I am a biologist with a passion for sailing. When I retired in 2016 from paid work – one can never retire from being a biologist – I knew that the best way to keep my mental and physical health was to own and live on a seaworthy sailing ship. Then I found “Spirit” – a 49 feet long Staysail Schooner (launched in 1985) – in Langkawi, Malaysia, and fell in love with her.
While this website was initially motivated to share experiences and stories with the ship after my retirement with relatives and friends, I also will use it to share some other aspects of my life and thoughts. That is why I created some other Categories for blogging, next to Sailing that will receive posts by time. I just finished one about music – while important for me, that category will probably not become the most populated with posts.
The first post I wrote was “Roots in Youth” – in search of how my sailing passion had started. Secondly, a first attempt to describe what, exactly, makes sailing attractive to me and many others – “The Soul of Sailing“.
The first year Spirit was kept on land in Langkawi while I was mainly busy with repairing urgent mechanical issues around the engine. But much more needed to be done before “Spirit” could undertake larger travels: getting rid of the old, leaky, teak deck, repainting, and renewing the standing rigging.
This was too big a job to do by myself and could better be done in Thailand than in Malaysia. So in April 2018 I sailed Spirit from Langkawi to the newly opened marina Port Takola near Krabi, Thailand.
Since early May 2018 Spirit was on the hard stand (out of the water) at Port Takola Marina, undergoing her beauty treatment under the caring hands of staff of Popeye Marine Services Co. Ltd. This is reported under: “Spirit’s beauty treatment“.
These were my first, uncertain and still wobbly, steps into the world of setting up and editing a blog website. My own spirits, however, are up and writing this blog appeared to be more addictive than expected. Nevertheless, once the first version was made in 2018 while Spirit was under treatment, for some reason I did not yet update it afterwards. Even though I wrote several stories during sailing with it. I hope to do this soon, in 2026, while forcibly ‘retired’ from sailing dure to various reasons.
Why I don’t write in my native Dutch? That might have been better for the grammar but I have worked long abroad and many of my friends would not be able to read it. Also, English is the lingua franca of most of the new friends I am meeting while working and traveling on the Spirit. I am quite sure my Dutch relatives and friends can read my simple English. Last but not least, ever since discovering the books of Joseph Conrad I began to love the English language.
However, while writing in English as a Dutch person, I do need to take extra caution because sometimes the English and Dutch don’t match.