mussels n rum...from sweet to salty waters....

We've arrived to Antwerp! It was a great trip through the Dutch Canals and we had very good weather the first days. Sunday night we left Amsterdam. It was a beautiful goodbye, all through the city, along the sides of the canals, friends came to wave the last goodbye, what a magic night it was. Clear sky, one million stars passing by the houses of my friends, saying goodbye to their silhouettes in the night. I couldn't believe it was true....Trembling and very silently, I was standing on the bow while Fico was at the rudder as we passed through the bridges and at last the lock to out of town. The next day the sailmaker came to visit us with the new sails. A furling genoa and a new main sail. We hoisted them and they were perfect! Then we moved on southwards... Into the great wide open....

Rana just received her new sails!

eyes on the horizon, hand on the rudder!

The last week, we discovered amazing little unknown spots in Holland, as if we were searching for the last freeports and un authorized place of this country we traveled from one anarchic free desolate place to the other.... we had beautiful weather the first days.... I discovered an amazing wonder garden along a tiny little road in Gouda where the lady sold most amazing rhubarber marmelade and we found a forgotten little harbour where a bunch of very old and deformed men, they really did look like dwarfs:-) maintained their little motorboats and where an Icebird lived and where the night fell so calmly that it seemed a spell.... but the next morning the sun was as bright as the day before all the birds were singing again and the little men invited us for coffee:-)

We sailed in Zeeland, through desolated green n grey landscapes and stranded in a tiny fishingharbour Bruinisse, where the famous musselfleet comes from and we had the best mussels ever...I also ate a last new haring, my favourite breakfast:-)
Then the weather changed and I got a heavy cold. Probably my body, after all the emotions and stress from the last weeks of preparation, finally saw a chance to slow me down and reminded me to take good care of myself. I took a medication of oranges and rum and it worked!

♫

Arriving to Antwerp... and a funnel of smoke broke the sun in tiny little pieces and leaded to a massive industry in which the first night of the fables would be born

Arriving to Antwerp, with 5 knots current from the stern we were almost flying in between the great seacontainers and cargoships on the Westerschelde, we had some trouble with the Antwerp harbour people, because our VHF broke down on the way and in Belgium you are officially not allowed to sail without a VHF. So first they didn't want to let us in..... Aha! Here my master "how to make the

Authorities here we come!!!

authorities want what you want them to want" skills were required! I love it!!! So with a big smile, all my papers and some magic I went to their office and told them my story. After 10 minutes everything was arranged and they offered me a glass of wine! Everybody was happy n smiling. That's the way I like to see things. At first they say: NO IMPOSSIBLE! Those words make my excited and force me to use all my creativity to make my way through the system of rules and impossibilities.... and finally make them say YES POSSIBLE! And especially when they are men in uniforms with strict and metal faces....I feel a strange sort of passion to make them smile and make them make an exception, for once at least! On my way back to the boat I met two hitchhikers who wanted to hitchhike to the unknown on containerships, they got their first ride on the ship in front of us in the lock. Lucky them!

Just in front of the mexico bridge we tight the Rana alongside the Williwaw, the famous Belgium ship of Willy de Roos who circumnavigated the planet and who was the first to cross Northern America through the ice. Now it's a national monument and waiting for a next life....

And then... we had to arrive to the Houtdok, where it is absolutely illegal to park your boat anyway, but  is also unreachable without pulling your mast down. But I wanted to keep the mast up for the Fabel Festival so we found a way to make the harbour moustache men open a very very old bridge, the Mexico bridge, which only opens for very special occasions...via via we got track of a man with good connections and he arranged that the bridge would open for us. When the harbour moustache man arrived he looked at us and the boat and he started screaming: Who gave you the permission to go through this bridge!? This bridge only opens for very very special occasions!! Who are you? We are the fabelboot and we have a very special festival and mister so and so arranged this for us. The man turned red and shouted. But don't you know that this bridge was once caught by lightening!? And the bridge opens real slowly! This operation will take me at least an hour! Who do you think you are?!! And angry he walked to the bridge and opened her for us! Jallllaaa!!! All the authorities are with us....if they would know where we really go! To the last pirates and searogues of the North!!!

And so we arrived...to an island full of fools and artists awaiting us with a delicious meal and wine and many stories to be told....

I am now collecting them, the stories..... Donia Gert, the leading pirate lady, owner of the mothership, leads me through the labyrinth of little streets on the Island and introduces me to the dockworkers, the retired seamen, worlddiscoverers, artists, a priest who has a chapel which is called the bar without beer....officially he only serves coffee but after 5 the bottles of cognac and wine appear and the party begins! The priest will babtize the Rana on Friday during the Fabel Festival!!!
Now I go to visit a man who crossed the Atlantic 6 times in self made objects and the last time he made himself a real message in a bottle and he succeeded! The bottle is now back in Antwerp and I will go to visit her now.

Tomorrow or the day after I will post more photo's and some movies and soundrecords, but I forgot my other camera on the boat. I'm now in a wonderful little jazzy coffeebar...

Hasta la proxima!!

Bisoux!