The Big Departure

Right, finally half an hour to spare to post a quick update. The last few months have been hectic, working on the boat, first at KM in Makkum and then the last 3 weeks at home. The time has flown by. Steering freelancers, pushing and pulling. Explaining to painters what colour something is. Loading chain. Putting the entire interior back in – cushions, mattresses, stuff; everything except the tools had been sitting in the house.

DHL, TNG and UPS were working overtime, usually with several deliveries a day. Replacing, changing, upgrading.

The end result, although still hard to see through the mess, is going to be there. We now have air conditioning in the forepeak (for marinas in the tropics). An electric stove, so no more gas on board. A watermaker, mainly for the Pacific, where clean water is harder to come by than diesel. For the enthusiasts: a 24V Frigomar that draws between 200 and 700 W, so we can occasionally stay cool overnight on the batteries. A GN Espace OceanChef, the same brand we already had. An extra Mastervolt Chargemaster 3000 that supplements the existing Mastervolt Mass Sine inverter to give the 5 kW needed for the stove. And a Schenker Zen 50, which is also fairly frugal with power thanks to pressure energy recovery. On top of that a new stainless steel anchor chain (120 m), and the paintwork has been touched up, including new non-skid on the deck. Pretty much all the lines have been replaced.

So what are we actually going to do? The plan is now settled all the way to Japan in the middle of next year. This year the route is:

• Harlingen - Lisbon, July to 18 August. Our son Arnold is sailing with us for a few weeks, our daughter Ella for the whole leg.
• Lisbon - Madeira, 8 to 18 October, with old friend Koen and his wife Saskia. This is a passage where there’s almost always wind, and from the right direction too. Hopefully not too much, as it’s Saskia’s first time at sea for that long.
• Madeira - Canary Islands. Arnold joins us again for this stretch. We finish in Tenerife.
• Tenerife - Cabo Verde. More old friends, Kommer-Jan and Tanneke, fly into Tenerife on 14 November. That gives us a bit of time to do the provisioning for the crossing and update the medical kit (Tanneke is a GP).
• Cabo Verde - Suriname. Kommer-Jan and Tanneke’s son Sietse flies into Sao Vicente (Mindelo) on 27 November, and a few days later our final crew member, Mark Owens, comes aboard. Mark works for B&G and would like to see how we use their gear, and this way I can do something in return for all the kit they’ve provided.
• Around 10-12 December we hope to arrive in Suriname. Marion and the kids arrive a week later; Arnold and Ella fly home again in early January, and Marion doesn’t have a return ticket yet.

In 2026 it carries on at a brisk pace:

• Suriname - Bonaire, with at least my nephew Abbie. Abbie loves diving; we already have one of his tanks on board. So in Bonaire we can do some nice diving (or learn to).
• Bonaire - Curacao - Aruba. In Curacao we’ll look up some friends (never been there before), and of course Aruba, where we were so warmly welcomed after corona and made new friends.
• Aruba - Panama. The current plan is to do this at the end of March/early April. Crew is Sander Alberda and possibly Maarten Vrakking – both from around here in Harlingen.
• Panama Canal. Crew Marion, Arnold and Rudolf Onnes.
• Panama - Hawaii. Crew Arnold and Rudolf.
• Hawaii - Japan. Crew Eeuwe.

We’re now almost ready to leave; just a few last-minute niggles to sort out. The air conditioning intake was leaking a bit of water, some old hydraulic oil suddenly turned up in the bilge, and the weed filter for the water ballast has split.