May 2, 2011

Be welcomed to have a look on our new photo galleries from the exciting island of Cuba - you 'll find them HERE. Mikołaj has also wrote a story of our visit there but we have it only in Polish (HERE)... Enjoy!



April 23, 2011

Happy Easter to everybody! We are back in Jamaica! On lovely Cuba we've met plenty young sailors (you'll find more about them on Polish version of www.aroundtheworld.pl - to translate it u can use f.ex. www.translate.google.com). We took a lot of pics and did hours of recordings so be ready for more from unique island of Cuba soon!

April 12, 2011

We have just safely arrived to Cuba! As we predicted it's not that easy to reach the Internet here but we'll keep you updated! Now enjoying Santiago de Cuba!

April 7, 2011

Eventually we are leaving to Cuba! We know there are many difficulties with using Internet, so please do not expect any news from us during next 2 weeks or so... But who knows, maybe we'll find something earlier... :)

30 March 2011

We should have not been here already… Our visas in passports have finished and in immigration office we were not given any extension - we were told to leave the island! I was shocked a little, as we were sure there wouldn’t be any problems… We can come back to Jamaica but first we have to get a stamp from a different country in our passports. I reminded myself the situation from Curaçao, where because of the same reasons – we used to make one day trips by plane to Aruba for a stamp, coffee & back. Quick but not cheap. Well, we do not want to say farewell to Jamaica, nor to spend a lot for flying tickets, so we’ll sail wherever and make everything to come back here to finish what we’ve started.

At the moment we are in Greater Antilles so we have 2 possible destinations – Cuba and Hispaniola – the biggest islands in the Caribbean Sea. The best would be to get to Ile a Vache – an idyllic island near Haiti, but the epidemic of cholera is still there so we would need a special expensive vaccination…
So that must be Cuba!!!! Well… We were not so happy to discover the costs of entering the island as well as anchor fees etc. Everything what is to for tourists costs 24-25 times more then for local people…
What’s more, in the same moment we faced our engine problems… Luckily the leak in exhaust and the issue with temperature gauge were quickly resolved with the help of friends and Mikolaj’s great mechanical skills. But… meantime the weather changed, so again Captain had to appear in front of Jamaican officials to hear that nobody would kick us out in such rough conditions! So we are ready to leave any time, looking forward to the wind shift…

20 March 2011

This is the end of silence, we are sorry for not updating English version for so long! A lot has happened…. 2 podcasts, 2 stories, 1 video, several concerts, one festival, many celebrations, many guests (Polish friends and some sailors). All the time Bob Marley's spirit and music were with us… :)
And you know what? That's not all!


http://projektwagner2012.glt.pl/

Let us first invite you for a special event – the solemn première of the sculpture to commemorate Wladyslaw Wagner [read: Vladyslav Vagner] – first Polish who sailed around the world.
  • Where?  – Beef Island, British Virgin Island, Caribbean Sea
  • When? – January/February 2012
Wladyslaw Wagner was just 20 years-old Scout, when he started circumnavigation. It took him 6 years and three boats - called Zjawa I, II and III - to finish the journey. He became Polish hero and symbol of freedom then. Unfortunately II World War stopped Wagner from returning to Poland. For following over 50 years of communism in Poland, the government consequently kept the memory of this great man and his escapade out of the “official” history. After the war, Wagner lived in the Caribbean for many years and passed away in 1992 in United States.

Year 2012 is very special for Wladyslaw Wagner as it is
  • 100. anniversary of his birthday
  •  80. anniversary of beginning circumnavigation
  •  20. anniversary of his death
We would like to make everybody conscious about who Wladyslaw Wagner was so we took Project "Wagner 2012" (projektwagner2012.glt.pl) under our auspices and we will keep you posted about this event on www.aroundtheworld.pl! Although it is addressed mainly to Polish from around the world – everybody is invited and you can’t miss it either!

The event will happen still quite far in future, not all the details are known yet but… stay tuned so you will know for sure ;) We’ll keep you updated.

