If you follow us on social media, you know we struggled to leave the Azores. We prepared the boat, stock up, and double-checked the weather. All looked very promising. But on the morning of the departure, as we were ready to get the engine on for departure, my anxiety kicked in and reached new heights. I felt very nervous, was sweating, and only the thought of leaving gave me chills. We always feel nervous before […]
Usually one of us writes a blog, the other one edits a bit and then we publish it. But after Saskia wrote this blog, and Miguel edited it, we realized (again) that we experience crossings so differently and we thought would be good to publish both versions. This is Saskia’s version, later we will publish Miguels! And another thing I realized after sorting out our photos: all the photos show nice, calm seas. It would […]
We always try to be as honest as possible about what is going on in our blog, videos and Instagram. This is one of the reasons we loved that we had found a way to keep on posting blogs during our crossing. Our experience is that you get a better image how things really are, if you write straight away.This blog has (mostly) been written underway, but on purpose published after arriving. The blogs we […]
We did it! Friday around 13.00h we arrived in Horta, after 22 days at sea. The last miles we used the engine, since there wasn’t any wind to sail. We cleaned the boat a bit and after that Miguel for 16 hours. Today we’ve done our PCR test. Just like Madeira, the Portuguese has organized this perfectly! Yesterday the came by us to give us a form to fill out and today we got picked […]
We left Sint Maarten 2 weeks ago. After sailing close to the wind for days, we had a couple of really calm days, but thanks to our spinaker we still sailed most of the times. Yesterday the wind started to build, and with the wind the seasate. Until now, we only saw 15 knots of wind (except from the squalls), now it goes up to 26 knots. The wind and waves are coming from the […]
After the first week of slamming into the waves, we change our course to the North. At the same time, the waves become smaller, which gives us a couple of days of great sailing. The clouds in my head go away and instead of just looking out of the cockpit, talking to passing birds and making stories by what I see in the clouds, I am able to listen to podcasts, watch some movies and […]
One week into our crossing to the Azores, time for an update! Until know we haven’t been able to write a blog. Miguels updates on predict wind are short. I guess this shows that we are still trying to get into a routine, adapting to life at sea. The start of our crossing was completely different then leaving Mindelo in January. We left together with our friends from Flyer. We had a very pleasant sail, […]
Miguel was the one who spotted land this morning. Almost there! Yesterday was a though day. In the morning we had 95 nm to go to the Azores. The wind and waves came from Azores, so we had to tack our way up. 12 hours later we had sailed plenty of miles, but only 30 of them where directly towards Horta. One after the other we got messages that our friends had arrived, we kept […]
We can not believe how time flies! When we arrived in Dominica, we thought we would stay here for about 3 weeks, but it has already been more than a month! It didn’t help that we found water in our bilge a day before our planned departure. We found out it was a membrane from our watermaker pump that broke. Happy to have found the source, but it did delay us! But first, let’s talk […]
Stress, stress, stress! That’s what provisioning gives me! Although I love to organize, to plan and to make lists, provisioning is never easy for me. I have read a lot about how others provision, but the end advise is always the same: you need to do it your way, because you know what you like to eat and drink. I really think we should cross an ocean twice: at least the second time we might […]
On the 2nd of February we arrived at St. Vincent. We got a lovely warm welcome from our friends Oliver and Karlijn from Flyer (for the Dutch readers: www.flywithus.nu). It is so nice to arrive somewhere and be welcomed by people we know! The last day of our trip was very smooth: good wind, nice seastate: very relaxing. We told each other that if this would continue, we wouldn’t mind the trip not yet ending. […]
Day 12… Day 13… Day 14…Days are becoming blured into a very long one… with the weather staying the same, with nothing special happening and the 6h shifts pattern, it’s hard differentiating the days. If not for the fact that I do a logbook entry, I would have no idea how long we’ve been out here. So we keep on going. We passed our 2/3 of the way mark. Nice! No real celebration but we […]
Day 9, what a fantastic day! We finally hit out halfway mark: 1100nm(1980km) complete! Most cruisers have something planned for this event. We did not. From my side it was a mix of not sure if we’d make it this far, and/or feeling I’d jinx it. Luckily for us, Helena from SV Freedom heard about this and prepared a present for us to open. What an amazing present that was! Gift after thoughtful gift, full […]
We’ve now entered day 8 of our crossing. This is the longest we’ve ever been at sea and the longest we’ve sailed without engine! We’re quite proud of it! To be honest, if there wasn’t that long to go to the other side (or if we had enough fuel aboard), I would have turned on the engine a few times already. Times like now! I’m desperate to get the sails to stop flapping. But it’s […]
Yesterday I went to bed at 6:00 and Saskia took over. Just as she was coming up the wind picked up (finally) and there was no need to make any change in our sail set up! Great! That means I can go to sleep comfortably without hearing sails flapping, that really sounds like the boat is coming apart when you sit inside. After waking up I went about the usual: checked the batteries the consumption […]
