Fleetwoods Circumnavigation

In my previous blog I left off one of the main reasons for the Europe trip, the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of the inmates from the Nazi S.S. concentration camp Vught on September 6th 1944. The commemoration was held the first Sunday after I arrived on September the 8th. I attended the 65th anniversary in 2009, together with my twin brother. This time I represented my twin brother and my sister. There are still a few of the survivors alive but no longer physically able to attend. It was a beautiful sunny day. There was the usual silent procession, through the pine forest, from the camp to the nearby execution wall. This is where 142 male political prisoners were executed in the last three days before the September 6th transport to Germany. (Those of you who might have read the book or seen the movie “The Hiding Place” about the Dutch evangelist Corrie ten Boom, might have read one of several inaccuracies in the story, she reported this as 700 men executed on the last day prior to September 6th. The grand total for the existence of the camp, from 1943 until the closure, was 329 executions.) In my book “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” is the eye/ear witness story of Tiny Boosman who was with these men in the bunker in their last hour before their execution. She, with a few other women prisoners communicated through the ventilation ducts with several of their nearby cell mates. They sang the “Dona Nobis Pacem” refrain from Mozart’s Requiem for the men.

The memorial service was well attended by my second generation and on down. There were a number of speakers. The one speaker I particularly valued was the leader/speaker of the Dutch house of representatives,  Khadija Habib. She is a first generation Moroccan-Dutch woman who came as a child with her parents to live in Holland. She revealed new facts and unique significance of this day in the second world war history, I had not been aware of, and the lessons to apply to the tumultuous times we are in right now.

The execution wall. credit: Nationaal Monument Kamp Vught

On the way out the Royal Marechaussee brass band played: “Abide with me”. I think it was a coincidence, even though it is not uncommon to be played at memorial services, it just so happens that this is one of the most emotional memories our mother shared with us of the 1944 evacuation: (excerpt from “The Mastmakers’ Daughters”)

“Most of my group, 82 women, managed to end up in the same cattle car. These cars were meant to carry a maximum of six cavalry horses….The heavy wooden doors were shut and we heard a lock and chain being attached. We could only stand up and barely move. There was a latrine barrel in one corner and no water. The first thing we did was, with our wooden shoes, to break the wooden slats from the blinds in the small windows, to give us a little more air. We deposited all our bread rations in one corner as far away as possible from the latrine barrel. One woman was assigned to distribute the bread. Next, we divided our group in three sections of 27 women to take turns in standing, sitting and stretched out on the floor. Now we had a plan and we felt a little more in control. The train started moving slowly. It felt as if the Lord stretched his arms out over us with a blessing when two young women softly started singing the Dutch version of: 

Abide with me, fast falls the even tide.
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

More and more women in our car and along the track joined in. The chorus could be heard afar. In the earlier part of this book, I wrote about my hymn singing mother. Amongst us, we had complimented and enlarged our repertoire of the Psalms and Hymns we had grown up with. We had no Aufseherinnen in the car with us, so, we could sing as much as we liked.”

The train stopped in Sachsenhausen, the destination for the nearly 3,000 male prisoners and the book continues: “The doors in the first cars were opened and we heard the clatter of wooden shoes on the stone platform and the shouting of commands by the guards. This was the destination for the men; their cars were uncoupled from the long train. A chorus swelled from the remaining eight box cars. Over six hundred women sang a farewell to the men. The men nodded to one another:  “Listen, the women are singing!”

When the women reached their destination at the infamous women concentration camp Ravensbrück, they walked singing from the train station through the camp gates. But the female camp guards quickly silenced them with their billy clubs. But throughout my mother’s story you’ll learn the strength and joy she and her (in)mates drew from the songs, mostly religious, they shared. She and our father passed this on to us and I just keep on singing.

By another coincidence “Abide with me” was chosen for the concert given on May 4th. 2016, the annual 2nd WW memorial day in Holland. You can read more about this concert, I sang in, and listen to the recording at: https://cometosea.us/?p=5741

What were the survival chances of these 650 women? From its inception in 1939 until the end of the war, 140,000 women went through the Ravensbrück gate. Only a third came out alive. The vast majority of these women died from disease, physical abuse and malnutrition, not in the gas chambers. Even of those survivors, a portion died prematurely and many remained scarred physically and mentally for the rest of their lives. The majority of the women were political prisoners. Of the approximately 900 Dutch women who were imprisoned in Ravensbrϋck, estimates vary, between 162 and 200 Dutch women died in the camp or on the Death March out of the camp at the end of April 1945.  But for 192, including our mother, out of these 900 Dutch women, the survival chances improved when they were sent to a Dachau satellite forced labor camp. The so called Agfa Commando (see full details at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agfa-Commando where only 2 Dutch women perished.

