Journey Posts
75 posts from Cape Town to Greece
2nd Atlantic Crossing
On Monday May 3rd 2021, Oroboro started her second ocean crossing. We were lucky to share this voyage with our friend Philippe. We had a great time, and despite a nasty low and…
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Sailing in the Bahamas!
After spending more than a year in the Lesser Antilles, including an unprecedented lockdown for Covid-19 and the busiest hurricanes seasons on record, the Bahamas were a very…
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Dominican Republic
We spent very little time in the Dominican Republic, unfortunately. We only sailed to Samana Bay and Luperòn on the north coast. Samana Bay is a Humpback Whales Sanctuary. It's…
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Anti-Fouling
In October 2020 we decided to do a bottom job before leaving Grenada. Last time we did one was 1 year before in Trinidad. This time around we used Pettit Trinidad Pro. We chose…
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Puerto Rico
You can tell we are approaching the end of the Tropics: Weather patterns are starting to change! Back in the Lesser Antilles, winds were from 60° to 120° True, but most of the…
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Spanish Virgin Islands
The Spanish Virgin Islands consist of Culebra and Vieques, and are part of the commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It's been documented that Christopher Columbus discovered the Island of…
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US Virgin Islands
The first island of the US Virgin Island we made landfall was Saint Croix. The USVI consists of three island, St John, St Thomas and St Croix. St Croix is the most underrated of…
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Entering the Greater Antilles
When Christopher Columbus in 1492 became the first European explorer to record his arrival in the Bahamas, the term West Indies was eventually used by Europeans to distinguish…
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Recap of year 2020
Year 2020, the Annus Horribilis (Latin phrase meaning "horrible year") is coming to an end, and it's now time for a year end review. Let's start with counting our blessings: None…
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How to rebuild a Spectra Watermaker
After 2 years and 600 under hours, my Spectra Newport 400 needs to be rebuilt. The symptoms were that the production of water went down from 61 liters (17 US gallons) to only 25…
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Vendée Globe 2020
For some people, the Vendée Globe is the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. But, as the great American skipper Rich Wilson once pointed out, it's rather the other way around,…
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One year in the Caribbean...
It's amazing how time flies! We just realized we've arrived to the Caribbean exactly one year ago. Little did we know back then that the world was going to change like we've…
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How does a water maker work?
The convenience of making your own drinkable water while cruising is priceless. This was our number one requirement when we decided to travel around the world on our sailboat. The…
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Oroboro's energy system
Modern boats are very dependent on electricity. For this reason almost 4 years ago when Yuka and I started envisioning our life on Oroboro, one of our main goals was establishing…
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Hurricanes in the Caribbean
It wasn't in our plans to spend the Hurricane Season in the Caribbean. By now, we should be enjoying good food and good weather in the Western Med. Our plan was to cross "the…
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Covid-19 in Paradise
Since we come back from Japan after the Christmas holidays, we were having a very good time sailing north along the island's chain. We had friends visiting us in Grenada and in…
Read more →Grenada
The sail from Tobago to Grenada was a beautiful overnight spinnaker sail. Yuka and I are now so used to our 3 hours night watches, and we handled it really well. When we…
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Tobago
We sailed from Trinidad to Tobago for various reasons. Among them, the main one was that the direct route from Trinidad to Grenada is very close to Venezuela and there had been a…
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Trinidad
The leg from Kurou in French Guiana to Trinidad was about 650 nautical miles and we enjoyed every mile of it. Conditions were perfect, we flew the parasailor night and day. We had…
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French Guiana
French Guiana! At last! I have dreamed to sail here for a long time. I can't believe that we are finally there! It took us 7 days and 7 hours to sail from Fortaleza to Kourou. Our…
Read more →From Brazil to the Caribbean in 60 seconds
This is a 60 seconds video depicting life on board Oroboro during the 1,600 nm passage from Brazil to the Caribbean. [video width="1920" height="1080"…
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Fortaleza
The leg from Natal to Fortaleza was enjoyable at the beginning, but very tough once we got near Fortaleza. First of all Fortaleza is a very inhospitable and dangerous town. There…
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Joao Pessoa
We sailed out of Joao Pessoa around midnight. Around 3 am, while sailing north from Joao Pessoa to Natal, I saw a red flare in the night sky on the starboard side. The flare was…
Read more →Tibao do Sul
We also visited Tibao do Sul. Initially we wanted to get there by boat. I read a Brazilian pilot book very popular among Brazilian sailors, where it was claimed that it was…
Read more →Pipa beach
Pipa beach is a major surfing destination in Brazil. It was just a fishing village with no roads until some surfers in the 70s discovered it. Today is also a kiting destination.…
Read more →Jacarè
The passage to Jacarè was the last leg we did with Mario as a crew. It was easier than the previous one but had its own challenges. Especially navigating in the river at night…
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Olinda
North of Recife there is one little town that after Parati and Ouro Preto, is one of the best preserved colonial villages in Brazil: Olinda. [photogrid…
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Recife
Mario arrived in Salvador as soon as he graduated High School. Well, he went to Greece first with his schoolmates to celebrate the end of high school, then rested a couple of days…
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Itaparica
Itaparica is an island right in front of Salvador, in the Baia de Todos Os Santos, the largest bay in Brazil, with 56 islands! We visited most of them, our favorite being Ilha do…
Read more →Crossing the Equator!
