We sailed through the world's cleanest ocean water and visited some fantastically remote Islands and reefs.
Such as, Isla La Blanquila....Isla Orchila...Islas Los Roquos...Isla de Aves, all are Venezuelan offshore islands and reefs Islands. Truly an explores and snorkeling  paradise.....white little sand islands with 1 or 2 palm trees on them "just like in the cartoons", shipwrecks on coral reefs, freighters, yacht's, Venezuelan fish boats.
Booby breeding grounds....nest's with large white chicks......booby's dive bombing you while swimming in the water......beachcombing.....hiking.....snorkeling. Now underwater is a totally different world here.....unlimited visibility and some of the world's most beautiful reefs "ever".....with an incredible amount of different fish and other sea life.... and very many of them are pretty large fish also.....truly a divers paradise!

"But"
How unfortunate to see what ....."WE".... do to it!
Not just 1...not just 2....not just 3 .....NO, EVERY WHERE....on all the windward beaches......on the most remote place on earth........"for as far as the eye can see"!

tin cans
nylon rope
glass bottles
pop bottles
buckets
shoes
gas containers
old tires
plastic water bottles....hundreds!
plastic pop bottles
plastic motor oil bottles
plastic containers
plastic soap containers
plastic crates
plastic hoses
plastic, plastic...everywhere
plastic .........you name it.......anything plastic.
plastic...Plastic..PLastic..PLAstic...PLAStic..PLASTic...PLASTIc.....

every where you look......the windward beaches are covered in it!

It is like this in the North Pacific.....South Pacific.....North Indian Ocean....South Indian Ocean....South Atlantic....North Atlantic....Mediterranean....and any other ocean or sea!

The reality is that everywhere in the whole WORLD, beaches are covered with "OUR PLASTIC".

It's true, I have seen it with my own eyes.....walked through it.......cursed....cried.... and decided to let you know!

It is "our" choice......we do it...we can stop doing it.... "IT IS OUR CHOICE" .....yours!....mine!

When will we learn?.........When will we ever learn?...........Now is a good time!
 

We sailed on to Bonaire and Curacao.......great "day sails"
What lovely Islands these are and I am not saying that because I am Dutch..... Stanley picked them as his favorites as well!
Great towns with "unique" architecture, very well maintained, red tile roofs, colorful paint jobs, very nice detail on the buildings, fun restaurants and bars, great supermarket loaded with Dutch "treats".

Bonaire. Caution no1 the chart reads...."no anchoring".
Smart move...it works....the reefs are pristine and totally undamaged....the world comes here to dive...this has become the number one income for the Island, hats off, well done!!

"Well Paul, it is not that I am not enjoying my self, but I think I'd like to pass on sailing the long 1400 miles offshore passage to Cuba". So Stanley decided to fly home from Willemstad in Curacao. Thanks Stanley...for your many laughs, camaraderie and the good times we shared....fly safely!

Well you don't need a lot of fresh food when you only have to feed one mouth, so shopping was fast and dirty.

Hmmmm... Now let me see....it's been a while since I sailed single-handed, done lot's of it in the past...do I still know how to do this?......I always consider it a little bit of a treat!
The Ar Seiz Avel is set up so I can easily sail her alone, because with students on board learning the ropes, I have to be able to work everything alone at all times.

Well it was a "full on" from the start.
Wind's up at 20 to 25 out of the NE, steep seas with the Ar Seiz Avel blasting through on a starboard tack reaching with a no3 Genoa and a reefed mainsail......Great daily runs!.

Day one.....168 miles .......Day two.....160 miles...... Day three...164 miles... Day four..152 miles...Yaah!

I get up every hour to check for traffic and have the "radar detector" on all the time....the electronic one and my 6th sense. This system works quite well while sailing short handed with minimal risk!
 

I sailed past Jamaica without stopping and with lot's of freighter traffic, "not too much sleep that night"
Next stop Cayman Islands. Two days later the whale encounter happened.
 

May 04 Saturday 2pm
I just want to share this with you while it is still hot!
This is what happened about 45 minutes ago!
I feel really bad about this!

We are sailing wing to wing...full main...no 3 poled to SB, sailing at about 4 to 5 knots....clear sky's...light seas...hot sun!I am sitting on the SB side in the cockpit under the awning, just having finished my lunch with home made banana bread for desert.

Al of a sudden...."BAAAAANG"....the whole boat shudders......"WE HIT SOMETHING"....."HARD"
 I jump up...startled and ready for I don't know what!
No boats.....Ooooh no.....maybe a container....I look into the water......than I see a whale .....2 whales..... they are right next to me....only a few feet away.......2 inches away from the hull
The big tail comes up for a deep dive but it is in vain because she cannot dive "the boat is in the way"....right next to the whale...to her right....is a baby whale.
A lot of huffing and puffing.... the whales try to turn to swim a way.....at first I thought they are coming for the boat...... but they turned away.....now they are heading straight for the towing generator and my fishing line that we are towing...... Oooooh no......let's not get tangled in that!!! ......but thank goodness they are slow in recuperating and everything slides by harmlessly as the boat continued sailing on her course....still sailing at 4.5 knots.
Right behind the whales is a large brown spot of what looks like oil in the ocean.....it is at least 15 feet in diameter....first I thought is was blood.... but it was behind the whales and it did not look red at all....looked more like oil to me.
I follow the mother and calf as they swim away.....they continue on their course......both are swimming on the surface .....breathing.....again breathing....they seemed to be ok ......they swim on....getting smaller, disappearing in between the waves....just two whales in this big open ocean!...and one lone sailboat surrounded by hundreds of miles of "nothing".
I feel really sorry for the whale that we hit.
I think it was the mother we hit....hopefully she can shake off the blow!.....the calf never looked panicked at all!