Before the event at Camp Vught, I attended the high mass at the nearby St. John cathedral in den Bosch. My first visit to this medieval gothic church.

St. John, den Bosch 9/8/’19

I have a short video with the choir and service at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYGPdNAYakQ

I flew back to New York from Schiphol on September 8th.  My niece Mariken cooked mussels for us a week before my departure.

L.R. My sister Karolien van Ommen, niece Mariken de Ruiter (hostess) nephew Dirk Jan de Ruiter, grand niece Phoebe Ohayon, grand nephews Daan de Ruiter, and front Lukas de Ruiter, Phoebe’s boyfriend Maikel.

On the Saturday October 5th I attended the centennial celebration of the “De Schinkel” yacht club in Amsterdam, where I had been a guest between August 2009 and September 2013, and joined the club in the last year I was there. My uncle Fred van Ommen, taught me my first sailing lessons at this club in the late forties. Frankly this was a bit of a disappointment compared to the 90th anniversary when I was there on “Fleetwood”. At that time there was wide participation in the program by the members and I got to lead sing one Dutch sea shanty with the Amsterdam Harbor Choir. This time it was in the confinements of the club house and a huge band made conversations very difficult. But I still managed to reacquaint with a good number of my friends from the 2009-2014 period.

So far, no one here in Cape Charles has remarked that they wished that I would have stayed away longer than the six weeks. I just heard that the Messiah choir and sing along for December 10 has been cancelled here. I will sing in: “The Gift of the Magi” musical adaption. Being performed on November 22, 23 and 24 in the old Palace Theater on main street in Cape Charles, Va. I shall fly on the 25th to Sea-Tac for Thanksgiving with my west coast family at Lisa’s home. I will use a standby buddy pass and will have to wait until the air has cleared after the mass exit from the holiday, for space availability. I figure on setting sail for the Caribbean by mid December.

Next week, Thursday the 24th, I plan sail to the Matthews Yacht Club for the annual fall dinner of the local chapter of the Ocean Cruising Club. There will most likely be a number of members from the N.E. Atlantic who are gathering here for the official end of the hurricane season to sail to the Caribbean in the Salty Dawg rally or individually.

This blog is done in reverse chronological order, working back to the 4 September take off from New York.

Sunday evening in the train returning from Brussels to Kerkdriel, where I have been staying with my cousin Gido van Ommen and his wife Riet since Monday 23^rd. I trained to Brussels for the day to spread a small amount of Rose Marie’s ashes at the church where she was baptized 51 years ago. On the way down, I missed the one transfer in Breda because there was a delay in den Bosch. I missed the 11 o’clock mass at St. Pie X where I had planned to meet Yvette, Rose Marie’s god-mother, and her sister Colette. I met them after the service and to my surprise Rose Marie’s godfather, Claude Claeys, joined us as well. He had made the trip from his home in Cordoba, Argentina. As you can see from the picture the Roses in front of St. Pie X were still blooming and waiting to watch over the memories of their namesake. We stopped by at our mutual residences, near the church, where we lived at the time of Rose Marie’s birth in 1968.

L.R. Colette, Yvette and Claude

Reunited with Rose’s baptismal ground where she received the seal of everlasting life.

L.R. Claude, Joan with Rose Marie, Colette, Jack, Mme. Claeys at Baptismal Feb 1968 St. Pie-X Forest (Bruxelles)

L.R. Claude, Joan with Rose Marie, moi and Colette

There are more pictures of the baptism and yesterday’s reunion at: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsL0JlhDwXCLli20nBnVyUAmAGlN?e=mwvWau

On Friday my (distant) cousin Karel van den Berg (no relation, as far as we know, to Jennifer van den Berg, my daughter in law) came to pick me up in Kerdriel. You might remember reading my blogs of my chicken/cat/farm sitting in Eck & Wiel, where Karel and Ankie live, in 2013 and earlier. Karel drove me to Barneveld to visit Maria and Stephen Boonzaaijer.

