnessing my unlimited and uncontrollable anger  decided that the “curse of the generator” had to be broken forever. While it was a different mechanical issue than last time  he decided to apply his vast engineering skill to the task and after 3 hours of arduous battle he finally conquered it. The impellor was replaced. The beast is tamed. Never again you will hear about the generator on this blog!

Our departure from St Lucia was a bit chaotic. We fueled the boat just 15 minutes before the starting time and crossed the line in last position. Now, after 48 h everybody is settling in nicely. With a particular mention to Ferdi and Marguerite who have already completely redecorated their small cabin with pictures, drawings, posters…very cool.

Over time this blog will be very different than the one we had with “the chosen ones” (see ARC 2009). Kids will write their own things (or maybe have their own blog all together). We will mix French and English logs , maybe some Spanish when in South America.

13 degrees 46 North and 65 degrees 42 West  off the coast of  Venezuela

Matthieu

p.s. please remember that we are not always able to read your “comments” while at sea. Please send them anyway as someone will relay them in email format for us.

A big thank again to Philippe (Chief IT-Comm-Bidouille) on the ARC trip to make this blog technically possible.