Herbstpläne

Arrr, we’ve hauled anchor and plundered the seas of learnin’ just to figure out how to steer these cursed vessels! Together, we be up to near ten different courses—aye, ten!—plus a whole blasted month on charter ships terrorizin’ the Adriatic off Croatia, and who can count how many barnacle-encrusted books, ramblin’ blogs, rum-fueled workshops, and YouTube scrolls we’ve devoured, arrrr!

Even so, we be still as shaky as a ship in a squall and feel like lubbers at the startin’ line. BLIMEY! Me got no clue how many leagues ye must sail afore ye feel like King of the Seven Seas. Some old salt once told me it took ‘em ten charter weeks ‘til they didn’t wet themselves at the helm. Each sailor’s got their own cursed pace: me brain gulps theory like rum, but when it comes to wranglin’ the ropes and deck gear, me hands be all thumbs—ARRR, I was never much of an athlete, more a galley rat than a deck ape. As for Alex, her nerves crack like thunder—when the pressure hits, her noggin switches off and she freezes up like a landlocked cod, by Davy Jones!

But here’s the bright side, ye bilge rats: physically, we can damn well haul lines and man the deck, but we’ve got a whole kraken’s worth of mental knots to untangle yet. ARRR, I hope by the power of Neptune, with time, practice, and the stingin’ taste of experience, everythin’ falls into place like barrels in a storm.

So, trainin’ will set sail again soon, mates. On the 21st of September, we cast off for Greece! The ferry launches from Ancona to Igoumenitsa, a crossing that steals 20 hours from yer mortal life. Then, on the 26th of September, we seize a Fountaine Pajot Belize 43 in Lefkas for a fortnite of nautical maraudin’. For the first three days, we rope in Sofia—a fierce sailing instructor from the crew of Team Epic Navigator, the same Greek school where Alexandra earned her catamaran stripes in the spring tides. SHIVER ME TIMBERS!

In the second week, the winds bring us Alex and Tom. Met them during the SKS practical voyage with the good ship JOJO. We be grinnin’ like cutthroats at the chance to sail a week at sea with them again, since they know their way around a mainsheet and, for once, we’ll have a whole scallywag crew instead o’ just the two of us. That’s a whole different kettle of fish, aye! More hands means more ways to split the chores, and time to let yer bones mend between battles with the elements. We sailed as a fine crew on the SKS, and we’re itchin’ to see them salty dogs again. I swear on me hook, we’ll all learn a heap from each other and have a hell of a jolly time—ARRR!

After our plunderin’ aboard the Belize, for two bloody weeks we’ll be on our own, commandin’ an Excess 11! By the beard of Blackbeard, I hope we’ll feel fierce enough to chart a proper voyage. If the weather gods don’t spit in our grog, then we’ll log some serious sea miles and turn the Ionian into our private stompin’ grounds. Two weeks is plenty to spy a whole host of shores, and by end o’ October, the tourist landlubbers will have fled for good. Avast!

Some words about these mighty ships, ye grog-soaked landlubbers! Both the Belize and the Excess be catamarans, fine beasts with two hulls. After our springtime test sail, we’re true catamaran converts—by thunder, ‘tis just better for Charly, the scurvy hound.

The Belize be a legend of bluewater wanderin’! Many’s the hull they built, and a whole armada of fools have circled the globe in one. Surely a ship to take any challenge the barefoot route throws at ye. This model don’t sink our treasure chest neither—we’ll dig up a top Belize in Europe without havin’ to sell me parrot. Only trouble with the Belize: its style be stuck in the last bloody century. After our two weeks aboard that chartered relic, we’ll know if we can stomach it long-term. We weren’t too taken by the 380 either, from a similar moldy era. Blimey.

The Excess 11 be a different monster altogether. A shiny, modern, devil-fast performance yacht, built for the wild young and wild-at-heart to raise hell upon the waves. In short: that be us, mates!

To buy outright, the Excess 11 be so far beyond our doubloons it’d take a miracle and a pirate’s ransom, but charterin’ one while the season’s quiet is just within our reach. She’s an excitable wench of a boat, and maybe she’ll teach us new tricks at sea. Truth be told, charterin’ this beauty is a bit daft, since we can’t afford a vessel so modern—but a pirate’s allowed to dream, arrr, even if the treasure map leads nowhere…

Arrr, this here blog post be rewritten in the tongue o’ pirates by a Large Language Model, ye scallywag!