The Big Crossing
It’s now Wednesday afternoon, 3 December, and we left Mindelo at around half past ten, bound for Suriname (Paramaribo). The distance is still 1853 miles as the crow flies, and we expect to arrive in about 10 days. …
Cruising
Mindelo!
At a quarter past five we arrived at the marina in Mindelo. Waiting for a marina guy, mooring to a buoy with the stern to the pontoon, dinghy off, Watt&Sea off, lines made fast, dinghy on deck, sail cover on. Now for …
Hooray, it's someone's birthday!
According to the calendar it’s Friday today. And since we left on Tuesday, that makes this our fourth day at sea already. The days run into one another. You stand a four-hour watch at night and you spend all the …
First Day and Night at Sea
First day and night out on the open sea, the wind lifts us up and we sail along free. Nine knots go singing past the bow, the land fades out, there’s only horizon now. Waves are rushing, whitecaps dance, …
On the way to Saudade
Right, we’ve just put on the album Miss Perfumada by Cesaria Evoria, because we’re almost out of Spanish waters. Tanneke and Kommer Jan arrived on Saturday evening after what was a pretty long flight. Lovely …
New dinghy (work in progress)
The day before yesterday it was already time to take Marion to the airport. She’d been flat out at home with all the Milûk business and caught up on plenty of sleep. Read a good book (“What We Can Know” …
Automatic emails for new posts
I’ve added something so you can now automatically get an email whenever a new blog post goes up. To sign up, head over to the subscribe page. If you’re already getting the emails, there’s obviously no …
The Crossing and Our First Week on Tenerife
After a good week, Arnold came back to reinforce the crew. One last quick visit to Paz, and the very next day we were off again because of the weather forecast. Plenty of wind on the first day this time, but if we waited …
A Glass of Madeira
Marion came aboard in Tenerife last night, 6 November 2025, arriving on the very same plane that Arnold was taking home. Funny, because they even got to say a quick hello: Arnold was still in the check-in queue when …
Centro Nautico Algés
It’s Sunday 5 October today, and I’ve been back on the boat for a week already. Plenty of boat jobs have been done again, including yet more changes to the navigation “black box” space. Since the …
Lisbon
On the third day after Porto, Ella and I arrived in the bay that is also home to Lisbon. We spent the first afternoon and evening in the anchorage off Cascais. Ella had already been ashore there with her friends, so we …
Spanish Rías and Porto
Last week we left Sada in “the usual weather”, heading for the western rías (rivers, though low-lying fjords would be a better description). By the usual weather I mean the “Portuguese Northerly”, …