Cruising sucks (special blog entry for our friends stuck in various offices and darkness and coldness of the Nordic winter)

- It's hard to sleep in a moving boat

- The sofas in the boat are real uncomfortable

- You never have time to arrive anywhere before it's time to move on

- Philipp is seasick

- We are stuck together in small space for a year and get on each others nerves

- There is never a plan for more than 24 hours ahead, and if there is a plan, it will certainly chance

- Life is constant cleaning (there is no place for mess in a boat)

- Marinas cost a lot of money, leaving your boat anchored might be the last time you see it

- Fellow cruisers are mostly 30 years older than us, have money and mostly feel like they need to advise us

- There is always something to fix on the boat, sea and salt break and corrode everything 

- The world is full of people we don't know

Tenerife

Mountain of El Teide and siskokset kuin ilvekset (sisters like a pair of lynx)

...everybody knows where Tenerife is so no point to put out a map here. The crossing from Porto Santo was pleasant, we had good winds too and quite some thunder in the air to keep us alert and awake. Thanks for Vit for breaking all records in watch keeping (especially in early hours) and for good companies during the crossing.

Concurrent with Kiwi, Laura and Helvi (mum) landed on the island to visit us for a week. At this point, Philipp was kicked out from the boat for some hiking on the nabouring island La Gomera. The mother - daughter quality time was spend by exploring the surprisingly varied landscapes of Tenerife on small hikes and extensive road triping. Renting a car is something other cruisers seem to do at every harbor. We are normally too cheap for such luxury. On Tenerife with huge elevation differences it totally made sense.

It turns out that Tenerife offers a lot of grazy amazing possibilities for hiking too. After our dear guests flew home today, we decided to use the freedom of not having to hurry anywere, and planned another week of exploring the island before moving on.

Suitcase full of presents from Finland!

Laura and mum tried beach life at the city beach of Santa Cruz (the sand is brought from Sahara, there is no yellow sand on this vulcanic island)

The great pine forests of Tenerife -picture taken at 2000 m altitude looking down to the cloud tops . The vulcano peak of Teide left of the sun

...and here are some pics from our stay in Lisbon (hiding from hurricane Natalie)

Collecting rocks at Ursa beach West of Lisbon . Gerald became our most frequent quest by visiting Kiwi already the second time.

Anchoring in Lisbon and waiting for storms and calms to pass were very social. There was barbeque or drinks to join in one of the boats every evening. We also got to know some exotic cruisers in our age (a typical cruiser is well retired [nothing wrong with that : )]), which was refresing. In the picture we are anchoring longside (!) with s/y Princess Mia with Martin who helped us to weld Kiwi's anchor chain. The chain had started to be rather symbolic in places. We also made the chain longer to be able to easier anchor in deep (20 m) anchorages.

Drying soaked shoes at the Westernmost point of mainland Europe.  Capo da Roca that is. The best thing to do while outwaiting a storm is to go biking, right?

Our closest nabour in the anchorage in Tejo River was an abandoned submarine

Sailing in Lisbon river

Nerdy or not, but Lisbon aquarium was visited by the Kiwians three times (!) during the last weeks. The picture feautures Philipp's new power animal The Moon Fish. This rock like freek fish has been observed in real life several times since we arrived to Iberia. Talking about power animals; Sigrid: Gerald says thar hermit crabs are not living in solitude and that they eat extrements.

Porto Santo (Madeira)

In the darkness of last night we arrived, all unplanned, to Porto Santo, a baby brother of Madeira. We decided to come here for refueling, recovering and waiting for winds. After patient waiting of suitable winds for two weeks in Lisbon, we finally started crossing towards the Canary islands last Thursday. After two days of wind, the calms hit us resulting in fair amount of motoring (pooring and hurts the ears). It's amazing how the sea actually can be completely dead calm with almost no waves 300 miles offshore! We also learned that anchoring in sewage water (which we did in Lisbon) can be stubid and result in stomach sicknesses wich while far offshore can be problematic. While Sanja was skippering the bucket, Philipp and our visiting yach master Vit navigated us to this lonely island. Funny but all of us sleep better in a moving boat these days, than in a calm marina, therefore the trip continues to Teneriff already tomorrow.

The red spot, thats is Kiwi