Ankie v/d Berg with their decoy Holstein.

Black sheep of the family

They are the sailing couple I met in Papeete in 2005. Maria is a prolific author and one of the editors who helped me with my Dutch versions of my books. Stephen is a Dutch Reformed pastor and leader of the ‘commune’ “De Bondgenoot”. Friday evening is their weekly communal evening meal with a program. I was privileged to share with the members my experiences since I last attended a similar meeting, in 2014, right after my first shipwreck. Kerkdriel, where I have been since the 23^rd, is a small town, near the southern banks of the Waal river, near where the Meuse river joins the Waal from its origin in Northern France. The Waal, Rhine and Meuse were the borders where the Allied Forces were held back in the fall of 1944 in their liberation of the Nazi occupied North Western European countries. There was some heavy fighting here in these southern Dutch provinces. There are commemorations all over the area to celebrate the 75 years since the liberation. Gido took me on a bicycle tour of the wide vistas across the rivers and levies to the medieval city of Zaltbommel, with its distinctive church steeple. There is a well-known poem, written in 1934 about the bridge here across the Waal river, by the poet Martinus Nijhof. Titled “Moeder de Vrouw” (Mother the Woman) It ends with:

Het was een vrouw. Het schip dat zij bevoer, kwam langzaam stroomaf door de brug gevaren.

Zij was alleen aan dek, zij stond bij ’t roer, en wat zij zong hoorde ik dat psalmen waren.

O, dacht ik, o, dat daar mijn moeder voer. Prijs God, zong zij, Zijn hand zal u bewaren.

This always brings back emotions, reminding me of our mother. The poet is resting in the deep grass on the river bank of the Waal River near the bridge and a sailing barge is slowly approaching from under the bridge. A rough translation of the above:

“It was a woman. The ship she steered came slowly downstream through the bridge. She was the only one on deck, she held the helm, and then I recognized that what she sang were hymns. I thought this could be my mother. Praise God, she sang, His hand shall always save you.”

Zalt Bommel, taken from “Glissando” April 20, 2011

Please, check my blog of April 20, 2011 at https://cometosea.us/?p=1883   where I passed Zaltbommel, from the barge “Glissando” which towed “Fleetwood” upstream on the Rhine in August 2010 on my way to the Black Sea.

Interior of the St. Maarten church in Zaltbommel.

Last weekend, from the 20^th., I travelled to Reinbek, near Hamburg, to see my twin brother and his family. On Sunday there were nine of us at the lunch Jan treated us to. It was a glorious late summer warm sunny weekend. His two sons, Jacob, my namesake, came with his wife Maren from Berlin, Carl with Steffi and their daughter Sita from Hamburg, Anna from Bath, England. Jan and I attended Sunday service and communion at his Lutheran church. The readings are the same as in all R.C. and Episcopalian churches, so you might remember, one of the readings was about Jacob (my baptismal name) cheating his brother out of his inheritance. On the subject of brothers, I have always told you that Jan and I are fraternal twins. But most of you have never seen us together. This has now been corrected by an expert, our gynecologist neighbor who has known us from birth. We are now identical twins.

Jan and Jack

L.R. from end Jacob, Maren, Jan, Steffi, Sita, Carl, Jack, Catharina, Anna

The weekend of the 13th my cousin Carol de Vries took me up to de Lemmer, in Friesland. It was the yearly “End of Summer” festivity. Boat parades and a race on the former Zuiderzee of the of traditional sailing fishing boats, etc. We stopped in at the mastmakers shop where my mother grew up. It has been turned into a hotel with the exterior left in its original state since it was built in 1906. A 2 1/2 minute video of the visit: https://youtu.be/Bdh2ORnJIcY

Replicas of the traditional Lemster Aak fishing vessel.

smoking eel.

The Dutch Reformed church, where my Grandfather was a member until he married the Christian Reformed pastor’s daughter on the island of Urk in 1900

The boeier “Friso” the “showboat” of the province of Friesland

Earlier from September 5 onwards, I visited friends at the Choir I sang in during my 2012-2014 stay and 2015 and 2016 visits, stopped by “De Schinkel”, saw family and friends in and near Amersfoort, Soest, Arnhem, and Nijmwegen.

