I can still vividly recall the very first time I was carried forward by the wind. Secretly, I had slipped away to the water behind our holiday home in IJlst. There, I grabbed my little Piraatje, rigged it up, and caught the first breeze. A magical moment: being propelled by shifting air, a pressure difference, an invisible hand.
I felt like the Little Captain, the brave little tugboat from the book with the same name. I was the skipper of my own boat. I felt free. I could decide where to steer, and at the same time, it was a dance with the natural elements around me.
The seed had been planted a year earlier, on Vlieland, aboard a Lemsteraak (traditional Dutch flatbottom ship). As if the water already wanted to tell me something back then. And as an Aquarius, you listen.
Many years later, after countless sailing races in small boats, a dream came true: owning a Lemsteraak. Moored at the second pier of the Vereeniging, where once the Duveltien had been. And whenever possible: back to the Wadden Sea, where it had all begun.
The feeling of being skipper on your own ship is almost indescribable. You feel the ship move beneath you; you fall in love with it. You carry responsibility for her and her crew. You give it everything you’ve got. You’re proud of her lines and coat her with fresh varnish each year. Strange, isn’t it, how deeply one can love a ship? There seems to be something within skippers and sailors that feels profoundly connected to their vessels.
Strange, too, how so many people, myself once included, find it so hard to truly love themselves. Is it easier to love something outside of yourself? Just 18 tons of steel? To find it perfectly normal to tend to your ship down to the tiniest detail, yet completely neglect yourself? To identify with your ship’s achievements, but disregard your own body?
A few years ago, I traded my Aak for a new love: the love within myself.
A feeling I once searched for outside of me, now resides within. I have set firm foot on shore.
Through my daily meditation, yoga, and transformational work, I have become more aware of my being. My body is my vessel: to let it sail smoothly, to align it with the elements, to navigate according to my mission as compass. I am now skipper of myself. Free to come and go, responsible for my own actions, and host to wonderful encounters.
Have I completely said goodbye to the water? Of course not. I still sail, but differently. More by my own compass. More in harmony with wind, water, and weather. And luckily, in early September I’ll once again join the crew of the Kaatje to compete in the Dutch Lemsteraak Championships.
By mid-September, I’ll be back in Spain, on a mountain overlooking the sea. There, I guide skippers, sailors, water-lovers and land-dwellers alike in rediscovering the love within themselves, and setting sail on their own course. And who knows where that may lead? What might appear along your path? Who you may encounter?
Life is a grand adventure. An adventure meant to be lived to the fullest!