For four weeks I have been sharing the small place of nine meters with Aldo on his sailboat Still Free. Aldo is from Uruguay and has been living for a long time in Miami. Now, at the age of 67, he fulfilled his dream to sail the Caribbean Sea. He saw my leaflet in the marina and wrote me an email. Since he wanted to go all the way to Panama, he was looking for a crew member to help him n this long journey. We were anchoring for a long time in Port Antonio to wait for a good weather window.
The 18 year old Christoph offers me a lift on his small sailboat to Jamaica. It is a 22 feet Hurley from 1978. He already sailed it all the way to Guadeloupe from Hamburg, Germany. But at first we need to do some repair work: the hinges of the hatch are broken, someone hit its bow just recently and the rigging needs to be treated against rust, so the mast has to be brought down. It takes us a few days in the marina to finish everything.
It took me eleven days to hitch from Normandy to the Pyrenees. But this time I didn't want to plan anything, no routes, no accommodation, just being on the road again. After all, I had to take advantage of the brilliant weather. And this is how it happened:
After ten months of traveling on the same island the time has come to enter the European mainland again. It feels a bit strange to leave the country that has been evolving to my new personal comfort zone. But at the same time it gives me a a feeling of actually being on the road again.
After three weeks in the very north of Scotland, Hanna and I decide to go on traveling individually. She booked a flight from Glasgow to Canada and I will make my way to Spain.
Departure. We're on our way since 18 May 2015 and we're going slowly, because Albi recently got rid of his wisdom teeth and the effect of meds is still persisting. It's good to walk through well-known realms at first. So we can test out things like baggage, length of the stages and our strength. The first evening already made clear: We have to shorten the daily distances. The backpacks are being re-packed and the baggage is sorted out.