(Written on the night of day #6 but fell asleep before pressing send) After days of +25kt winds and big waves making the boat feel like a washing machine, we’re faced with the opposite. Almost too little wind to sail! The wind has dropped to about 10kt, which makes it really hard to sail. The sails start flapping, the boat speed plummets to nearly halve and it feels we’re stuck in the water. Hard to […]
Day 4 finished so well! We were quite excited for day 5, expecting it to get even better conditions. But that’s not how the weather works. In the middle of the night the winds and seastate started to build. By lunch, the waves had disengaged the autopilot around 8 times. But this can’t be a reason to just lounge around. I went to the kitchen for some power cooking (that’s what I call cooking and […]
Yestersay we were reading updates from boats close to us. Risa said they’re keeping up their exercise routine, White Pearl has been cooking omelets and chili con carne, Off Course has been gourmeting on their caught mahi-mahi by cooking steaks and ceviche, and Philos even went up the mast to get a halyard. H O W ? ? ! Saskia and I hear about this and are really amazed that people can be this active. […]
On our last passage from La Gomera do Cape Verde, I spent all my time on shift watching shows and writing little messages. So I thought: on the next passage, since I can’t edit videos, I should put an effort on writing a blog. Well… things are not turning out as expected but at the start of our day 3, I put an effort. The conditions are so rolly and windy, that my brain’s capacity […]
After many weather updates and running around town trying to fix our liferaft, we finally thought wise to leave to the Caribbean. In the last week we had almost constant winds of +15kt gusting +30kt at anchor. The wind was coming from land, and the holding for the anchor is superb, making the conditions at anchor very reasonable. Still, it made the idea of leaving a very uncomfortable one! I kept on thinking “if the […]
We’re storing the last things aboard, and taking out our heavy weather gear. After we’ll go in the water to clean the dinghy from all the growth, and do the same to the rudder and prop. And of course, take one last shower. After that, we should be ready to go! 2200nm to the next destination: St Vincent. Scary and exciting, but looking forward for it too. It feels like being in the queue to […]
Sailors write their plans in sand. Sounds romantic, doesn’t it? I see a pretty beach, nice sunset, sandcastles, candles and maybe a cocktail if I hear this saying. This saying is very true, but for me, the mental picture I have with it, is not at all how reality feels for me. I like structure, I like order (although Miguel will disagree with that one, seeing how messy I can be sometimes). If I have […]
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean sounds like a massive thing to do. Not as massive as crossing the Pacific , but still: massive! And at the same time if feels like something we are ‘just’ doing. I think this is because it has been part of our life for such a long time now, and we know and see so many people do it, that it almost becomes normal. I say almost, because I don’t think […]
Before we start to talk about things we need, we want to say this: So far we have used this blog to take you with us on our journey. We also have released videos on YouTube. From now on we will use our videos to tell you about our journeys, trips and adventures and we will use this blog to dig a bit deeper into some subjects. Please let us know if there is anything […]
It is time to do some catching up! We are a bit more then two months into our trip at the moment and we can say it has been a trip with ups and downs. In our last blog about our trip you can read how we reached France and how we have spent our time there. After this, it was time to cross the Bay of Biscay! Do you prefer to watch a video […]
A while ago we posted a blog about a couple of our decisions before departing on on our trip. Today we want to show you a couple more decisions we have made, and for some of them, how we enjoy them! Safety equipment Some things we really wanted/needed to buy before leaving were a life raft and an EPIRP. Our life raft is almost 10 years old and it needed to be serviced. Apparently this […]
We have arrived in Plymouth, but we did not plan to stay in Plymouth for a long time, so after two days we left towards France. When we left we weren’t sure if we would go to Brest or if we wanted to keep on going and cross the Bay of Biscay in one go. We wanted to check the weather forecast when we were closer to France and decide then. The trip to France […]
YES! We finally did it, we left the Netherlands!It wasn’t at all how we imagined it. In our heads it would be proper summer with lots of sun, feeling excited and everyone in Amsterdam Marina coming out to see us leave our berth. Well, we did not expect that last part, but we definitely expected sun. But when we left there wasn’t any. It was cold, grey and rainy. The trip First, we had to […]
I know, I know, work on the boat will never be finished, so we probably can keep on saying we are almost ready, but looking at our whiteboard: the list is really getting short! So short, that at the moment only last minute to do’s are on it, like taking away the trash and filling the water tanks. The last blog finished with us sailing to Kampen, a little town in the centre of the […]
