It is not the sea,

that we conquer,

but ourselves.

(based on Edmund Hillary)

Hello and welcome

On these pages I report on my extraordinary trips with my Waarschip 725, a small boat with which I ventured to the western European coast and the Atlantic. At home in Hamburg, I was interested in the west and south-west of Europe.

In 2016, I sailed as far as northern France.

In 2018, I did a lap of the English Channel, visiting England and Brittany.

Then, from 2022 to 2024, there was a long trip around Portugal and Spain.

These were voyages of discovery that took me not only to other sailing areas, but also to other ways of life and cultures. And it was a journey to myself.

I had to master the navigational challenges of the coastal sections of northern and western France, the north coast of Spain and the west coast of Portugal. I avoided the high seas and hardly sailed through the night. Instead, I had to deal with the special sea conditions, currents and weather conditions, especially at the many capes, from Cap de la Hague to Cabo de São Vicente and Gibraltar.

I was shown a lot of respect by French, Spanish and Portuguese sailors, especially in relation to my very small boat. I also experienced a level of politeness, warmth and smiling faces that I had hardly ever experienced before. Of course, this also left its mark on me, in addition to the ‘Coraçao no mar’ (heart in the sea), as the intimate connection to the sea is called in Portugal.

My life in a confined space was rewarded with an endless horizon and a lot of peace and quiet. I experienced a distance from a crazy world full of things you don’t need and a distance from a world full of useless discourse. Outta Babylon!!!

January 2025