[videopress FEDxqiAZ] [instagram-feed]
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Santo Antônio do Paraguaçu
We navigated the river Paraguaçu to get to see the beautiful and remote convent of Saint Antony. What an experience! We felt like in the movie Apocalypse Now, when Willard on the…
Read more →Morro de São Paulo
Morro de São Paulo is a lovely village some 30 nautical miles south of Salvador. It's the closest thing to a Mediterranean island village you can find in Brazil. No cars are…
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Salvador de Bahia
Salvador the Bahia is an important landmark in our voyage. After visiting Cape of Good Hope last year, seeing a full scale reproduction of the caravela used by Bartolomeu Diaz in…
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Camamù Bay
Some 30 nautical miles north of Itacarè lays the Bay of Camamu. There are a lot of different villages in the bay and up the river. For us it was the first time navigating in a…
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The dark science of weather forecasts
When you live on a boat it's very important for your safety to constantly monitor the weather. For this reason, the first task of the day for us is checking the weather forecasts.…
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Itacaré
We left Ilheus at 3 am in order to be able to get to Itacaré at high tide. We were really not impressed by the town and the Iate Clube. The rain didn't help either. Sorry Jorge…
Read more →Ilheus
Ilheus is an overnight from Coroa Vermelha, about 18 hours. We left at 3pm and by 9:30 am we were anchored in front of the Iate Clube. Yuka and I are really getting into the…
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Porto Seguro
According to popular belief, Pedro Álvares Cabral landed here in 1500 and that's why the town was named Porto Seguro (Safe harbor). However, what is officially considered the…
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Terra à vista! Santa Cruz Cabralia
To get to Santa Cruz Cabralia we anchored in front of Santo Andrè, also sadly known as Villa do Sete a Um (Seven to One). It's here that the German team had its Head Quarters…
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Coroa Vermelha
Oroboro dropped anchor in the very same place where 500+ years ago Pedro Álvares Cabral set foot on Brazil for the first time. The Bay is protected by a reef that is totally…
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Cumuruxatiba
The Abrolhos archipelago Park Ranger Joyce mentioned to us that Cumuruxatiba was a great place to stop. I'm glad we followed her advice because the place was really fantastic.…
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Abrolhos
Open Your Eyes! Abrolhos Archipelagos. Back in the old days, some Spanish charts bore the inscription “Abras los ojos” near reefs areas that might put the ship in danger. This was…
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Sao Paulo
After Brasilia, we flew to Sao Paulo. For me this visit had a special meaning, since I was going to meet for the first time a dear old friend, Gianfranco, who moved here…
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Pirenopolis
While in Brazilia, we decided to get a rental and go visit Pirenopolis, well known for its waterfalls and Portuguese colonial architecture. We found the name of the town…
Read more →Brasilia
From Vitoria, we flew to Brasilia to spend a couple of days exploring this unique town. Brasilia is the modernist city that a very cool and visionary and charismatic president of…
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Vitoria
In Vitoria we moored at the local Yacht Club. They charged us R$30 per person per day. The harbor is very small, and they only have powerboat and maybe two or three sailboats. The…
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Guarapari
Guarapari was just a technical stop on our way to the Abrolhos archipelago. Nice town. And on the way there we caught a nice Mahi mahi that Yuka cooked to perfection. We anchored…
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Armação dos Búzios, simply known as Búzios
Buzios used to be an unknown fishermen village until Brigitte Bardot made it famous by spending here her vacation time with her Brazilian boyfriend in the early '60s. At the time…
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Cabo Frio
Time has come for us to start heading north towards the Caribbean. We left once again Rio de Janario on April 1 st at 22:00, destination Cabo Frio. We headed east, following…
Read more →Ouro Preto, or Black Gold!
During our stay in Rio, to take a break from the carnival with our friends Joaquin and Monica we decided to get a rental car and visit Petropolis. The visit interested me because…
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Carnival in Rio de Janeiro!
