It was a cold and wet start, feeling like winter sailing. We arrived in Oostende yesterday late afternoon where the fourth crew member signed on. Despite the strong wind warning, we decided to go out and make some more way west to Nieuwpoort and ended up motoring against big waves for 4 hours. There is not much room at the Belgian coast for beating to windward because of the many sandbanks. A low west of Portugal is moving over England providing mainly strong west winds for the next days. Not what we want. We will try to keep at the continental side of the channel for the time being. If everything comes out as we think, we will be in Cherbourg Wednesday afternoon.
The Time Has Come
After 35 years of dreaming, after many years of looking for the right boat, after a year of planning, preparations and upgrades, the time has come. On May the 3rd 2015 in the morning at 06:00 I will follow the “call of the running tide” and set sail. I will leave the Oosterschelde and sail into the North Sea to Belgium and across the English south coast, I will cross the English Channel to France, then cross the Bay of Biscay, I will round Cap Finistère and sail along the Portuguese coast all the way south to Spain and Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean. I will sail to the Baleares, to Sardinia and Sicily, I will drop anchor at Odysseus home island Ithaca and finally round Cap Sounion with its ancient temple of Poseidon and head north to Oropos where I will drop the anchor in the bay where I learned to sail when I was a child.