20 May 2026
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.
SaltPassage member
Dmitry Badiarov
Skipper · Member since 17 May 2026
Sailed more than 5,271.7 nautical miles, including close to 2,000 often solo or with his son, known aboard as Captain Strawberry. SaltPassage began as a way to preserve memories from life at sea and help others spend meaningful time aboard with children, family, friends, and fellow sailors. Ashore, he builds violins and digital projects in the Netherlands.
Sailing experience
Voyages completed
43
1 on SaltPassage
Nautical miles sailed
5,272
772 on SaltPassage
Voyages organised
2
Logbook entries
10
Upcoming passages
Sail with Dmitry Badiarov
Past passages
Passages sailed
From the logbook
17 June 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.
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.
27 April 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.
1 October 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.
11 October 2013
The Sentence I Never Forgot
I believed, this was the voyage where I discovered I wasn't meant to become a skipper.
26 August 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.
30 April 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.
4 April 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.
3 March 2013
And so it began
Some journeys begin so quietly that you almost miss them.