Wednesday, January 27, 2016.
Sleepless. It’s 4:30 in the morning and i cannot sleep. Yesterday i did receive a confirmation for my offer on a boat. Dufour 32 Classic. Built in 2000. I am scared. Anxious. It’s just one signature away any more. If it’s true…
My mind is circling. I did not talk to or with anybody about it yet. So far it’s only 3 people who know about the acceptance of my offer. Excluding the selling party. And technically there is actually nothing yet. There still is no signature, so theoretically they could sell the boat to someone else as well.
Having a cup of tea. Maybe it will calm my stomach, body and brain. High expectations towards a cup of tea. Wouldn’t want to change with this hard-working tea in the middle of the night!
So now it’s about planning the trip to Amsterdam to visit the boat. This weekend or the next? The difference: 7 more days for planning! And i feel like i have no idea of anything yet.
Insurance, registration, what to do with the boat until i come (in April), can i work there on the boat, will they identify me as a fool and beginner right away…?
And before that: how will the inspection go?! Am i able to do this myself?! Will i miss a major problem? What mistakes will i make?
Racing, restless mind.
At the core the same question all over again. Am i ready for this?
It is not that i prepared myself consciously for this adventure. For this journey. But it adds up retrospectively. Earning my sailing license in 2012. Test-skippering for the first time in 2013. Taking part at a regatta in 2014 as crew to experience a boat on the limit. Skippering again, this time for a full trip, in the summer of the same year. Working on the cargo sailing ship Tres Hombres for two weeks in 2015. Including the experience of sailing in a storm in the Strait of Dover in the middle of the night. Skippering again a few weeks later. Realizing that it is feeling quite comfortable. Trying a first maneuver single-handed (with the potential backup of the crew ;)…
And now, 6 months later i’m sitting at 5 in the morning. Restless, in awe-stricken silence. Am i ready?
It’s my first time. So i am bound to make mistakes. And it is mistakes from which one is learning. But this project is a fairly big one.
Time will tell.
(Cover image: entering San Francisco harbour on a ferry)