Lunni - ARC+ leg2 day 16: slow and safe, highlights

Beautiful sunrise today, after last nights firework for Finland's 101 birthday today - so: hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää, Suomi! Happy independence day, Finland! At nightwatch Niko was researching this tropical sky with billions of stars and saw lots of starflights, I noticed only one at my watch, so maybe the firework of stars was scheduled to Niko's watch because it is his nameday today too.Our slow and safe sailing will come to the end soon, by tomorrow evening we will be at Rodney Bay, Saint Lucia. This has not been an easy tradewind sailing, mostly we have sailed with confusing seas and variable winds or with big waves and swells avec light winds. Nightly squalls didn't bother us, at every sunset we have checked the sails so that they can take any squall. That means we as a family with. read more...

Lunni - ARC+ leg2 day 12: extra crew member

In our series of strange nightly guests we have now upgraded from the flying fish that flew straight into kettle. Our latest visitor is a black baby bird.It appeared in our cockpit in the middle of the night, maybe guided by the exceptionally beautiful and bright night stars. Initially I noticed it moving on a pillow in our cockpit. At first I mistook it as the usual flying fish. After all, in the ocean there seems to more flying fish than water. I was just about to throw it overboard but even through the darkness I could feel its black eyes looking straight at me.By the way it was not moving I could see it was completely exhausted. With a pillow I built a shelter for it in the cockpit and gave some water and bread. However, despite me being the doorman it insisted on coming in the boat. read more...

Lunni - ARC+ leg2 day 10: whale on side and one mahi-mahi

This morning I was on watch and started to film the sunrise, and in the film you can after a while first hear the blowing sound and then my voice saying, ”Hey here is a whale, a big whale.” There were 4-6 meters of black whale back above the waterline just on side of Lunni! And that means there were only a few centimetres between our hull and the whale. So maybe the whale has been sleeping on side of us all night. This afternoon we got a dorado again. It was heavier than the previous one but about the same size 1,3 meters. We took the tail and put it over the saloon window to decorate it. We took lots of meat from the fish. I got to see how heavy the dorado was and tried to lift it from the deck. Robert (11years), translated from Finnish with the help of mumimage1. read more...

Lunni - ARC+ leg2 day 8: some nature science

Last night we headed more South down to 14’32N to avoid lighter winds. Our traditional style boat needs good winds to proceed. Then in the morning we made jib and now heading to Saint Lucia with 6knots. Still about 10 days left. Robert (11y) made today some breakfast to the crew, as on many mornings, milk chocolate, cheese sandwiches and corn flakes with milk. Yes, we might need a cow on board... Instead of working with school books on a jumpy sailing we ask our kids to observe the ocean and arounds. While eating lunch on deck we saw a pair of birds. They were white and bulky with sharp wings flying around the boat working fastly with wings. They were bigger ones than the small and elegant mostly dark bird playing with the waves that has followed us maybe a week. How can birds fly so. read more...

Lunni - ARC+ Leg2 Day 4: Good winds. Few days in Mindelo.

Here we found wind to sail our Colin Archer for speed some over 6knots with only mezzanine and reefed foresail. High waves keep the boat in move so that we cannot keep the mainsail on. We have had some squalls but with these sails it is not a problem but so much fun to gain the speed of 9.5knots surfing down the wave! When leaving Mindelo, which we did a few hours after the official start, we gave some drops of a good whisky to the sea or 'Ahti', as we call the Neptunus in Finland. Soon we were accompanied by a school of playful porpoises and bottle-nose dolphins. Later that night we had a bright full moon, I was on the deck taking care of our youngest child, he got fewer and stomach problems (everything well now), and for a long time we admired dolphins playing in pairs around our boat,. read more...