August is not our favorite time in Bruinisse without having vacations ourselves. Many regular mooring holders are away and every day it is a wait and see which visiting boats come to moor there with the necessary crowds. Fortunately not right next to us, because our regular neighboring boats are actually always there 😃. On the other hand, how wonderful is the Indian summer in September, with especially on weekends cozy crowds of acquaintances and during the week a wonderful calm ☺️.
August is a bit more special this year because Marinthe is 9000 km away in Bangkok. As long as everything goes well, that's no problem, but when things are a little less good, it's far away. Oh well, calling with picture via whatsapp also goes well.
We see Eline twice before she too leaves for Asia. Once briefly in Maastricht when we collect boxes from her house because her room is also being sublet. And the last weekend before she leaves with Jonas joining us on the boat 😊. On Saturday we will have dinner with the four of us at de jappie in Utrecht, and on Sunday with Aemke and her parents in Tilburg at Stad Parijs. All this to say goodbye for a few months. Monday, Sept. 12, we take her to Schiphol and experience the busiest day of the year. After over 5 hours of waiting, being kindly allowed to go ahead and run to the gate, they are just in time for their plane that has been waiting and leaves 1.5 hours later. What mismanagement by Schiphol 😥. And so both daughters are over 9000 km away for the next few months.
We are just working during the week. With about 2-3 days in the office and the other days "at home" on the boat. In the even weeks on my Friday off I still take walks of about 20 km. Cozy with Mieke, or alone. We keep that up!
On the weekends we regularly spend an evening with friends boating or get family visits. For example, Inge and Mark with daughters enjoy sailing with us for a day. Somehow we always have good sailing wind when they are there 😎. Nice to hear vacation stories from everyone and catch up again 😊. We also have a very nice weekend in Yerseke, oyster tasting and eating out, with the Nomad and Ocean Five.
We regularly read stories of sailors who are on a long trip. This is fun and useful as preparation for our own trip. This time there is a very sad story that keeps us busy and we talk about it a lot together. A very sad message about a situation at sea in strong winds where everything goes wrong, with deadly consequences. Why did this go wrong and what can we learn from it? That is described in a modified method of reefing.
We also keep working on improvements on the boat. That list is never empty 😎. Toine builds in a new spare autopilot because the old one no longer works after the latest software update. Since we mostly sail with the two of us, it is very important for us to have a properly working spare autopilot. This also cleaned up a piece of the old Raymarine network.
The best improvement of the recent period is the wrapping the blue band. This is such a real eye-catcher on an HR. We also changed the letters of SeaQuest to a slightly tougher larger font. We are extremely happy with the result 😃☺️👍.
September also marks our "annual" visit to Teun in Canada. Fortunately, we do not have to deal with long queues in departure hall 2 at KLM. Canada is even stricter with regard to covid. At the airport and in public transport mouth caps are mandatory. How we have gotten used to wearing them. I am also singled out for a selective covid test. I do that the first evening at Teun's place. Then the test results don't come until the day we return home and we are stalked daily via automated mail and phone messages to complete the process. We finally managed that two days after returning home 😅. Visiting Teun and family is as always very cozy and relaxed. We know each other so well by now ☺️😃. With plenty of time to catch up with everyone over joint 'dinners and hikes'. Again a very successful weekend; Teun is still doing well in his 91st year of life 😊.
Back from Canada, summer is "suddenly" over, to be seen on the calendar and felt by the temperature 😅. The first boats are already leaving the water. Suddenly we can no longer eat outside, the heating goes on in the morning, and the first moisture is on the windows after a cold night. The cockpit tent is not up yet. We wait as long as possible to do that.
Oh well, autumn is my favorite season, especially in terms of nature. So keep it coming, and who knows what October will bring in terms of beautiful sunny days 👍.