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Last update May 03 2013.

Back to Aruba, this time by plane. Our Joho for a few weeks on a mooring in St Martin. The deck and cockpit are ready for a paint job and repairs to the deck as our stanchions hit something on the way up to SXM. Arthur will do that in the mean time we're in Aruba. We are busy at work again on Tierra del Sol untill April 24th, then we will fly back to St Maarten. The plans have changed again, our journey will be separated in two parts, first part is bringing the boat in two weeks to Martinique. Then we will fly back to Aruba for 4 weeks. Part two is to sail our boat from Martinique to Trinidad. / Torbago in June.

The weeks in Aruba are dominated by long working hours, even at Easter, everyone is free but we are working. On the weekends we enjoy our free time with swims and BBQ's on the beach. We look forward to the trip back to St.Maarten though and wonder how the paintjob looks and whether our hood will be ready in time.
April 23th is my birthday and my workplace is decorated. In the evening we go to the movies and we eat Sushi, John treats.

It is April 24th, the return trip goes like a charm and without significant delay we land in St Maarten and there is René to pick us up. Happy reunion and lots of chatter. We do have a set-back when we see JoHo is far from finished. There appears nothing to be done on our new hood... oops and we wanted to leave within a few days for Martinique. That will not be the case.
In the evening we have happy hours with our friends who are still there (and stay a bit to 'liven up' our supposed holiday that will mainly be another type of working weeks.
The following days we wake up early, we take everything now tightly into our own hands. As a result we do see a small change appear to still come out in Guadeloupe albeit as far away from Trinidad Tobago as desired. But it saves at least some headwinds and engine work down later in June.
The hood is measured and finished in a few days. WOW, great job St.Maarten Sails. The painting is a little different, Arthur has all repairs properly addressed but the finishing touch is not our kind of finishing touch if you get what I mean. We decide to do that ourselves, later. This will be probably when we will arrive in Trinidad. We worked our asses off last week and our hands are totally devastated by the labor (not used to heavy labor anymore).
It looks now like we can still leave St Maarten around May 1st.

We can make plans again, just the weather does not look too good. We hope to come to Guadeloupe and find a safe place to put her down. The boat is supplied, it is certain, the Gribs indicate that May 1st will be the best day to leave. JoHo is ready to sail we think, and we take a whole day off to relax from all the work.
On April 30, we agree with everybody to go to the Queens Parade to Philipsburg. THE parade of St Maarten and the last on April 30. This is also the day of the coronation of our new King, the islands of the Dutch Kingdom in the Caribbean are full of it. The newspapers are full of it too, I did not know they were so royalist. The parade was great again and afterwarts we said goodbye to everyone during happy hour.
See you all next time, with more quality time from our side.

Jolanda

I finished a special photobook, about our travels 10 years JoHo's travel from 2001 to 2011.
Curious ? Then click the link.
And iIf you're interested in sailing the BAHAMAS, BERMUDA, MALDIVES or BONAIRE have a look at our books at SAILADVENTURES where the books are available online.
You can always mail us for more info on these cruising grounds or cruising in general, we'll gladly help you out.

Jolanda

Current position

JoHo is on anchor in Deshaies, Guadeloupe at 16°18'4 N - 61°47'8 W.

Plans

Sailing the Caribbean and working our *-* off at Tierra Del Sol, Aruba. Meanwhile poor JoHo will be neglected somewhat, only used in 'holidays' in between.
But our floating office and home will be there after this assignment. Ready for us to work for ourselves as 'writers' compiling cruising guides on our way.
We'll see how things will run, life's too complicated to plan anyways. Live life and plan the rest is what we say.

John and Jolanda