To celebrate it 100% you would start planning now as the best is to come for Wagner2012 event on a sailing boat! Don’t worry if you can’t – with us you won’t miss it anyway :)
  
projektwagner2012.glt.pl

Now it’s time for a little shortcut of what has been happening in our life during past weeks... First of all, have a look on the story “The Beginning of 2011” where Mick described an extraordinary for us end of 2010 and beginning of New Year (HERE).
We celebrated those days close to the family of Flames Productions – Queen Ifrica & Tony Rebel - that was an amazing experience for us! Just imagine…


We sailed into Port Royal – historical town on the peninsula in front of Jamaica's capital – Kingston (the biggest city we’ve ever visited by our little yacht YouYou…). The sun was setting down… It was 30th of December, exactly the second anniversary of our  YouYou launch and – at the same time – Rebel Salute’s Launch – the press meeting before the biggest Jamaican music festival of positive vibrations. It was already 1900 hrs and the meeting has just been started at Hilton Hotel up-town Kingston when we set up the anchor…




We sailed to here from Bowden, just 35 Nm far away from Kingston. We still have clearly in memory these first days in Jamaica, with Bowden Coast Guards & Marine Police on their Christmas party… (greetings to you guys and thanks for an escort!), 




as well as with our amazing RASTA friends Zabulon and Ken,
Zabulon & Ken


who taught us many important things (Mick’s story about HERE).
Ken
It took us a lot of time to reach Rebel Salute Launch but we were lucky enough to finally hug Queen, enjoy a quick Tarrus Riley’s performance, as well as an excellent show of Tony Rebel and later, Queen Ifrica herself. Some of these recordings you can check on our Rebel Salute video below.


Next 2 days were completely crazy… The evening at Flames and a drive by Tony Rebel for Queen Ifrica’s performance (what perfect skills of Morase M Bradford in conducting crowds to free up the way for us!). Roads were so packed that in the end we decided to go by walk – as all 3 women had high hill shoes we choose to go barefoot. People were recognizing Queen every few second so she was making stops for a photo frequently. Unbelievable, but Queen never showed any slightest sign of impatience, while waiting for a flash or waiting for problems with cameras to be solved ;)

Finally, Queen Ifrica gave a breathtaking show – in front of crowds in the center of Kingston. 
Queen Ifrica - 1.01.2011, Kingston, Jamaica


That was just first of her 2 performances on the first day of 2011. The second was in the most rural end of Eastern Jamaica – Morant Bay, where we were in the beginning of our stay on that lovely island. We were driven here by Tony Rebel again… In between all other things, we respect him for the skills and wisdom on the road - thank you Tony for so safe taking care about us and Jah Bless u & Queen always, especially on the road!


For more – please check Mick’s story HERE. About an annual Jamaican fest of great music & positive vibrations – Rebel Salute 2011 please read in our previous news HERE. By the way, at Flames Productions we met many musicians and made some recordings, still hoping to meet again there and share some vibes… 
Seven Seal

All these days with Queen Ifrica and her Family were unforgettable experience! The amount of good vibes produced at Flames hit us significantly!!! 




Another story (HERE) is the trip we made to Nine Mile - home village of Bob Marley. We went there to celebrate his 66 birthday, but not only! - we had a special mission… Besides a tent and a stove there were an electric guitar and a little amplifier packed in our bag packs! The mission was to exchange them for… a real Jamaican drum! 

By the way, do you remember where we have that equipment from? Yes, Hop&Jaunt! Aly and John for sure will be happy to hear about all that :) (check their new website HERE - you will love it!!!).

The trip to Nine Mile was an extraordinary experience! On Bob’s birthday, Sunday 6th of February we welcomed the sun with original Rasta drum music Nyabinghi - HERE you can hear over 20 minutes of it! 


Listen on-line:




We also had a phone-in to Polish Radio 3, talking live about Nine Mile Marley’s celebrations!

We met here many interesting people - like a great musician Buffalo Bill, who passionately talked about Jamaica, RASTA culture and Bob Marley. In our podcast from Nine Mile you’ll also hear Gerard describing ritual Nyabinghi drumming, JahLeeJah,Love,Peace and Bob’s school friend Fozzy as our guide through most important places in Bob Marley’s life. You can listen to our podcast from that trip HERE or 


Listen to on-line:

The pics & more details of these celebrations - you’ll find in Mick’s story HERE. And if you’d like to see more pictures of Nine Mile – HERE you’ll have a whole gallery. In the end, if you wish - below you can listen to our Nine Mile broadcast on air of Polish Radio 3!


