Sail the boat home, or keep it in the Mediterranean Sea?
The maintenance work on the boat is in progress. This post will focus on a topic, which for some reason has not been easy to settle. Why sail the boat home to Denmark?
Carpe Diem hard standing in Torrevieja
We now have a boat in the warm Mediterranean Sea, with so many lovely and exciting places to sail, and often quite cheap flights available too, so is bringing the boat home to a shorter and colder season, grey water instead for azure blue, and less dolphins and colorful fish, something we will regret?
On the other side, the extend of the maintenance work required to get Carpe Diem back in shape is huge, and it is difficult to keep progress in this when we only have vacations and a few extended weekends. And flying back and forth will add up to a not insignificantly post on the budget.
But how do we bring her home? We have been dreaming of sailing the european inner waterways, but the draft of the boat is 1,9 meters, and we will have to sail through canals that only guarantee 1,6 meters. Another option is to put the boat on a truck. Price requests indicate a minimum of 60.000 DKK, however we might be able to find a truck returning empty and therefore ready to give a price reduction.
The route from Torrevieja to Copenhagen
Then there is the third option of sailing the boat all the way around Spain, over the Bay of Biscay, through the English Channel and Kieler Canal home to Copenhagen. A long trip with a lot of long cruises, but this is actually what we are looking forward to having a new boat suitable for this. But is the boat ready in it’s current condition? And are we ready or can we be ready to know what is required for sailing the Atlantic Ocean? Which education is required etc.
There is no doubt in our mind, that the adventures are found taking the long way home. We had a few rough years, which is an important reason why we decided to follow dreams and adventures – so why not do it properly? It might take a couple of years to sail her home, but everyone is committed and ready to use all the holidays on this the next years.
Carpe Diem – We choose the adventure and the slow way home.