Monday 28^th May

A long long time ago in a galaxy far far away

Or in 1967, in Holland, to be exact, I met my Dutch cousins. They were all great fun and very kind to me.  I very much admired Liesbeth and Carel, glorious twins, very sophisticated, by dint of being a whole 13 months older than I was… (I was 17 in 1967…)  I haven’t seen them since then.  Liesbeth lives in a small town near Lincoln in the UK; Carel lives in Pennsylvania.  In September Dad got an email, in Dutch, from Carel, which he forwarded to me, translated for ease of reading…

Apparently Carel had been reading my blog and had written about a very intrepid sailing trip he undertook when he was in his early 50s:

By the way, I also once , about ten years ago, participated in a long sailing trip in a 30 ft. “zeilboot” (yacht) belonging to a Dutch friend, who sailed from the Netherlands via West Africa, South America (Surinam, Aruba) North America and back to the Netherlands.  It was a very small yacht with four adults aboard.  I was the youngest, so I had the worst watch, from 2 a.m. to 5 a.m.  I joined the tour in Columbia, sailed around Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and then back to the USA.  Unbelievable trip.  Courageous on my cousin’s part to do that sort of thing in the Pacific.

I actually think it was more courageous on MY cousin’s part, to undertake such a long trip in a 30’ boat…