Listen to On-line:





We feel very fortunate choosing Port Royal for our place of stay in Jamaica and Morgan’s Harbour for anchorage. And this is mostly because of our good angel Callisha. She is succesful manager of very nice Hotel & MarinaMorgan’s Harbour”.

Having excellent facilities, Callisha is organizing very interesting events…
Imagine, one day there was Shaggy making a videoclip here, another time we enjoyed the number of stars on one stage - a special concert organized by Bob Marley’s granddaughter - Donisha Prendergast
Donisha Prendergast
She is well known personality in Jamaica, and we met her just in the early stage of her new project called Conversations. It’s based on the dialog of the musicians, audience and the host, Donisha. In lack of acoustic music nowadays in Jamaica - these series of concerts is always played with the smallest possible amount of electricity.
There were many musicians performing -  KY-Mani Marley, Protoje


Protoje


Jah9Italee, Jabalance, Raging Fyah and a drum master Maroghini... 


Maroghini


Amazing concert, hope to share it with you soon! Donisha told us later, that was her first public singing performance in Jamaica EVER! (more pics & info HERE)

Now the list of our lovely guests! First we were visited  in Jamaica by Ola & Ziemo


Ola & Ziemo
What’s more they completely surprised us! Imagine, they flew from Poland in complete conspiracy, so it took us a while to understand what was going on when suddenly they appeared in front of us… They supplied us with some treasures 




and quickly run to explore their favorite Jamaica… We haven’t seen them since their first visit – which was much more planned then – do you remember? (Story from our virgin voyage with Ola & Ziemo HERE)

In contrary, we could not stand waiting for s/y Serendipity to appear on the horizon – as Hugo & Cecille decided to change plans (again :) and sail to Jamaica!

meantime our friend, great sailor, Jacek Rajch on s/y Osprey arrived with Canadian Barry onboard. We spent together amazing time – changing the surrounding and moving all three boats to paradise Lime Cay – uninhabited sandy bank just “around the corner” from our anchorage. What a place! Not surprising they call it one of the most beautiful beaches in Jamaica!

Lime Cay


Hugo & Cecillie had experienced a lot since we last saw them… Not only best things happened to them, unfortunately, but they are impressively strong & positive couple! Hope to share with you their thoughts in our podcast soon! Meantime - visit their website where they publish frequently about their adventurous voyages :) - HERE
That was lovely to meet up with them again and who knows when we meet again? Maybe in BVI next year on Wagner’s celebrations?! Hope so :)

We were very happy to see our great friends becoming lovely companion for themselves – Capt. Jacek Rajch is always happy between new generations of sailors :)

Barry, Hugo, Cecilie, Jacek Rajch, Mikolaj & Patrycja

Capt. Rajch is very important personality for us – we met hem 3 times in our life but all of these meetings had important impact in our lives.

Kapitanowie Rajch i Westrych :)


Jacek is a legend – he spent over 20 years sailing and did a circumnavigation twice on a boat which was once rescued from the bottom of the sea… 



More about that lovely meeting you will find HERE.
This is not the end of our visitors - recently also Krzysiek & Robert have visited us - they are crazy cousins from Poland who decided to do something interesting in their life - visit their website www.kuzyni.eu


www.kuzyni.eu

January 21, 2011

It does not happen too often that after 12 hours of listening to the concert we have the desire to repeat it immediately… All of it! Also not too often it takes us 7 hours one way to get to venue and what’s more, one of us is suffering cystitis… so she is listening to the music mainly from ToiToi…
There are more and more artists coming on and off the stage (we remember Okonko, Tristan Palma, A J Brown), and with every minute more people are gathering at Port Kaiser Sports Complex. Then Tony Rebel himself goes out on the stage – and in the same time we realize that Mikolaj’s blue PASS does not allow him to join other photographers to take pics from below the stage… !?! With every note of the music our sadness and frustration are growing… And from the stage you can hear more and more sweet music… Toots and the Maytals (!!!), Tarrus Riley, David Brooks aka Mavado, Queen Ifrica…
Telling the truth, it was just before the sunrise when my health condition got a little bit better (Inga and Pilatus, thank you again for newest medicine parcel!) but we gave up as till that moment had no interviews and there was no sense to be worried more.. It’s better to enjoy the rest of the concert! :)  And Beres Hammond and Fantan Mojah were just about to perform!
So unfortunately we did not make good enough documentary about Rebel Salute 2011. We really hope to come back one day so we’ll do better :) Meantime, you can have a look on these many Rebel Salute 2011 videos you can find out about the event on YouTube… 
And…
Please be welcome to listen to an archive interview with Queen Ifrica (Trinidad, 2008) – from the day when she was not as popular as nowadays… You’ll hear there also Tony Rebel talking about their beautiful show...Enjoy! 



