Victor Too is now for sale. Everything has been cleaned, some small repairs made, and the hull antifouled. She's ready to go - hopefully on to new adventures!
This is the site with for sale specs.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
My challenge
Being awake at night from the christmas eve celebrations and the assorted meal and wines leads to thinking.
It's been six months since my return and I'm still trying to cope with coming back. The realization is slowly seeping in that I am perhaps seriously altered from the experience. At first, nothing much seemed to have changed from who I was before. I did behave a bit differently, but then I had just come back from a year off, so nothing quite out of the ordinary there. Upon completing the much wanted journey, I ended up not wanting much. It was as if wanting itself had ceased, although I didn't realize this right away. I was just content, happy with how it had turned out. I didn't really do an evaluation, partly because it's simply rather impossible to attribute any one conclusion to the assessment of such a vast body of experience.
But of course, I did make an appraisal of what went on. It was one of deep satisfaction. Not just about something defined or even any one thing in particular, but about everything. About life. About my existence. It went deep.
Six months hence, and I see that this led me to some complacency but also a temporary suspension of dissatisfaction. I was no longer looking for more, like I've been doing for the last 12 years or so. It must have been strange to see someone who was always looking to do the other thing, the thing not many people sought after. Even though I have always been convinced it isn't such an odd thing to do, and still am, it is an unusual course to lead. I now see that the path traveled came from wanting, and a profound dissatisfaction with my existence. I wanted to travel the journey less taken, and see where that got me.
The astonishing thing is, it got me where I wanted to go. It got me there in such an unexpected way, I never realized I went there until long - well, six months- after I got back. When I came back early July 2011, coming back seemed a relatively normal thing to do. I was glad to be back. I was very happy when I was underway, returning was just part of that. It wasn't like I was emigrating, the return was always part of the journey. Coming full circle allowed me to do just that, to end what I'd begun about ten years ago.
So this is where I stand now, and that satisfaction hasn't really gone. Only now I'm getting perhaps less reward from it. I'm starting to want to go back to that first feeling of deep satisfaction and seeing it isn't a permanent state. I know I can revisit this state of mind if I stay open to it. Not allowing the mind to seal away that experience, keeping it alive, will preserve what I've gained by having gone away and returned. This will be my challenge. There will be no room for complacency.
It's been six months since my return and I'm still trying to cope with coming back. The realization is slowly seeping in that I am perhaps seriously altered from the experience. At first, nothing much seemed to have changed from who I was before. I did behave a bit differently, but then I had just come back from a year off, so nothing quite out of the ordinary there. Upon completing the much wanted journey, I ended up not wanting much. It was as if wanting itself had ceased, although I didn't realize this right away. I was just content, happy with how it had turned out. I didn't really do an evaluation, partly because it's simply rather impossible to attribute any one conclusion to the assessment of such a vast body of experience.
But of course, I did make an appraisal of what went on. It was one of deep satisfaction. Not just about something defined or even any one thing in particular, but about everything. About life. About my existence. It went deep.
Six months hence, and I see that this led me to some complacency but also a temporary suspension of dissatisfaction. I was no longer looking for more, like I've been doing for the last 12 years or so. It must have been strange to see someone who was always looking to do the other thing, the thing not many people sought after. Even though I have always been convinced it isn't such an odd thing to do, and still am, it is an unusual course to lead. I now see that the path traveled came from wanting, and a profound dissatisfaction with my existence. I wanted to travel the journey less taken, and see where that got me.
The astonishing thing is, it got me where I wanted to go. It got me there in such an unexpected way, I never realized I went there until long - well, six months- after I got back. When I came back early July 2011, coming back seemed a relatively normal thing to do. I was glad to be back. I was very happy when I was underway, returning was just part of that. It wasn't like I was emigrating, the return was always part of the journey. Coming full circle allowed me to do just that, to end what I'd begun about ten years ago.
