Pit Stop to The Netherlands & An Intro to Our 2023 Plans

A whistle stop tour to Alby.  This week, we had to go and check all was good with Albatros in The Netherlands. A week or so ago, during some really high winds, she broke her mooring line and her hull bashed against the pontoon on the other side of her. Luckily, our neighbours are on dry dock and the moment, otherwise, we would have smashed into them and it may not have been as lucky.  The harbour master informed us of what had happened and made sure she was secure in her berth with a new mooring line. The extent of the damage we were told was a few scuffs and scrapes on her starboard side, and luckily there was nothing more serious. Her wind vane had also popped out of its holder and that needed to be fixed too.  Luckily, we had everything aboard to fix it, so we managed to get it back in its place. 

The other thing we desperately needed to do whilst we were there was to install a step.  If you've seen our videos, or read any of my previous blogs you'll know that the pontoon is very low compared to the height of the boat. You need a big step to get in. We managed to find one bobbing around the marina which we paddled out to get out the water, this step blew away in the winds and we couldn't find it so we had to bite the bullet and buy a new one. 

Our trip to The Netherlands this time was very quick.  We left France at 5am to get to the boat for mid day, spent the day there, making sure all was okay and then we needed to leave to come home by 9am the next day. We are planning on spending the whole summer aboard Albatros, so although this was a VERY long day we knew it would be worth it. 

The journey there was fairly uneventful, although we did come across a snow storm. I hate driving in the snow, I had to do it a few years ago whilst driving home from work and got stuck.  Ive been put off ever since and as Matt usually does most of the driving it had to be my luck that the snow storm came when I was behind the wheel. In only a few hours we were there, to see our beloved Albatros. 

So, we spoke about it a little in our Youtube video, but depending on a couple of factors, next years plan...

We are going to sail out of The Netherlands, around the whole coast of France, Portugal, Spain and through the Gibraltar Strait and into the Mediterranean! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us and one not to be missed. It will be a long journey to get into the M
ed, but once we're there it will be so worth it. I am also really looking forward to the journey around the coast of France.  Once we get into the swing of things, we are planning on mooring in a marina once a week or so and spending the rest of our time at anchor. We will be hugging the coast rather than going too far out to sea. 

Theres so many places we want to see, so many countries we want to visit.  La Rochelle, Bilbao, A Coruna, Porto, Lisbon, Valencia, Barcelona, Montpellier, Marseille, Cannes, Nice, Monaco, Genoa, Rome, Naples, Venice, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, so many Greek islands the list is endless! Theres a lot of work to do on the boat before we go, lots of preparation. Including getting me up to scratch on how to actually sail!  For a seasoned sailor that doesn't stop often, you can do the journey in 9-14 days, thats including overnight sailing and hoping for fair winds. This is also taking a more direct route and heading out to sea a couple of miles and then along the coast. We don't want to be sailing at night, and we want to hug the coast rather than going miles out to sea and we want to explore the coast of France too. I would expect it to take us a month to get to the Gibraltar strate. We need to take our time planning and discovering new places but we will be sure you take you on the journey!