To be honest, at the beginning I wasn't particularly interested in visiting Rio, especially during Carnival. Rio was very low on my personal list of places to visit. But my…
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Ubatuba
Our first sail out of the bay of Ilha Grande was to Ubatuba, some 30 nautical miles south west. It was a very nice sensation to get Oroboro in blue ocean waters again. Praia do…
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Ilha Grande
Ilha Grande (The Big Island) is a perfect ground for cruising: there are 365 little islands and 2,000 wild white sandy beaches within 3 to 6 hours of navigation among each other…
Read more →How to repair a Spectra Newport watermaker
Some old salt was once asked what was "cruising life" and the reply was "Cruising is fixing your boat in exotic places". There is some truth in that. Our Spectra Newport 400 MKII…
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Welcome to Brazil!
After sailing 4,387nm and spending 35 days at sea, Oroboro safely anchored in Ilha Grande, Brazil, on February 1st, 2019. I felt like the early explorers, and I thought I could…
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Trindade
Eight days after leaving St Helena, drama stroke on Oroboro: The Water maker started leaking from the Clark Pump! A big leak! In my list of aftermarket systems to install on…
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St Helena
Oroboro dropped the anchor in St Helena on Wednesday 01/09/2019. St Helena is an iconic place because it was cut off from the rest of the world for centuries. No wonder the…
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Crossing the South Atlantic Ocean
We made it! Exactly 51 days after leaving Cape Town, Oroboro has arrived in Ilha Grande, Brazil. Crossing the South Atlantic ocean has been an incredible experience that we will…
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The Tropic of Capricorn
We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn at latitude 23°26′ exactly on the Winter Solstice. What are the chances! This is the time of the year when the Sun reaches its zenith at this…
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Hottentot Bay, Namibia
We left Luderitz in awe for what we discovered. The town itself is very nice, with interesting colonial architecture, the anchorage is very well protected from the swell and…
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Kolmanskop, Namibia
Oroboro safely anchored in Luderitz, Namibia. The anchorage provides good holding, although it's exposed to strong winds (we anchored in 35 knots of wind). In town there are a…
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Passage to Namibia
We left Cape Town on Saturday December 15th 2018 with the 13:15 V&A Waterfront marina swing bridge opening. When calling Port Control over the VHF on channel 14 to ask permission…
Read more →Maiden voyage
The time has finally come for us to set sail for our maiden voyage. We have worked out a navigation plan, and we have started to monitor the weather. Our plan is to sail to…
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Shake down sail to Langebaan
The time has come for us to do a "shake down sail" to further test the boat - and ourselves - before the ocean crossing. We decided to spend a few night at anchor in Langebaan, a…
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Discovering South Africa
This week we decided to slow down and take a few days off the boat to explore the region between Mossel Bay and the Storms River, also known as the Garden Route. This beautiful…
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How the boat was built
Last Thursday we visited the factory floor where our boat was built. It was very interesting to see how everything is still very manual, and the level of craftsmanship involved.…
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Stress Test
A strong South East wind was predicted to be blowing on Saturday, so we decided to take this opportunity to go out and test the boat in rough weather. We had a few things on our…
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7½ Weeks!
This is exactly how long it took us to make the boat self-sufficient: we can now efficiently produce our own electricity and make our own potable water, plus we have the right…
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Enough with work...
We are in the final stretch with the work that needs to be done on the boat. Everything is coming together, and so we took our first weekend off to relax, decompress, and explore…
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Three weeks' worth of work
Today marks the end of the 3rd consecutive week since we took ownership of our boat here in Cape Town. We have been working hard to install all the systems we need, taking only…
Read more →Please meet Sailing Vessel Oroboro
As we got on the docks at Cape Grace marina and we saw Oroboro for the fist time, we were just ecstatic! It looked more beautiful than we ever dreamt of. Naval architects…
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Cape Town: 33° 54’ 21.9” S - 18° 25’ 15.7” E
After 2 long flights and a 6 hours layover in Zurich, we landed in Cape Town, South Africa. First time for both of us in the Southern hemisphere and on the African continent. We…
Read more →Quitting our jobs
Quitting our jobs was one of the hardest things we've ever done, especially because we loved what we were doing - well, the greater portion thereof. With our jobs, we also leave…
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Choosing the right boat
The research of the right boat for us took a few years and was a complex process. Without going into too many details, these are a few of the questions we asked ourselves.…
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About the name of the boat
During the summer of 2017, while sailing on a charter boat with my family towards the Aeolian Islands, Yuka and I were thinking about a good name to give to our boat. We had a few…
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