So this is where I stand now, and that satisfaction hasn't really gone. Only now I'm getting perhaps less reward from it. I'm starting to want to go back to that first feeling of deep satisfaction and seeing it isn't a permanent state. I know I can revisit this state of mind if I stay open to it. Not allowing the mind to seal away that experience, keeping it alive, will preserve what I've gained by having gone away and returned. This will be my challenge. There will be no room for complacency.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
My life story
I've just ordered the first photo album of our trip. I started with a selection of photos from the Caribbean islands. The amount of pictures is staggering - over 2600 all in all. Making a selection is interesting, to use an understatement. All of the images are available on my Flickr page, but making an album is like telling a story for me. You leave out certain things, and amplify others.
As we got together with friends over the past few months, I've been telling these stories. Any of those 2600 pictures has a story attached to it. The amount of things that happened, the number of little tidbits of knowledge I gained, the experience gathered is just staggering.
And it isn't just stories. It's everything, life itself, things you know, it all just seems to have.. altered. Reality is different, and this trip, like all longer trips I have taken in the past, has altered my reality. I realize again how diverse the world is, how many possible views of everything exist with different people al over this vast globe.
I now see that the past year has turned me into a large container of stories. So much has happened that I doubt I'll ever be able to tell even the most typical or striking ones. Writing a blog has certainly helped, but there is so much more waiting to be told or written down. It'll take a lifetime to digest the experience and turn it into my life story.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Choices
Perhaps I will know some day. I'll know what exactly happened to me last year.
It's a question I still get a lot, but how can I tell what traveling for a year has done to me, when I'm still coming to terms with it? At first I thought, well, that's that. I'm back, and now I'll live the rest of my life.
But then, I started wondering. Do I still look at things like I did before? Thing is, I've been working on this project for so long, I've been changing along as years went by. Especially the year before I sailed off, there was so much going on, I couldn't keep track of it all. While at the same time working hard on getting everything ready, I finished a work project as I planned on taking my year's leave.
I even handed control to my successor without the slightest hesitation - which is not to say I'm not proud of it. But it's a different kind of pride. Some other could have done the same. This is not so with the sailing trip. I'm always the first to accede to the fact that thousands do this every year. I don't mind being one of many. I'm pretty sure no one did it the way I did. I find I've got something to say about sailing now, not because I crossed the Atlantic twice. It's because it all worked out, and I'm the one who made that happen.
Looking back on the things I can remember at any given moment, I'd say I came away pretty much changed. Not fundamentally, only more crystallized. Doing that has made me more aware of the amount of possibilities ahead.
Choosing one possible option is just that: choosing one, for a while.
It's a question I still get a lot, but how can I tell what traveling for a year has done to me, when I'm still coming to terms with it? At first I thought, well, that's that. I'm back, and now I'll live the rest of my life.
But then, I started wondering. Do I still look at things like I did before? Thing is, I've been working on this project for so long, I've been changing along as years went by. Especially the year before I sailed off, there was so much going on, I couldn't keep track of it all. While at the same time working hard on getting everything ready, I finished a work project as I planned on taking my year's leave.
I even handed control to my successor without the slightest hesitation - which is not to say I'm not proud of it. But it's a different kind of pride. Some other could have done the same. This is not so with the sailing trip. I'm always the first to accede to the fact that thousands do this every year. I don't mind being one of many. I'm pretty sure no one did it the way I did. I find I've got something to say about sailing now, not because I crossed the Atlantic twice. It's because it all worked out, and I'm the one who made that happen.
Looking back on the things I can remember at any given moment, I'd say I came away pretty much changed. Not fundamentally, only more crystallized. Doing that has made me more aware of the amount of possibilities ahead.
Choosing one possible option is just that: choosing one, for a while.
Monday, August 8, 2011
We made it
This ocean is more than water.
When I first read the theory of how the oceans were made, it struck me as a wonderful thing. Not the continuous rain which diluted the acidic first seas, amazing and apocalyptic though it may be, but the Gaia theory in which bacteria enhanced their environment by making water.
So when I sailed the ocean it was more than transport by water. It was an ancient technique for arriving at new lands, perfected by the sailors through the centuries. The aborigines perhaps pioneered this sometime 60000 years ago, to arrive in Australia. Countless other species and tribes have done the same.