There is another busy schedule the rest of the week. On Saturday is the centennial celebration of the yacht club “De Schinkel” where I learned to sail from my uncle, Fred van Ommen the father of my current host Gido. I was berthed at the club marina and attended their 90th anniversary in 2009. I was a member from late 2012 until my departure in September 2013.

In Sloten, south of Amsterdam is this old windmill, once used to maintain the water level in the reclaimed “polder”. At times they crank her up under the right conditions. Here is a short video of it: https://www.facebook.com/jackvanommen/videos/10158772594185898/?t=3

Die Mooie Molen van Sloten

According to my log, I left the marina in Portsmouth on the Elizabeth River at 9.30 on Friday July 26^th. I motored most of the way against a Northerly. I was out in the Atlantic by late afternoon. This was the same route I took on June 22^nd, 2017, which ended up in a shipwreck at 03.00 on June 23^rd on Godwin Island in the Barrier Islands. The details of this shipwreck can be found in my blog for that period. This time I had left earlier and was able to put plenty of distance between the coast before dark. I motorsailed in a light Northerly. The excitement of being on the ocean again kept me awake most of the night. A large pod of porpoises kept me company for a while. The promised southerly never materialized, but the in last hours of Saturday afternoon the wind eased to the East and I had a great fast reach on still smooth seas.

I knew from the charts that the entrance to Ocean City was a challenge. The setting sun was making it difficult to recognize the channel markers’ color and shape. The channel is in a zigzag pattern in the entrance. The sport fishing boats, with their 1000 plus HP and speeds of 25 plus knots, have absolutely no concern for my 14 HP and 5 knots of speed and nearly swamp my boat with their wakes. Once inside, the harbor crawls with all sorts of water crafts. I try the one deep spot for anchorage but my knot-meter goes to zero. (I found out since that the transducer was all fouled by the wrong antifouling I had applied in June.) A helpful outboard boater offers to show me where I can anchor. I follow him and he leads me right over a shallow spot. I’m stuck and can’t back off. He keeps trying to pull me off but instead gets me even worse aground. He is determined but I worry he is going to quarter the boat. The marine police boat suggests to call Tow Boat US. He has me off in no time and $390. Because of the force on the keel, I checked for leaks and it looks like a small amount had entered through the forward keel bolts. Rob, the tow operator took me to the Sunset Marina and had me set up for a haul out the next day, Sunday. Once tied up for the night, $90, I checked for leaks again and found that the water had sloshed from the engine bilge, from the packing gland. I cancelled the haul out. At least I learned, the hard way, that the two years shipwreck repair had stood the destruction derby test. As a coincidence, Rob the towboat man, was part of the posse from Ocean City that hauled “Fleetwood” off Godwin Island in 2017. That had to be one of the easiest hauls for the crew. Greg, who passed away last year at 77, had learned from my liability insurance that I was insured for $19,450. Jake, who worked for Cape Charles Yacht Center, had attempted to bring the boat to the Yacht Center, on his weekend off, but gave up close to sundown on Sunday when he was running out of fuel for the pumps. He had managed to reduce the opening in the hull and had the boat floating. The next morning the Ocean City crew had an easy haul.   

I blamed my misfortune for leaving on a Friday. A maritime no-no. For those who have followed me over the years, you will know that many of my departures for a new destination started after Sunday morning service. I headed out of Ocean City shortly after I had attended 10 am service at Saint Mary of the Seas church.