We started very well with posting regular blogs, but then we got tied up in work again… So this post is about our final preparations. Yes, final, because the time we will be able to leave is coming closer and closer! But what we did first, was going away on a little break. We went away to the Markermeer and stayed anchored there for two days. Great weather and a great place to relax a […]
Here we are, inside Saetta, trying to keep warm. Last week we had amazing days, but the last couple of days it has been wet and windy! But a bit of rain is a good thing, so we keep busy with inside jobs, like writing this entry! So what happened last week? A few things were crossed off the to-do list. I think we are finally at a point that when we cross a to-do […]
Hiya! How are you doing? We are doing okay, keeping busy with our projects. This week we realised that sometimes we are so busy working on the boat, we forget it is a sailboat and we should go out sailing now as well! We will definitely keep an eye on the weather and see when we will have a good day to go out.But for now.. Work, work, work! This is what we’ve been busy […]
It is unbelievable how many decisions we need to make in our preparations! Miguel keeps on working through our to do list and when he is not busy fixing things, he is searching for material, solutions and the best deals online.As said before, we can not leave at the moment due to Covid-19, but this does give us time to prepare more and finish things we were planning on finishing on the way.Our Instagram gives […]
What a bizarre couple of weeks it has been! One week we were slightly aware of a virus somewhere far, far away, and all of a sudden it was near and the world changed significantly. We mostly experience this when we read the news since it is quite easy to live in our own liveaboard bubble: I work from home, groceries are getting delivered and there is not much need to go outside, other than […]
The trip to Norway was an adventure that began a few weeks prior to departure. It started when the boat came out of the water for a new paint undercoat and anode replacement. Things went well and the boat was put back in without incidents. A week later we were about to leave for a weekend trip away in preparation for Norway. As I put in reverse to get out of the berth, the engine […]
It was 5 years ago that Miguel sent me a photo of him in front of a boat, saying he just bought it. The idea was not completely new to me, we went to a boat viewing together, but to actually buy a boat, was taking the whole thing a step further. Miguel’s dream has always been to travel a lot. For me, it has not been like that. I grew up in a relatively […]
I love being alone. Don’t get me wrong, I love being with Miguel, but I really need my time alone as well. When I was living in the apartment, that was not a problem, but living together on a boat, taking time for yourself can be a bit harder. Miguel does not like the idea of me being alone on the boat. I have to admit: when I wasn’t living here, I did not pay […]
Now we are at our first destination, Stellendam. What should we do? We decided to stick around Stellendam for a few days. This gave Saskia time to go on an interview and for me to have a look at the furler and engine. Easy checks, and no damage to equipment. Great news! The day after, the weather was still playing up, so we decided to walk around Stellandam’s, especially through its seaside. It is no […]
Summer is here! And I am tired of boatwork! It is time for a nice long sail, put to test all that has been updated, and try to get some colour on our skin. The thing is, it does not feel very summery; 18 degrees and forecast of rain. Hey, it is the Netherlands. Plus, “bad” weather will not keep us from going. It is 7:30 in the morning on Sunday 14th July. The passage […]
Miguel has been living aboard for a while now, whilst I stayed at the apartment during the week. I have been resisting moving into the boat mostly because the 2 hours travel distance to work. But also because the idea of living aboard seemed a bit uncomfortable to me. Especially in winter, it can be quite cold and the idea of having to walk to the main building for showers does not sound very appealing. […]
Happy New Year!A lot has happened in 2019. We worked on the boat, we enjoyed the summer by going for sails, just the two of us, and with friends. During our summer holiday, we sailed to Zeeland. We anchored for the first time overnight. We bought a hammock (one of the essentials on a boat). We had parties. We had sad moments. We met new people. We created this website and an Instagram account. Saskia […]
It was the summer of 2009. I was putting the final touches on my Master’s thesis when a friend invited me for a few days at his place in Albufeira – for those who have not been to Albufeira, it is a city on the south of Portugal that gets crowded with young people for its great beaches, parties and bars. Why not, I thought. Orthographic correction plus waiting for the thumbs up from the […]
Humanity’s affinity for water is undeniable. Think “holiday” and you will struggle not to picture a beach. Think of the colour blue and, not only will most consider it their favourite colour, they will also associate it with qualities of calm and wisdom. Go back to the first civilization in ancient Mesopotamia, and you will find Nammu, Goddess of the Sea, who birthed the first gods. Water as a source of spirituality and wellbeing is […]
We are Miguel and Saskia, a young(ish) couple living aboard Saetta in Amsterdam. Since getting the boat 5 years ago I dreamt to swap the comfort and safety of harbour for the adventures and beauty the sea has to offer. Life, however, had other plans. It has been a constant set of trials and tribulations, and a rollercoaster of emotions that pushed each other and the relationship to its limits. But not all is bad […]