Studying charts while traversing the Atlantic ocean, one gets some notion of the unbelievable amount of water all the way to the bottom. When swimming in the water with goggles, the deep blue goes on and on, suddenly lending a very mysterious quality to ones surroundings. While the sun sends its rays through many layers of waves and water, the dark prevails deeper down.
And even though it looks like water, it's so much more. It's a collection of dreams, dreamt by people on both shores. It's planning, sometimes obsessing, about getting across. Most of all, it's impossible to imagine.
Even now, after living all of it, the ocean for me retains its violent and hostile quality, while simultaneously calming me. It's not hostile towards us, it just is. We are the ones maladjusted to its qualities. With our boats, our devices and our techniques, we are so ill equipped for dealing with it.
We master technology, but we never master more than a tiny piece of ocean at a time. We sail across, but only if our technology doesn't let us down. We cover great distances, but it's only when in harbour, protected by land, we can truly say: we made it.
When I first read the theory of how the oceans were made, it struck me as a wonderful thing. Not the continuous rain which diluted the acidic first seas, amazing and apocalyptic though it may be, but the Gaia theory in which bacteria enhanced their environment by making water.
So when I sailed the ocean it was more than transport by water. It was an ancient technique for arriving at new lands, perfected by the sailors through the centuries. The aborigines perhaps pioneered this sometime 60000 years ago, to arrive in Australia. Countless other species and tribes have done the same.
Studying charts while traversing the Atlantic ocean, one gets some notion of the unbelievable amount of water all the way to the bottom. When swimming in the water with goggles, the deep blue goes on and on, suddenly lending a very mysterious quality to ones surroundings. While the sun sends its rays through many layers of waves and water, the dark prevails deeper down.
And even though it looks like water, it's so much more. It's a collection of dreams, dreamt by people on both shores. It's planning, sometimes obsessing, about getting across. Most of all, it's impossible to imagine.
Even now, after living all of it, the ocean for me retains its violent and hostile quality, while simultaneously calming me. It's not hostile towards us, it just is. We are the ones maladjusted to its qualities. With our boats, our devices and our techniques, we are so ill equipped for dealing with it.
We master technology, but we never master more than a tiny piece of ocean at a time. We sail across, but only if our technology doesn't let us down. We cover great distances, but it's only when in harbour, protected by land, we can truly say: we made it.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Islands
In a year, we visited 64 islands. After a while, it became a kind of gimmick, where I sometimes just touched the ground if the island itself was impossible to land on. There are a couple of places which I stepped on this way, without actually getting out of the water. This is a list of all the islands:
near Europe: Jersey
Berlenga (Portugal)
near Africa: Porto Santo
Madeira
La Palma
La Gomera
Tenerife
Gran Canaria
Sal
Sao Tiago
Fogo
Sao Vicente
Santa Luzia
Boavista
Sal Rei (Boavista)
Sao Nicolau
Carribean: Grenada
Carriacou
Sister Rocks (Carriacou)
Sandy Island (Carriacou)
Petit St. Vincent
Union
Petit Rameau (Tobago Cays)
Petit Bateau (Tobago Cays)
Baradal (Tobago Cays)
Canouan
Bequia
Saint Vincent
Young Island (Saint Vincent)
Duvernette Island (Saint Vincent)
Martinique
Dominica
Guadeloupe
Terre-de-Haut (Iles des Saintes)
Ilet-a-Cabrit (Iles des Saintes)
Terre-de-Bas (Iles des Saintes)
Antigua
Red Head Island (Antigua)
Rabbit Island (Antigua)
Lobster Island (Antigua)
Galley Island (Antigua)
Long Island (Antigua)
Nevis
St. Kitts
St. Eustatius
Saint Martin
Scrub Island (Anguilla)
Anguilla
Rocher Creole (St. Martin)
Sandy Island (Anguilla)
Virgin Gorda (BVI)
Beef Island (BVI)
Tortola (BVI)
Peter Island (BVI)
Salt Island (BVI)
Anegada (BVI)
Europe again: Flores (Azores)
Faial (Azores)
Sao Jorge (Azores)
Terceira (Azores)
Bryher (Isles of Scilly)
Tresco (Isles of Scilly)
Saint Mary's (Isles of Scilly)
United Kingdom
People ask me all the time which was the best place. With so many of them, it's plainly impossible to choose. I would go back to many of them, given the opportunity. Let that be my answer.