P.S. Because of technical difficulties we'll publish the pics from Rebel Salute 2011 in next njus...

January 11, 2011

Have you been dreaming about Jamaica? Well, this Saturday is  definitely best time to come to visit this lovely island! 
Be welcome to watch our video where Tony Rebel invites everybody for 18. edition of Rebel Salute 2011 - coming 15 January!!!

January 5, 2011

We are sending you all warm greetings and best wishes for the New Year 2011!
It started for us in a very special way – we were celebrating it with amazing Queen Ifrica on her concert downtown Kingston, Jamaica…

Queen Ifrica - 1.01.2011, Kingston, Jamaica

Maybe it’s still enough time for you to come for upcoming special concert – the annual feast of Tony Rebel & his Flames Productions - Rebel Salute 2011?  It’s still  more then a week to get here till 15 January, so have a look on your schedule! :)

So amazing things are happening for us at the moment that sometimes it’s difficult to believe – luckily we are documenting most of it so we’ll share it sooner or later with you.

Yes, we’ve moved finally out of Spanish Waters in Curaçao! Have a look first, how it was when we took our YouYou out of water in that short slideshow:


And this is a quick impression of our following trip to Bonaire (with quests onboard!) where we met the only reggae band on the island – Rasta Ora. Here you have a video to see how it all went and how great was their music…

In contrast to Bonaire, of course on Jamaica there are loads of reggae! We are constantly listening to it – if not on Queen Ifrica shows, then just played ashore or on the radio, which is the best radio we’ve ever met in our travels!
Another day YouYou is anchoring in Port Royal with an impressive view on Kingston and another day our computers are getting really hot! Hope to share more with you soon!

November 4, 2010

The few days spent on Boniare are definately not enough to take in this amazing island, but it's time to return to Curacao. Our plans to sail to Jamaica are still on, but before that we hope to share with you plenty of pictures from the shipyard works on our YouYou and also from the nature-rich island of Bonaire.

October 26, 2010

Our yacht is back in water and ready to sail. We are leaving tomorrow 0600 - first to Klein Curacao. You will hear from us from Bonaire soon!

October 19, 2010

YouYou went on hard today! After 15 months we finally took anchor up and sailed to nearby bay to paint new antifauling on our little yacht. Then we are going to have a quick jump to Bonaire. Now we'll have real difficulties with internet but you'll hear from us whenever it's possible.


September 14, 2010

As promised before, here you have a photostory from our cruise to Aruba. Pat didn’t go to sleep yet, I managed to have 4 hours of rest last night but we managed to push the projects on YouYou forward ;) 




At the moment we are enjoying a wonderful sunrise 


and all the birds have started the morning concert – “another day in paradise”, as we used to say to our guests on charters :)

September 12, 2010

We’ve just came back from Aruba. We cruised there just for a weekend on motor vessel Cristina 

to make ”paper work” (renewing visas) and to be the crew of Cpt. Dan

(to help him during the voyage). 

What’s more, in the same time we were a company of 25 year old Clara from Barcelona in her first yacht hitch-hiking voyage!

Tomorrow we will prepare a photostory from that nice trip and now we are going asleep – Monday morning and come back to reality: still preparations of YouYou for our next trip after many months spent in Curacao

Coming back to yacht hitch-hiking, last week we met 22-year old Catharine from New Zeland. Sometimes we think it was much easier for us to move around by yacht hitch-hiking, especially when so often we come across excited yacht hitch-hikers… 

August 22, 2010

Yes, we are still alive even there were no new posts here for so long… We are sorry about that. Life became too busy so we were not able to translate all what was happening… Most of the time we hardly ever had a look into Internet.
But new is coming! We are preparing the shortcut of what has happened so get ready for a nice portion of stories! In between them you will get to know about the longest cruise in history of Polish sailing!
When it comes to our voyage, we have just started the preparations to finally leave the lovely island of Curacao – we are planning to do it in a few weeks, just when the hurricane season finishes.
Talk to you soon!

