In Nicaragua again.

We stay by a lake, the crater of a volcano, up the mountain at Susan's beautiful house.

The visit of the alcoholic gecko

Our little friend enjoy licking the top of our glass of rhum! Which reminds me of this movie"Animal are beautiful people" (that's the title I believe) where animals, girafes, elephants, monkeys...wait for the fruit of a special tree to rippen and ferment so they can get drunk!

New Year with a pig roast a la Hawaienne

Dig a big hole by the beach, build a fire inside the pit with drift wood. When you have a good heap of coals, wrap the pig in banana leaves, put it on a rack made of banana tree branches, cover it with banana leaves,then put back the earth so no air gets in , let it cook while you drink beers and rum and eat a tender and tasty pig few hours later! Happy New Year everybody et Bonne Annee!

Puntarenas is pretty good!

Swaggie is tucked in a little corner of the estuary and between sanding and painting, we relax at the swimming pool of the yacht club. When we are not on the boat, we are in Santa Teresa enjoying life with the kids...

And back in Costa Rica.

Swagman is waiting for us at the yacht club of Puntarenas, safe and sound but filthy, moldy and full of cucarachas. We scrape and clean 12 hours a day for 1o days and talk a little hollyday at Demian's paradise to visit the kids in Malpais. Then we take an oyster delivering trip to Tamarindo, meet some great french chefs and stay at a beautiful bed and breakfast, spanish style. We decide to get the Costa Rican flag so we still are at the marina, waiting to see what comes next.

Then to France for three months.

First Besancon with Domi's family, Besancon chez les Geneau, then I went camping on a beautiful island in the middle of the Loire with "Les Crecerelles", famille Hanouda and friends, une merveilleuse semaine sur une petite ile au milieu de la Loire avec les amis de Touraine, then Chalus with my Dad et mon village natale avec Papa et bien sur les parties de petanque. The 4 kids arrived in september. Une agreable surprise a l'aeroport. Mon cousin Sylvestre debarque de l'avion en provenance de Detroit quelques minutes avant l'arrivee les enfants! Reunion familiale au milieu de l'aeroport puis chacun part de son cote. At the airport, a wonderful surprise. My cousin Sylvestre arriving from Detroit appears at the door we are waiting at, a few minutes before the children. Totally unexpected! Big family reunion in the middle of Charles De Gaulle!
We have the most fun family vacation, les plus belles vacances de famille de notre vie, visiting friends and family, avec la famille et les amis a explorer les vignobles et a gouter les bons vins, ceux de notre ami Pierre par exemple, exploring and tasting the wines, especially the excellent wines of our friend, Pierre, Jura, Alsace, Burgandy, Provence, Bordeaux, a memorable visit of the Mouton Rotschild vinyard with Francoise, les vins de la Loire. We meet our canadian friend, Evangelo, in Signes, at Francoise and Samuel, Domi's sister and nephew's new home and go karting. On regarde la competition mondiale de surf a Hossegor et Demian and Stephane qui ont amene leur planche de surf ont la chance d'essayer quelques vagues le lendemain puis ils iront au Maroc faire le tour des plages a surf. On grimpe la dune du Pila, on visite Pierre en Bretagne, les vieux amis de Cherbourg and the musee d'Orsay in Paris where we stay with our good friends Pierre and Marie-France. On fait une ballade sur la Loire sur le bateau traditionnel, la Toux Cabanee de Pascal avec Karim et les enfants, on s'arrete sur une ile pour deguster quelques merguez cuites sur un petit feu de camp, repas arrose par un Chinon et suivi d'une sieste au soleil, on mange le bon couscous de Leila en regardant la finale mondiale de rugby avant de visiter le chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant, le magnifique chateau d'Usse. We drive to northern germany to visit our good friends Hedel and Herold, who are still sailing in the northern seas. 10 kilos later and mucho less dinero, we go back to Canada... to work for 2 weeks and it's still cold!

Back to work in Canada

So we have been traveling since the end of april. In Canada for three months, Domi fishing prawns and me substituying at the french school. It was great to eat prawns, see friends, go sailing with Dan off gibsons and with Ryan up Vancouver island, share Clea's birthday and take care of things, like income tax, banking and so on...but so cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Demian's paradise...and snakes.

We were told there is a snake in paradise. Well, on Demian's new property, there were three (actually five, with the two babies)! It's a beautiful park on the beach, snorkeling and surfing right there, monkeys, parrots, exotic birds, iguanas, mangos, star fruit, plantain, sweet bananas etc...and snakes. While cleaning the surroundings of the house, the gardeners found two boas, one digesting a big iguana and the deadly coral snake that kills you in 20 or 40 minutes, depending where it strikes! We put the snakes in a cooler and released them in the national reserve park at the end of the road. I understand why Demian wants his yard cleaned!

We are leaving Costa Rica by plane next week for Canada where Domi is going to fish prawns with Andre. Then we will fly to France to visit our families. It's not easy to leave the kids, this beautiful country and Noel and Rosie on their boat Enez. They are leaving for Ecuador, Galapagos and Chile. That's the part of cruising life that I don't like too much!

The boat is in Puntarenas, Costa Rica Yacht Club. a lovely place with nice, professional people and a swimming pool as we avoid swimming around the boat...because of the crocodiles passing by! Thought the boat sits on its keel at low tide, nicely dry, we feel Swagman will be safe here. There is security 24/7 and our friend Enrico and the kids will come and check off and on. So here we come again, springtime in Canada!

Granada in Nicaragua

We hopped in Nicaragua for few days to renew our papers. We loved Granada, built in the 152o's by the spaniards, the oldest town in Central America. No many cars, a leisurely pace, a vibrant mercado, it reminded us of the life of a village in the 50's. Domi and I had a second honeymoon (the first one was in 1971 when we hitchicked to the french west coast and slept in a ditch because by 2AM nobody had picked us up...but that was fine too), alone, at Suzanne's beautiful house. Swimming pool, antique furniture, plants and flowers, luxurious rooms. What a treat! We played tourist and had a tour of the many islands scattered on the humongous nicaraguan lake.

Still in costa Rica and loving it.

The tree on the rocks is called "The Jesus Tree" by the locals and they go there to pray for their loved ones. It's a nice walk along the beach of the bay. We refresh in the river, hoping the crocodiles won't show up!

Parties de petanque, snorkeling, soiree flamenco a Floblanca avec des navigateurs de passage, Richard et Andrea, en route vers l'Espagne, rencontres inoubliables avec Jeanne et Claude. Les hirondelles perchees sur les filieres du bateau nous reveillent chaque matin ainsi que les singes"howlers", les poissons me grignotent, ce que je n'apprecie pas toujours, lors de mes sceances de natation quotidiennes. Les enfants testent leur rapidite a echapper aux cornes des taureaux pendant le rodeo local de Cobano, les vaches se promenent en liberte dans la foret et ressemblent a des lapins avec leurs grands yeux et leurs oreilles pendantes...Nous sommes heureux ici avec les enfants.

The pictures we like

Anchored in Tambor, Bahia Ballena

We are enjoying the peaceful bay, swimmimng, working on the boat finishing all those little projects, writing, socializing with the local people and visiting old friends, relaxing. There is a wonderful organic market on saturday morning, fresh fish everyday at the fisherman pier and the kids in the neighbourhood. We just love it here, even when the papagayos, strong wind from the land, makes our sleep bouncy.