Night watch
I have never slept like I did the first week we were back home. I'm not the soundest sleeper and on a yacht I wake up regularly. At anchor this can be useful, because whenever I feel a movement which is new or different from before, I can check things out. With our new Manson Supreme anchor, I have never had the necessity to re-anchor at night, even though I've had to add a second anchor from time to time because the wind turned or some current swept us too close to another boat. Especially in the Caribbean, using both anchors was often necessary.
While underway, waking up from this, usually I ended up having to wake up anyway because of some necessity to help the helmsperson. Only occasionally, this proved unneeded.
Only in marinas do I sleep very deeply, so I like marinas. Sleeping in short bursts has been a habit the last year, and I've managed to get enough sleep this way. But the stationary bed I have at home made me sleep undisturbed for hours after sunrise. This effect wore off after a week or two. So now I'm back to waking up occasionally at night. The first night on the boat last Friday, made me realize it's really been a year of living on a boat.
A year can be a long time indeed.
Getting used to sleeping on passage is always a challenge, and as our crossings got longer, my routine got better established. I've now established a routine of sleeping most of the night in a system of watches where I stay awake most of the day, only to take an hour of rest sometime in the afternoon.
I'm just not very good at keeping night watches because my biological clock doesn't adapt itself very well. So while waking up regularly is no trouble, I have to get my sleep during the dark hours. During the crossing to Madeira, I still took up a daily nightshift and ended having severe sleep deprivation, up to the point where I saw a wonderful eighteenth century wooden square-rigger one night, about to cross our path just ahead.
This hallucination tought me that I can handle lack of sleep, but a skipper should not let it go that far. So for the other crossings, I tried to avoid long watch shifts at night, if my crew agreed to this. The nights are very long for everyone, but as skipper it's a problem if your judgement gets impaired by lack of sleep. In that sense, a year of cruising can be made up of long nights indeed.
Still, the things one sees at night every now and then do provide exceptional spectacle. Staying awake is the price I willingly pay.
While underway, waking up from this, usually I ended up having to wake up anyway because of some necessity to help the helmsperson. Only occasionally, this proved unneeded.
Only in marinas do I sleep very deeply, so I like marinas. Sleeping in short bursts has been a habit the last year, and I've managed to get enough sleep this way. But the stationary bed I have at home made me sleep undisturbed for hours after sunrise. This effect wore off after a week or two. So now I'm back to waking up occasionally at night. The first night on the boat last Friday, made me realize it's really been a year of living on a boat.
A year can be a long time indeed.
Getting used to sleeping on passage is always a challenge, and as our crossings got longer, my routine got better established. I've now established a routine of sleeping most of the night in a system of watches where I stay awake most of the day, only to take an hour of rest sometime in the afternoon.
I'm just not very good at keeping night watches because my biological clock doesn't adapt itself very well. So while waking up regularly is no trouble, I have to get my sleep during the dark hours. During the crossing to Madeira, I still took up a daily nightshift and ended having severe sleep deprivation, up to the point where I saw a wonderful eighteenth century wooden square-rigger one night, about to cross our path just ahead.
This hallucination tought me that I can handle lack of sleep, but a skipper should not let it go that far. So for the other crossings, I tried to avoid long watch shifts at night, if my crew agreed to this. The nights are very long for everyone, but as skipper it's a problem if your judgement gets impaired by lack of sleep. In that sense, a year of cruising can be made up of long nights indeed.
Still, the things one sees at night every now and then do provide exceptional spectacle. Staying awake is the price I willingly pay.
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