April 11, 2010

We are still shocked after yesterday crash of the plane with Polish President and nearly a hundred other officials on board... We believe that this tragedy and the special time we have now will help Poland to reunite and improve ways of cooperation to create the better future...

April 5, 2010

Let me explain why we had such a long brake in posting...
As it happens sometimes in life, there were a few things accumulated at the same time which made us physically and mentally unable for any computer activity. Add to that our "quiet days" on YouYou (that’s life…) and as the result we did not have enough good attitude to share the joy of life with others... Do you understand what I mean?






Fortunately, "after the night a day comes and after the storm, it’s calm again!" Finally! I’m going to come back working on computer as for probably four weeks I haven’t used it at all and I have to catch up with emails and FB – I’m sorry about that.

Pati on the contrary was very successful with the computer :) Below we present the Web page, which she created for a sailing friend Diana. This website is a wonderful presentation of the yacht for sale. We invite you to have a look on it and who knows, maybe someone among you is willing to be the owner of that beauty?













Most of the time we devote to help our friend in completing and launching his yacht so he could finally experience the joy of sailing. Together with other sailors - Terry and Oliver from Switzerland, as the team we move the project forward every day :)





Life in the Spanish Water goes on. New boats come and go and the old guard continue to grow the barnacles on anchor chains  ;) In two months another season finishes in the Caribbean. Soon in Curacao several yachts will find their shelter in hurricane season and again it will be crowded on the water and the surrounding bars will fill with sailors celebrating daily "Happy Hour" at sunset...




We said goodbye to our friends Hugo and Cecilie, 












who are on board s/y Serendipity...

they sailed to the east. During their stay in Curacao their plans have changed dramatically and, instead of previously planned going to the Pacific Ocean through Panama Canal (which is in the distance of only 600 nautical miles from here), they will sail around the east coast of South America and sail to the "other side" through Straits of Magellan – what a wonderful proof of freedom and independence that comes from traveling and living on a yacht! Here you have their website: www.sy-serendipity.com


Also Dominique on board s/y Oasis left our anchorage. 

Dominique is a wonderful, interesting man, with thousands of stories about shipwrecks, deep diving and free dive. Dominique is passionate about the underwater world and over the years worked closely with Jacques Cousteau. Visit his website dedicated to underwater mysteries www.dreamwrecks.com









What’s more, also Janusz left from Curacao – there was a meeting to say goodbye to him at Ludmila’s house 

and then s/y Wereda sailed to the north. You can follow Janusz watching his website www.wereda.com.


One day after Janusz’s departure, Gosia and Thomas 

Photo courtesy of Jolanta Pawlak 

became our neighbours in the anchorage. Great people, full of joy, optimism and good rules for life :) They stopped in Curacao on the way to Panama. They intend to sail the world aboard of steel yacht s/y Sanny. Before they sailed toward Panama

we spent a pleasant evening on Sanny, accompanied by Jolanta and her parents. 


You can follow Gosia & Thomas’ stories on www.rejsyjachem.pl


They told us about Victor, a solo sailor from the Czech Republic who anchored just nearby. Of course, we decided to meet Viktor closer and we visited him on board of his steel yacht s/y Slava. 

An extremely interesting figure, however, does not intend to write about his adventures to share with others… Many of his stories became lessons of sailing for us.
As I mentioned before we are busy with work. Although, for some time we managed to organize sessions of Yoga together with friends from another boat - and again, as before leaving Poland, our bodies got a great workout. Now we intend to get the training materials and practice more and more, if possible…


... And so once again Easter came. 

This time, Patricia baked the traditional Polish yeast cakes – also in Caribbean variation with the coconut... 

I’ll remind you on YouYou there is no oven so she used traditional method of baking "pot in pot". 

Baking bread, I can honestly say, has been brought to perfection - unless someone likes a thick, charred crust ;) now it looks like this :) 


There was also the queen of soups ;) and of course eggs! In many forms. I love Easter :)) And again we missed our homes and beautiful traditions of Easter there - here they are totally abstract...