Happy holidays and all the best for 2010!

Latin America road-trip

Las Bovedas, Cartagena

Past November a business trip took me in just 11 days to six countries: Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica and USA (technically, it was seven as I had a short stop-over in Panama City).

The mandatory juicy & greasy burger for lunch, South Beach, Miami

Incredible enough, the careful but extremely tight schedule worked out perfectly, and the meetings and flights happened as planned..the only two hiccups were a missing dinner with Justin, Borja and Diego in Miami as it took me two hours to clear customs there (urrgrg) and the stressful flight to San José without the mandatory yellow-fever shot that is required in Costa Rica when travelling from Colombia. (don't ask me how I got into the country ;-)

Getting ready for the Desfile de Balleneras, Cartagena

The highlight of the trip was the opportunity to meet good friends along the way: Paulo, Carol and Jakob in Sao Paulo, Francois & Karen in Santiago, Diego and Daniel in Miami, and specially to be able to hang out with Anton in Cartagena in the just by pure coincidence THE weekend of the year in Colombia, the crowning of Miss Colombia. The national event there. (we made it incognito into the Colombian yellow press... ;-)

Impressive view from Diego's apartment, Flamingo Blg, Miami Beach

Santiago and the Andes

Getting introduced to the new Walewski

With the mandatory sake maracuja caipirinha at Spot, Jardins, Sao Paulo

33rd AC finally in February and finally in Valencia

Thank God the legal mess of the past three years is finished. Alinghi lost all cases and appeals and the final decision is that Valencia will host the duel between BOR and Alinghi next February.

The deed of gift specifies a best of three match starting Monday, Feb 8th. Both parties could reach an agreement to start Friday Feb 12th, and extend the match to best of five or seven. Hope they decide fast as I need to book my flights!! :-)

XIII Copa del Canal 2009

Our great 2009 crew

Awesome weather in Formentera with empty beaches

working/trimming hard our brand new spy

herewith some pics from the last regatta of the season...as mentioned before Facebook is killing the blog star...anyhow, I'll try to do a wrap up of the last weeks here...lot of things to report!

Our bowman, Martin, had to climb the mast to untangle a halyard. not an easy one