Round trip to paradise

I grew up in Romania, far from the Black Sea coast, and when I moved to Denmark I didn’t know a single thing about sailing. I couldn’t even swim.

My passion for sailing and the wish for a real ocean voyage came gradually. My husband, Mikael, built us a boat in our back yard – a six-ton LM32 motor-sailer called Blue Dane – and we have been sailing her for the last 20 years.

For our first long cruise we sailed and motored through the European canals and inland waterways to Paris and back. This was in 2000, when our daughter was four years old. From then, we used all our summer vacations and free time to cruise to London, Poland and around the Baltic. But we still longed to cross an ocean.

Time was always the biggest impediment. As we all know, everyday life gets in the way of dreams: work, kids, mortgage and so on… It can be difficult to find the right time to cast off on a long adventure.

Taking action

One rainy, windy and cold November day in 2015, we sat together in our living room with a cup of coffee talking about work, everyday problems and the bad weather outside. We felt tired of the autumn in Denmark, of the triviality in our lives, so suddenly, I asked: “How about sailing across the Atlantic Ocean?”

After a half a minute, my husband said:

“You mean now?”

“No. In one and a half year’s time.”

“OK,” my husband said. “We have an agreement.”