Travelling - Where we are and what we are doing
After turbulent and intense last weeks of travelling, we are currently enjoying the peace and quiet of a friends' house in Belgium. Here we have a big garden and a nearby park, supermarkets and cafés and above all, LOTS of space.
But how did we get here?
We never planned to stay in our friends' house for weeks in Belgium. And yet we've been here since 31 May and won't be leaving until the end of June.
Our life on the water, on Lady Blue, has been on pause since 12 May. On that day we boarded the plane in Antigua and off we went to New York. The plan was for Lady Blue to be loaded onto a freighter by a local skipper a week later, around 20 May, and then piggybacked across the Atlantic to England, Southampton. These large deck freighters travel at 17 knots on the ocean, so they only need 11 days to make the journey. And therefore we have assumed that we will move back onto our Lady in Southampton on 30 May and set sail again. Enjoying the last weeks of farewell sailing in summery Europe. Getting closer again, mile by mile, to our daily life in Solingen. A long "goodbye", so to speak. I think: a good plan. Especially since we discovered that the flights to England with a stopover in New York were cheaper than the direct flights. It was cheaper for us to travel to New York than not to travel to New York. I love this kind of creative math.
There are shipping companies. They own a lot of ships. And global shipping is disrupted for many reasons: Suez Canal, Ukraine War, other wars, suffering of Corona. And for our shipping company it was "cleverer" to send the ship to Antigua with a 5-week delay. Unfortunately, we found this out very late and also by means of the notorious salami tactics: the freighter arrives a few days later, ohh now a week later, it has become a few days later again, and again, and again... Now the provisional "reliable" date has been set: loading on 17 June in Antigua, unloading on 30 June in Southampton. We are curious.
Due to the salami tactics, we only slowly became aware of the complete failure of our plan. After the umpteenth delay, it was clear to us that "moving back on the boat in May" was not going to happen. What now? A family of five in travel mode without a boat, without a plan and virtually without luggage. We had packed for a good week, provided the weather was warm and dry. I can tell you: there are nicer moments. Countless ideas, thoughts and suggestions were buzzing through our heads: Julia's more realistic, mine more creative. A road trip through the USA, a road trip through Canada, exploring Cuba on foot and by bus, looking for sailing opportunities, or perhaps a trip to southern Germany to visit our parents, renting a motorhome in England and exploring the country, renting a cottage in Cornwall and experiencing the idyll described by Rosamunde Pilcher in real life? And while I'm a big fan of "having options", they were too powerful in this situation. We were temporarily homeless. And that was also the feeling: a bit of powerlessness, with a pinch of resignation garnished with lots of question marks.
We got out of this situation, once again, by "asking for help". We asked the sailing families, who are networked in a large WhatsApp group, for advice. In the middle of 2021, this WhatsApp group was created, originally for the family crews that crossed the Atlantic with the ARC, but after that, every sailing family that sailed in the Caribbean was added. We were lucky. You could put it that way. Or put another way: We got an answer. SV Sylvia, a Belgian family of four on their trip around the globe, replied that we could move into their house near Antwerp. The tenants had moved out a week ago and it was currently empty.
And so here we are: In Belgium, in a suburb of Antwerp. For three weeks. We enjoy our time here. Onboard school starts again in the morning after breakfast, six days a week. Julia and I have the peace and quiet to write here in the blog again. We go cycling a lot and enjoy nature.
And wait and hope that we can finally return to our Lady Blue at the end of June to enjoy a few more days of farewell sailing before it's off to Solingen for the five of us and Lady Blue will experience new adventures with new owners.