Now how about us?......did we shake of this blow?....how about the Ar Seiz Avel?
It sounded loud and bad, but it could have been louder and more of a jolt.
I lift the floorboards up in the forward cabin.....it's dry....looks okay, I lift a few more floorboards in the main cabin........also check the bilge pump.....so far so good...it's dry!...nice to have a strong well built boat!
I check the hull outside on the starboard side of the boat.....looks okay!...everything looks okay!
Time will tell...I guess!

This is something I cannot understand at all.
I am sailing in the middle of the ocean, no land nearby.
We are only 33 feet at the waterline. I have a hard time finding the keel underwater coming back from snorkeling....we are smaller than a comma on a totally blank computer screen.
The whale we hit.....or should I say .....the whale that swam into us.....was no bigger than 15 feet.....[luckily].....just the chances of being on a collision course are sooooo remote - maybe this is a good time to buy a lottery ticket!
I never saw the whales until we collided...but for the whales not notice the Ar Seiz Avel really surprises me....baffles me is more like it. The ocean is their home, I am only a visitor, blunt and ignorant, but the whales have very sophisticated sounding capabilities.
Who knows, maybe mother got caught daydreaming and not paying attention.....or maybe just a bad day!

I had a good look...(too good of a look I am afraid) at the whales....looking it up in my little guide they turned out to be a Pygmy Sperm whale. They get to about 12 feet long weighting "only" about 1,000 pounds .
Rather hit that than their name sake, "the real big sperm whale at 60 feet long".
The picture of the whale also shows a brown discharge behind the whale, so maybe this is something normal for these whales.

I hope they are okay and mom has no more than a headache and I hope we don't develop a leak later!
Glad we did not hit the calf!

In spite of all this .......the dolphins and the whales are still my brothers!
 

May 05 Thursday 10 pm
"I am not turning in until Venus has set below the horizon", that is what I promise myself because this truly is a magnificent sight.. One of those very rare perfect nights...you have to sail a long time to experience this.
Sitting in the cockpit ..naked...running lights off. .no clouds....no Moon...'"but"...stars...stars..stars.. big and small...from horizon to horizon. We are sailing in a unique location at this time with the big dipper and the North star off the starboard side...ahead of us the 3rd brightest body in the sky - Venus (only the sun and moon are brighter)....to port forward Orion's belt and the brightest star of them all, Serious....and still the Southern cross is clearly visible to the south of us....what a beauty...what a fantastic creation.
I sat there for hours...taking in the rare beauty of the night sky with the sound of the boat moving gently through the water.
Totally "Magic"......Thanks creator...what a great show!!!
 

May 07 Friday 1300hr
"Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" ..........I leap up from the chart table, the fishing rod is all bend over with line flying off the reel.
"Now take your time" I am telling myself because I really would like to eat some fish tonight.
Easier said than done....at the end of the line which happens to be very far out (in order to clear the towing generator), I see a BIG dorado leaping out of the water! "Remember don't ever give him a slack line he'll spit the hook"
We are still sailing at 5 knots. 45 minutes later I have got the safety gates open in the cockpit....wearing my thick leather gloves.....with this Super big Dorado "water-skiing" next to the boat....head out of the water.
"Now you know you are only going to get one chance at this...so do it right"....."okay, okay got it".
With one mighty heave perfectly timed with a passing wave......."Flaaap" there she goes into the cockpit.....Waaaaauw I cannot believe it....this is the biggest dorado I have ever caught on this boat.....at least 20 pounds. Quickly I get the alcohol out and spray it in it's mouth and gills......as he is peacefully dying you can see the beautiful green colour of the fish turning into a gray silver.
Sorry to kill you.... but thank you for coming my way! Yes you guessed right.....Paul's fish and chip night onboard the Ar Seiz Avel.
 

May 15 2002                                      
Marina Hemmingway Cuba    "Glad to be here safe and sound".                                                       

As I had expected, after rounding Cabo San Antonio (which is the most Western point of Cuba) the last 180miles was uphill from there on. But Oh boy.....and it really went uphill......it really started blowing harder, then harder again, harder than any other day on this trip. 25 to 30 knots on the nose is very difficult and tiring sailing.......not much sleep....a lot of crashing into some very steep seas, spray and salt everywhere. Tacking a lot during the day and throughout the night. Finally after two days the wind finally eased off a little, this life a lot more pleasant
Sailed 249 miles in 3 days to make a 180 miles in the right direction.

"buenos dias captain" the coast guard officer sits at the chart table while 5 off his crew are searching the boat going throughout, every locker, lifting floorboards, opening sail bags, checking the reading material, personal belongings, they look just about everywhere you can think off....just routine....it's like this when you check in, apparently also when you check out, which makes no sense at all!
Welcome to a different world!
                                                           
Fair winds
Paul Mulder