Rev. John T. SoloMon

I filled the diesel tank, with plans to continue northward to New York City and beyond. The inner harbor of Ocean City was another spectacle of all sort of water crafts and between the jetties the same rough water from the speeding sport fishermen coming and going. The wind was seaward but the tide was coming in strong. I had to accelerate to make headway in the narrow harbor entrance against the current. All of a sudden, the engine stopped. It could not have happened in the worse moment and time. The cover was off the main sail but I would not have been able to raise the sail fast enough. The current pushed me back between the jetties and I was only 150 feet from the rocks. I called a mayday. I had to repeat my location several times because the coastie wanted a coordinate. How much clearer could I have been with being between the end of the jetties at Ocean City? Beach goers started to gather. There is an amusement park right at the North jetty. The boat hit the rocks and started bouncing. I figured that it would be a matter of minutes before the boat would start breaking up. I had to get off the boat. The crowd suggested I stay with the boat. The rocks were slippery. I found one ledge with a flat foothold with barnacles to keep me from slipping. A retired fireman got on his belly and helped me up. Now I am looking at the boat bouncing like a rodeo bronco. This time I was unable to grab anything off the boat, like laptop, camera, wallet. The coast guard came and attempted to pull the boat off the rocks. No luck. Then the same Tow Boat US showed up. He had me off within 5 minutes and the actual damage turned out to be much less than those violent 10 to 15 minutes could have inflicted. The same police officer who had assisted the day before, Corporal John Bunting of the Maryland Natural Resources Police, came to pick me up from the spot where I had watched from shore. He took me to the travel-lift at the Sunset Marina where the boat was towed. There I discovered what stopped the engine. The long tow rope, I had used to have the good Samaritan attempt to pull me off the shallow the day before, had become my bow line for the night and when I left the gas dock, I had brought it inside the life lines on deck. I should have taken it off the bow before reaching the harbor entrance. The traffic distracted me. If I had used a regular bowline it would have never reached the propeller, this tow line was a much longer genoa sheet. John Bunting, the police officer, came to check on me and offer any help, on Monday.

I was embarrassed and did not have the courage to fess up until now. Between Saturday’s tow and this repair, tow, haul out car rentals I spent a little over $ 2,000. Ouch!!

The pictures show the damage and repair

Keel damage   

Hull damage    

Rudder  

Rudder repair   

Done

Again, this was an even more severe test on the integrity of the 2017 shipwreck repair. The main damage was to the rudder. Worse than the 2017 shipwreck. The shaft was twisted fore and aft and to one side. Lou Negretti, who straightened the shaft in 2017, managed to get it straightened again. The test will come tomorrow back in the water. It took two trips, first on Monday a week ago and a second one last Wednesday. I rented a car to drive to Exmore, about 80 miles to the south from here. I was counting on getting professional help to repair the torn bottom of the rudder. John Bunting recommended a fiberglass expert. But all the marine pros were spoken for by the crowd that showed up for the annual White Marlin Open sport fishing event. I have little or no experience with fiberglass. I called Todd Dhabolt who put this boat together and custom built the rudder with foam steel frame and fiberglass cover. He walked me through the process. He had used hard foam, I decided to use a spray can as used in insulating and gap filling. By trial and error, I used left-over Formica from my galley and bunk leeboard make over, to shape the foam and then covered it with epoxied fiberglass cloth. There was some deep damage above the waterline on port. Luckily it struck the rocks where there is the companion way bulkhead and the galley counter. It took many layers of epoxy putty. Fortunately, I carry a supply of epoxy, anti-fouling, brushes, rollers, barrier coat, hull paint and all the tools.  The keel took quite a bit of gouges and scratches, as the pictures show. As I write, on Tuesday evening, I am hanging in the travellift slings to dry the anti-fouling paint on the bottom of the keel, where it was blocked off on. I shall be off in the morning. I have decided to make a right turn towards Cape Charles. The wind and distance though the Chesapeake-Delaware canal and south on the Chesapeake does not look for the southerly winds this weekend. I should be in Cape Charles by late Thursday unless I anchor that night south of CC. Hopefully, I’ll have some decent sailing. Winds look mild to weak for the next days. Watch for a good full moon rise picture and possibly a moon set in the Chesapeake.

A disappointment and an expensive outing. I had wanted to get up to NYC, Mystic Seaport in Connecticut and possibly up to Newport, Nantucket, etc. I need to get some of my administration in order for the books, appointments for the Europe visit, etc.  

Ocean City was an experience, very nice and helpful people at the marina, yard and store. But it is not typical Americana. Apparently black Americans avoid the place. In the three services I attended at the large Ocean City Saint Mary of the Seas church, there was not even a token African American in attendance. The sport fishermen here are a special breed. Note the Trump flags, horse power in their boats and pick up trucks. My new folding bike came in well, for grocery, hardware and the main town across the long bridge.   

Trump country  

1600 Horses  

You don’t dare show up in a puny sedan or older model p.u. truck

Two years after the June 23rd, 2017 shipwreck, she has been making new tracks on the Chesapeake Bay. You can see them at: https://share.garmin.com/JackvanOmmen (The link is permanently displayed in the right upper corner). If you just click on any of the tracks it will give you the dates. I just got a panic call on the track that ended with the shipwreck on June 23rd, 2017, off Myrtle Island in the Atlantic. The caller skipped over the year…. The maiden voyage was the week of the Independence Day holiday, to Deltaville. I sailed down to Portsmouth on the Elizabeth River, last Saturday. Which is just a stiff bike ride away from my daughter’s home. We went for a sail on Sunday with my two great-granddaughters, Madison 10 and Lily 8.

