ON OUR WAY

After a long period of preparations, hard work, training, paperwork, courses and more training, hick-ups and cheers, more training, more paperwork and a lot of uncertainty we can now say: La Gomera here we are! We have been looking forward to this moment. Even though it was hard to leave our loved ones, we are very determined to compete in the world’s toughest row.

The organisation is set up on the island, the boats have arrived and fortunately our beautiful Queen is safe and sound on the quayside in San Sebastian de la Gomera. It was good to give her a big hug!

The last weeks were tough. Knowing that our depart was coming soon, we realized what duties we still had to do. It was quite a bit of work to prepare the boat for departure, we now had to focus on preparing ourselves for departure. When can one say, I’m ready to do this? When can one say; I’m ready for an Ocean Crossing? You can say that at the finish: you see, I wás ready indeed! We trained at home. Arranged some more sponsors, visited our friends and family for last goodbyes. Our jobs needed attention, hand over various tasks and projects, goodbyes to colleagues and others involved.

Now that we are here we realise that it was indeed hard to get to the start but all our hard work paid off. We can be relaxed about the next days until the start. We put some sponsor stickers on our boat today, enjoyed working in the sun, had chats with the other crews and arranged our shipping inspection for tomorrow. We are confident and are in high spirits.

Looking forward to the start. What was unreal is very real now.

Antlantic Ocean, here we come!

All the best from the Atlantic Dutchesses!