Markus Mandemaker (NL), Atlantic crossing, Nov 2009 to Jan 2010 and Canary Islands to France, September 2013
Markus is one of Rolf’s regular sailing buddies. Like Peter he had the dream of crossing the Atlantic and made it come true. His sail trimming made us cross the atlantic in 22 days without wind!!! One day I woke up when I thought there was a storm, only to find 10 knots of wind and the ship going 6 knots. I went nuts.
Nele was supposed to join us for a cruise around the Canary Islands. Sadly the furling system broke so she settled for diving lessons instead. She managed to get her open water certification with flying colors! Her sailing skills didn’t get much development though, so she’ll have to get back on board to brush it up…
Roel was the partner of Heleen, the woman that this ship is named after. He joined us across Biscay and from Portugal to the Canary islands.
Antonio, the Spanish man who doesn’t speak Spanish was taken along by Roel as an extra crewmember from Portugal to the Canaries. He was so happy to arrive and speak Spanish again, only to find out that the first people he spoke to were dutch…
We met Melanie through the Black Swan on St Vincent during Baziel’s birthday party. Melanie and het partner Roderic, who is the manager of the Almond resort on St Lucia, have hosted us in their resort while they were getting diving lessons from Rolf. After that they enjoyed a cruise with us to Martinique where they both got certified as open water divers!
Barbados is an amazing place!
It is absolutely unreal how friendly people on such an island can be. So unreal that you believe that you are going to be ripped off, only to find yourself flabbergasted that people are just being friendly and don’t expect anything in return. This is not just because of some strange people we met there, but this goes really for everyone on the island!!! Simply amazing.
sailing yacht Helena 