Last night the over a week long heatwave ended with temperatures dropping from over 100 F to the mid seventies. My daughter’s home in Chesapeake, Va. with A.C. and a real bed is a very welcome respite from the boat. I had a shopping list for items that are hard to purchase in the Cape Charles area, and purchased all of it here today. My plan is to sail north to New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island on the Atlantic and return through the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal into the Chesapeake Bay into Cape Charles by late August. The wind is not expected to ease up from its dead North direction until Friday. I need a few days anyway to acquire cruising guides and update my charts, 

My Europe trip: I have booked my flight to Amsterdam to arrive on September 4th. My first date is the 75th anniversary of the evacuation of concentration camp Vught, which will be commemorated on Sunday, September 8th. I am looking forward to visit family and friends in Holland, Belgium and Germany in September. If I am still in good standing, I hope to attend the centennial celebration of Watersport Vereniging “De Schinkel” on October 5th and return to the United States shortly after. Winter Plans: Inshallah, I hope to be able to sail south to warmer weather and see more of the Windward Caribbean and possibly make that long aspired road trip from Cartagena to Southern Chile.

Just like the 2013 shipwreck in the Mediterranean, and the stranding for engine replacement on the Romanian Danube in 2010/2011, the aftermath brought another string of blessings, totally unexpected new adventures, challenges and most all great new friends. My first impression of the prospect of being stuck in Cape Charles turned out to be a total contradiction. And the two years have turned out into an unforgettable experience and friendships made for ever. 

Time heals the pain of losing my sweet daughter Rose Marie. Tomorrow is her daughter Olivia’s 23rd birthday, a very difficult day for her. Pray for her. Her brother turned 25 the day before Rose Marie passed away on June 2nd. I intend to place part Rose Marie’s ashes in her homeland, Belgium, in September.

This turned out to be a true celebration of the memories she left us. Tears mixed with joy.

I knew Rose Marie was special but a parent should not have to learn the significance of their child by her premature departure. But I totally treasure the legacy until I meet with her in the promised land. 

There was standing room only at the Tacoma Yacht Club, an estimated three hundred friends, colleagues and friends. I posted a 3 minute video/slide show on You tube at:

And professional pictures by Lorie Limson Cook can be seen at: Rose Marie If you attended you’ll see your picture in this link.

All four of her siblings were present, besides her son Elliott and daughter Olivia, a number of her nephews and nieces. Her widower, Donovan Barton, did the bulk of the organisation with the help of her oldest sister, Lisa and Donovan’s family members and friends. Tyler Meyers, my youngest grandson, created the continuous slide show of which I show a small number in the 3 minute You Tube video. 

Delta Airlines gifted the round trip fares for me and #3 daughter Jeannine and her husband Sean and my granddaughter Gabrielle, from Norfolk, Va. Rose Marie worked for SoDexo  who look after the hospitality service in a number of the Delta Air Lines Sky Clubs. Besides her responsibilities for the SeaTac clubs, she supervised a number of the West Coast Sky Clubs. She left an indelible impression with the crews she worked with, many of them came out to show their love and pay their respects.  (See Lorie’s pictures).

The four us flew back on Tuesday the 18th and I have been back in Cape Charles since the 19th. The boat is back in the water after fixing the barnacle invasion and recoating the iron keel with a better primer. I expect to go for a test sail in the next couple of days. The Surveyor discovered some deficiencies that I need to fix and waiting for the parts.

It occurred to me that this new schedule for flying to Amsterdam the last week of August and returning in early October should give me a chance to try and spend some time on the boat here in the Chesapeake with my great granddaughters. They are 7 and  8 and a perfect time to enjoy the water. I am waiting to hear from their grandmother when this would fit in their schedules. I still expect to also sail North for a few weeks.

A Gringo Argentino Gaucho, John Freeman, sets off from Cape Charles Yacht Center for an Atlantic Crossing. John Freeman left this morning from Cape Charles Yacht Center. I am totally in awe for the boat and the man. Both are are about the best I would ever aspire for this adventure. This is a 30ft Morris Annie. 

