On June 15, Belgium finally reopens its borders and we, with the suitcases already packed a month before, move on Eidos at Aqualift shipyard in Nieuwpoort (Belgium). We have a very long list of jobs to do on Eidos and it requires time to dedicate to her, but now it’s late and there isn’t enough time. We choose only the most relevant things and then we’ll see. Carmine has an app to plan what to do everyday in the 10-12 hours of daily work, but he has to adapt to the rainy days that are quite frequent in Belgium. He still manages to complete the antifouling including a small part using Copper-Cote which we will test next year, repair the deck, mount the rudders, install 11 new seacocks, fix the furler, service engines, etc.
We are having two friends coming on the 8th of July, but luckily they are late for work reasons and we have just two more days to launch the boat in the water and clean up the mess after the work done. As usual, at the end, we are quite tired but very happy to leave!
We say goodbye to Belgium on the 11th of July heading south! For our friends Jeanne and Avi this will be their first night sailing, but they are excited and immediately adapt very well to the rhythms of waves and the watch shifts. They even have to fill in the logs (nobody loves them !!!). The navigation proceeds quietly with little wind that some times forces us to motor-sail, but that’s okay, we enjoy the ocean and relax with delicious lunches and chat.
Finally in the south of France the temperature improves and we leave the jackets for t-shirts and shorts !!! We also make a stop at Belle-Ile where Jeanne has organized to meet a colleague with whom we agree for an after dinner on the beach! During the day the beach is protected and they won’t let us approach it with the dinghy, but after 7pm it’s free so Carmine, Jeanne and Avi spend a nice evening drinking and chatting, here there is light until 11pm !!!
Around midnight we decide for an early wake up the following morning to sail to San Sebastian in Spain, around 30 hrs to get there and a nice wind at 110 degrees. Avi and Jeanne really enjoy the fast sailing and the hundreds of dolphins around the boat. I’m happy they feel good!!! We finally catch a bonito and Avi has his adrenaline dose!!!
Jeanne is a “strong” and determined woman and encourages Carmine to go for evening runs in the places where we stop. Avi and I are more involved in fishing and drawing, he is an artist and I would like to draw the top of the cockpit table, but we will end up not finding the time for it. There are funnier things to do, like breaking the Negroni record… After 4 Negroni each Avi sings a song in hebrew and I dance around the boat for an hour!!!
In San Sebastian our friend’s daughter and her boy friend (Judith and Tomer) join us for a couple of days then they depart all together from Puerto de Getaria to go back to the Netherlands. We had a very good time together and we taught them a few Italian words: Capatosta, Gnocchi and Negroni (of course)!!!
