Journal

From the logbook

Editorial dispatches, crew stories and notes from shared time at sea.

The Boy Who Thought the Sea Was Home

Crew story · 20 May 2026 · Dmitry Badiarov

The Boy Who Thought the Sea Was Home

Sometimes the next chapter begins in ways you can neither anticipate nor predict. You cannot force it, delay it, or negotiate with it. It simply arrives.

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The Day He Became Captain Strawberry

Crew story · 17 Jun 2018

The Day He Became Captain Strawberry

There are things in life that begin long before one can express thoughts, or maybe even know the difference between the self and non-self.

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Borrowed Miles

Crew story · 15 May 2015

Borrowed Miles

Before I ever skippered a yacht myself, I sailed under quite a few people who already did. Looking back, I suspect I borrowed a little from every one of them.

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Where Cape Horn Begins

Crew story · 27 Apr 2015

Where Cape Horn Begins

Visitors rarely have the time to wander beneath the surface of a country. They collect landmarks. The deeper places usually open to those who return.

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White Sails Between the Fields

Crew story · 1 Oct 2014

White Sails Between the Fields

If you live in the Netherlands, you become so used to seeing water that you almost stop noticing it. Canals. Lakes. Cows. And white sails drifting between the fields as you drive by or stare out of the train window.

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The Sentence I Never Forgot

Crew story · 11 Oct 2013

The Sentence I Never Forgot

I believed, this was the voyage where I discovered I wasn't meant to become a skipper.

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The Voyage That Changed Everything

Crew story · 26 Aug 2013

The Voyage That Changed Everything

I didn't know that when the phone rang at my apartment in The Hague. In fact, that morning I didn't even know I was going sailing. Then somebody called.

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It Is Not for Everybody

Crew story · 30 Apr 2013

It Is Not for Everybody

People often imagine tall ships as romantic. They are. Right until somebody asks you to climb onto a yard carrying a sail that weighs hundreds of kilograms.

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Overstayed!

Crew story · 4 Apr 2013

Overstayed!

As sailors, we learn to respect the weather. What surprised me was discovering that the mind has weather systems of its own. Some of them are impossible to forecast.

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And so it began

Crew story · 3 Mar 2013

And so it began

Some journeys begin so quietly that you almost miss them.

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