Just look at the size and construction, cutter rig, a sensible hard dinghy, a Monitor Windvane, etc. John is heading for Portugal, with a stop in the Azores. He and his Argentine wife raise cattle in southern Argentina.  

Early Sunday morning, June 2nd, I received a telephone call from Lisa, my oldest daughter, that her younger sister, Rose Marie, had suddenly passed away.  Totally unexpected. It turned out to be a a blood clot in her lungs, Pulmonary Embolism. It took a while to accept that this was not a night mare. I and all her loved ones are still in that first stage of adjustment to this new reality. 

My comfort and consolation comes from knowing that this is a temporary separation. She left a forwarding address where I hope to see her again. Earlier this year, in a telephone conversation with Rose Marie, she had some exciting news to tell me: “Dad, I have started to say my daily prayers again, when I start the morning”. I told her: “Rose Marie, that is the best gift you could ever give me.” When her mother and I separated in 1972, it was decided, that Rose Marie, then four years old, and Lisa, eight years old, would become my guardians. Jeannine, then three, and her one year old brother, John, moved back to California with their mom.  We had a unique relationship in our threesome “ménage”. Whenever I needed council, these two came up with the perfect answers. There are so many good memories to treasure.

I am off, tomorrow with Jeannine and her husband Sean and my granddaughter Gabrielle, to fly to the Northwest, for the Celebration of Life at the Tacoma Yacht Club this Friday evening. Delta Airlines has given us complimentary round trip tickets. Rose Marie’s employer, Sodexo, runs the food service of a number of the Delta Airlines Sky Clubs. She was in charge of the Seattle clubs and trained and supervised the staff of many of the Western States Delta clubs. I will return to Cape Charles on June 19th. The Cape Charles Yacht center is still having a party on the 14th. But I will be missing.

I have dropped the Atlantic Crossing plans. My excitement for it is just not there any longer. I plan to cruise up to Maine with a number of stops and return to Cape Charles in time to fly to the Netherlands by the end of August and return in mid October. Then I hope to set sail for the Caribbean and try to check off the long planned bus/road trip from Cartagena Colombia to the South of Chile. 

L.R. Lisa, me, Rose Marie and Seth. On April 6th. 2019

Better Laet (pun..)  than never. Last day of the month and embarrassed to see the date of the previous blog.

February 28 was my twin brother’s 82nd birthday. My Cape Charles friends treated me to one of the best birthday parties I can remember. It was held at Thelma’s home with the help of friends. Here is a short you tube video clip of it.

with the b’day cake

“Fleetwood” Progress: It has been a cold winter, with an occasional Spring teaser, in Cape Charles.  Friends provided warm shelter from before Christmas until moving back aboard on March 1st. The boat is more like home now, with the formica and trim done, foam mattresses on the cabin settees, my new two burner gimballed stove, etc. Last Wednesday I ordered the second biggest expense of the renovation, the electronic navigation system, at Fisheries in Seattle . I stuck with the same Vesper XB-8000 Wi-Fi, I installed in 2016.  There is still much work to be done before my planned departure for the Atlantic crossing in June.

Northwest Visit: I flew Norfolk/Baltimore/Los Angeles to Seattle on March 19th and return to Norfolk on April 10th. When I missed the opportunity to spend the winter in the Caribbean, I figured that I had all sorts of extra time, until Spring, to afford to take time off to make a family/friends visit to home port. Not so sure now. But it is wonderful to be with family and revisit friends. The weather has been outstanding here. I left in 30 degree weather on the 19th and arrived here on a record breaking high of 78 degrees in Seattle. And it has been close to it since. Here are a few pictures I took of the Oregon/Washington Cascade range. I had a perfect seat on the starboard side of the plane and it is seldom that the landing pattern allows a view of the Seattle skyline from the West.

Mt. Hood east of Portland, Or.

Mt. St. Helens, lost its top on May 18, 1980.

Mt. Rainier

Seattle, Lk. Washington floating bridge in background

Looking west across Vashon Island at the Olympic range

This week I visited friends in Bellingham and British Columbia. This is a sunset from the Nesbit home on the Lummi Reservation looking towards Vancouver Island and the San Juan Islands, and Mt. Baker on the way to the Canadian border.

