Captains Blog

April ;  I hauled out and the dry NE Trade arrived that day and the rain stopped.

April and the dry NE trades arrive. This is the fish wind.

I am finally getting to the Blog after so much grief from all my friends and family.”Hey Fixe, what’s going on ? When are you going to update the Blog?”       (fixe is pronounced ‘fish’ in Portuguese and translates ‘cool’)

Well here I am at last and will do my best to give you a brief summary of 2010 so far.   This year did not start out very well for Madeira.

February ;  Catastrophic floods and never ending rain.  I must take my hat off to the local Maderians  and tell you I have never seen any people work so hard and with such determination to get their island back together and have the town of Funchal repaired and functional.  The destruction was unbelievable and more lives were lost than we will ever know about.  My admiration and Deepest sympathy goes out to all the people of Madeira.

The Dry Dock next to the marina closed and there was nowhere to haul a boat.  The two small haul-out facilities left open were full. So we all had to wait.   For me it was a blessing in disguise.  I found an artist in Stainless  work who built my roof structure as good if not better than anyone in the world.  I dont think I have ever been so happy with any job on the “Katherine B”.

Strong SW winds all winter, full of moisture and malice. This Cocos Palm is my weather vane right out my kitchen window