Another year over, another year gone...
I can't believe that another year is over. This last year was probably the most intensive one in my whole life. I have seen a lot of beautiful places who are now my favorites, I met so many wonderful people, I laughed and cried, was healthy and sick, learned a lot about cultures, especially the polynesian and New Zealand one, and travelled over 10.000 nm (over 18520 km) on sea in a beautiful and safe sailboat. There were times when I thought this trip is never going to end and now I can't believe it's almost over for me for a while. I will be leaving Marcus and Alita in a good 2 weeks for about half a year. Just the thought of not being here anymore feels really weird and sad.
God has been very kind and protected us well from any bad storms or bad weather. Overall the sailing this year has been excellent with good winds (and the perfect decisions from Marcus on when to sail according to weather forecasts) and no (dangerous) traffic of other boats. Additionally, almost every time I visited places at land the weather was favorable for taking wonderful pictures and enjoy the nature. This year we have been in the coldest place of this whole trip (Tierra del Fuego and Chilenan Patagonia), which however was not as cold, as I expected, and we have been to the hottest place: Samoa. Also, we had our longest passage ever this year, from Isla Juan Fernandez (Robinson Crusoe) to Easter Island.
Most of our travel time this year we had wonderful guests on board. We share different, unique memories with every single one. The same counts for all the friends we made and spent such precious time with. These memories can be anything from a special food, over fish / animals that we saw, unique places, weather, events...Just anything. That is something very special we carry in our heart and that's what we travel for.
The last 4 days I have been teaching kids from other sailboats in Ballet technique and made a Jazz Dance choreography with them to christmas music. My best christmas gift this year is to have seen how these girls in the age between 6 and 14 grew in this short time. They were all non dancers (only one 13 yr old had danced Ballett 3 yrs ago) but in the end they were able to do a choreography on their own, smiling and enjoying it. Not perfect, but very good considering where they came from. One girl was frustrated the first day and wanted to give up, I helped her sustain and succeed - she was the happiest girl ever after. All of them worked hard and and did better than I every thought. What better gift could there be for me? It was really heart touching for me today. Thanks girls! That's part of sailing as well ;-)
Those of you, who followed the blog, know, that I tried to share as much of my experiences with you as I could to let you escape from the "regular world" into a different place, where the main focus is survival, getting to know cultures and places and helping each other. Marcus did the same in the german blog. I would like to thank you for "traveling" with us and hope you come back again next year. Even though I take a break I will keep you updated with news from Alita and her travel plans.
Now you can do me a favour. I have no idea, how many people really follow the blog, cause the counter counts some strange access to the blog as well. If you enjoyed reading the blog and are looking forward to more stories and pictures in the future, could you please tick "Like" on the bottom of this blog post? Just to know, you're there with us. Thank you and Merry Christmas!
And don't forget to order your calendar now. There is a good chance you receive it before the end of the year!