Mt. Baker, from the Lummi Indian reservation near Canadian border.

sunset from Lummi Rez shore towards Vancouver Island

I will be cat/house sitting on Wollochet Bay from tomorrow through the 9th of April. My oldest daughter, Lisa, has moved into Federal Way from Fife/Tacoma. The house from where I posted many great views of Mt. Rainier is up for sale, but the move has brought blessings to our family and her friends. There will be a family gathering at Lisa’s on Saturday the 6th. My oldest granddaughter is flying in with Euan, her husband, from Edinburgh.

My Books: Amazon keeps squeezing the royalties. I have added the option on the web site of www.Soloman.nl to purchase the E-book for € 8,50 in PDF formaat from Boekenbestellen.nl where I get a much more reasonable return, go to: 

I expect to have further announcement on options with other publishers for North America as well for SoloMan and The Mastmakers’ Daughters and De Mastmakersdochters.

Reynaerdt the Fox: This is a fable from the Middle Ages about a sly fox. Little is known about the exploits of this crafty manipulative sly fox in North America. But much of the story is playing out right now in our daily lives and dysfunctional political system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynard_the_Fox. I had often heard of the story but never had a chance to learn the many nuances of it. Until I was contacted by Jan de Putter, a Dutch scholar of early Dutch literature. He came across the references to this story in my book “The Mastmakers’ Daughters”. My cousin, Gerard Arendt, the younger son of Rennie de Vries-Arendt, the NAZI part of the Mastmakers’ Daughters, wrote his doctoral thesis on this medieval story. Jan de Putter published his view on the influence of the war period, that probably dominated Gerard’s thesis, this week in: https://www.neerlandistiek.nl/2019/03/reynaert-door-de-ogen-van-een-oorlogskind-een-portret-van-g-h-arendt/#more-33368 .

L.R. Gerard, Rennie, Georg on Mother’s Day 1941. Rennie wears her Swastika insignia. Georg in Jugendsturm uniform.

This is mostly meant for my Dutch followers. Putter points out, for one, the Anti Semitic interpretation used to brainwash Dutch children as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynard_the_Fox 

You can read more about the parallel of Gerard and the Sly Fox in the book www.TheMastMakersDaughters.us and www.DeMastmakersDochters.nl

Rennie’s husband, August Arendt, left her and Georg before Gerard was born. She told her sons that their father had been killed in a KLM plane crash in Berlin. Georg told me that his younger brother was most likely conceived after his father left. At the end of the war Georg found out that his father was alive in Berlin. Georg shared with me a number of letters form his mother complaining of the mean treatment she received from Gerard. Georg discovered that the antiques his mother had inherited from her father were stolen out of a storage locker in Cologne by Gerard and taken to his mansion in Berlin. But Jan de Putter has now contributed at least something positive on the black sheep/ sly fox of the family.

Advent and Christmas were a special time for me here among my Cape Charles friends. One of the highlights was being able to be part of the Messiah performance. Here is a link to the second performance in the historical Hungars church.

Progress on the boat repair slowed down during the holidays. I took some pictures to day. The orange formica has been replaced. I cannibalized the heavy mahogany lee-board rails for trim and a hatch that floated away and replaced the lee boards with plywood. Instead of replacing the formica on the chart table top, I refinished it. And the door to the head is now also clear varnished after removing the white paint. Compare the before and after pictures.

right after the shipwreck     

Cabin

galley

chart table

Next project is replacing the settee cushions, galley stove, making new cockpit floor grates and a new companion way hatch, which all floated away from the wreck. The wiring is nearly complete. I need to go up the mast again to replace the Tri-Color light. The forecast for early Monday morning is that the temperature will drop  far below freezing. Fortunately, I have been able to stay with friends here since before Christmas.

This week I found out the date for the centennial celebration of the “De Schinkel”, the yacht club and marina in Amsterdam, where I had my initiation in to sailing when I was 12 years old and where I spent time aboard “Fleetwood” from 2009 until 2013. The date is October 5th. On the 6th of September it will be 75 years since our mother in a group of 650 women political prisoners were pressed into 8 cattle cars in the Nazi concentration camp Vught, in Holland, on their way to the hell of Ravensbrück, in Germany. I plan to attend the commemoration. If I can replace the life raft, install new electronic navigation equipment and single side band radio, I may just travel to Europe on a third Atlantic crossing. Stay tuned.