After days of rain and clouds this morning, the cockpit is filled with bright sunshine and blue skies above. Today we have a new group of kids arriving, but in the last months, Sander and I took out, fixed, and re-sealed all of our portholes, replaced all of our rigging and many smaller jobs, did a good test sail, and stocked Guppy up with food, water, and fuel again. We’re ready for the start of our Europe Trip. After lots of cuddles, and sore arms of waving goodbye, Guppy’s bow reaches open water and we are ready to set sail. There is little wind but lovely sunshine accompanying us and we end up mostly motor sailing to Den Oever. We moor for the night after passing the lock and bridge which for some of the kids is the first time and therefore really exciting 🙂 Then it’s time for exploring the lookout, swimming, and of course, making some dinner – Sanders curry today with great help of Berend (10) and Maya (11). It’s an early night after a tiring but fun day. The following morning is rather relaxed as we have to wait for the tide to turn favourable. So we decide to sleep in (7.30 am) that it is apparently 😉 After a long and big breakfast and another short exploration walk ashore we head out to sea around noon. Another really beautiful day and just enough wind to sail! So all sails up and we’re off, sailing along nicely around 7kn along the small channels between the treacherous sandbars. It’s only a few hours sail and that afternoon we tie up in the harbour of Oudeschild. A very popular and fun thing to do for kids along the Wadden islands is crab fishing. So first we have to make some crab fishing rods which are basically a string with a peg at the end that can hold some sort of meat. The idea is that the crab will go to the meat and grab a hold of it so then it’s possible to pull it up very slowly and get it into a bucket. I still suspect the kids to be crab whisperers as they had more than a dozen crabs in absolutely no time! So then they did a crab race ( to see whose crab reaches the water first) after we freed all the crabs again some of the braver souls went swimming ( in deep enough water so the crabs won’t bite your toes 😉 Today Jildou, Berend (10) and Amelie (10) made a very lovely pasta spinach for dinner. And after dinner, we explored the very cool playground which is next to the marina. 

Departing the harbour