Today, January 2, I celebrate my 30th birthday, my birthday for the 3rd time on the Tres Hombres, for the first time in the middle of the Ocean, for the first time as captain. And the days are like any other day on the ocean, another beautiful sunrise while the portside watch ends their morning watch, eating porridge with fried bananas for breakfast. Daily little worries like: the coffee filters can't be found so we have to pour coffee with the reusable filter (which takes a few minutes longer), we can talk about it for hours during the night watches.
A guard transfer between the Port and Starbord. A plan for the day with the helmsmen and the boatswain. We want even more sails, so plans are being made for extra sails around the Royal. I read Turgenev's collected works, listen to Leonard Cohen, look out to sea. Happy birthday is sung and beyond? Furthermore, the ocean continues to wave, but the trade winds continue to blow.
30 years old, my twenties are over: ten years ago I was still at art school, celebrated endless parties at the Zierikzee harbor park, I didn't even do much sailing at that time. After art school I was sick of the whole art world and all I wanted to do was sail, sail, sail. I wasn't looking for fame but for freedom. I first went sailing in the Netherlands: in the Zeeland Delta, Ijsselmeer and the Wadden Sea and then I became acquainted with the Tres Hombres. In Vlissingen the ship was moored at the Sail de Ruyter festival where I also moored with a barge. If I couldn't even come along for once, yes tomorrow was the answer. And that's where it all started, from Vlissingen to Den Helder, crossing in a busy North Sea. That same year I would make my first ocean crossing and suddenly it was all clear. That incredible emptiness, outside society, just water for days: this was it! Call it romance, call it the realization that man is such a small thing in a larger whole.
Now more than ten crossings later, I am sailing as captain on this beautiful ship. 30 years old and being able to do something so beautiful, I could never have imagined this ten years ago. In the meantime, so many more experiences, getting to know Suzan, converting a double-decker bus into a house, playing music wherever possible, traveling so much, meeting so many people, seeing so much sea.
And then there is another big news that I would like to share from the sea, just before I left for this ocean tour with the Tres Hombres we found out that Suzan was pregnant. This makes us feel incredibly happy. It is strange to sit on the Tres Hombres while the first ultrasounds are being made, she has heard her heart beating for the first time, it is unreal to see her again only in May on some quay in Holland with a big belly, but we will wave at each other.
I will become a father at the end of June. Here on deck I build a cradle together with Jeroen the boatswain. What does the crib look like? Like a ship: a sailing ship of course, made from waste wood found on the various islands we visit on this trip.
And where will I be in ten years? Or when I'm 60? Maybe on one of the Ecoclippers that Jorne is preparing? Sailing close to home through the Netherlands? Making music and poems while wandering through the Netherlands, through the world?
The future may look a bit like the ocean today: flying fish, blue skies, 15 sails of this ship filled with wind and 15 happy people swinging across an endless sea. It is possible, and because this is now, this is now real, that despite all the noise as a byproduct of our capitalist society, projects like this ship are possible. The fact that there are still people who stand up, ask the question, put energy into building something as beautiful as this ship, gives hope: hope for a bright future. I hope that my child will also be able to sail later, and will be able to live on a planet that also looks quite beautiful here today.
A sea salute
Wiebe Radstake