I have loved water for a long time. I think I used to like taking a bath when I was a baby. As a child in primary school I always liked the school trip to Texel because then we went sailing by boat. That ferry service is still there as you know of course. My father was a navy man. He worked in the navy and sometimes I went with him to spend the night on a naval ship. That made me very happy.
When I was sixteen I started windsurfing and not long after that I also became a sailing instructor in Loosdrecht where the Loosdrecht lakes are. There I taught a lot in Optimists and Falcons. Those are a certain type of boats. Information about this can be found on the internet. Just look it up. By giving sailing lessons I already knew quite a lot about what it is like to sail on inland waterways. Those are all the lakes that we have so much in the Netherlands. But not what it's like to sail the sea. But first I went to the Higher Maritime School to get my diplomas for mate and engineer. A mate steers the ship and an engineer ensures that all the machines on those large freighters continue to work. A very nice profession. In that profession I have sailed all over the world. But those ships are so big that most of the time you have no idea at all that you are on the water. Once I had stopped sailing I was given the time to buy a yacht and go on trips with it.
That's what I did. In recent years I have sailed a lot at sea and we have also sailed around England with three men. Between Ireland and England.
That was a nice trip that we did in two weeks without stopping.
And what is it like to do now?
As with everything, it's likes and dislikes, easy and hard, exciting and boring.
Planning the trip, buying a boat, making contact with people in Sydney, getting there, doing the preparations; all very nice.
But when you leave it's less fun, you have to say goodbye and you may never see all those nice Australian people again.
Or if you have to spend a lot of money to get something right that you didn't count on; not fun.
Spending money is easy, but getting new money is difficult. Making friends is easy, but when your friends don't like you anymore, it's hard.
Starting the journey is exciting, but a month sailing on the Indian Ocean with only water around you can be quite boring.
But we hardly ever get bored. There is always something to do, such as writing a blog especially for school children!
If you want to write something back, you can send it to
kalo-sini@myiridium.netGreetings from the Kalosini, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
