Rivendell - Five drops in the ocean

Who: Anja (mum), Frédéric (dad), Lara (big sister), Max (son), and Lily (little sister)
Where: Between Europe and the West Indies
Multihull: Nautitech 395
www.facebook.com/Rivendell

It is difficult to say which was the most beautiful place that we visited. The whole trip was a dream! But if I had to choose, I would go for Cala Macarelleta in Menorca, where we tried to save a goat; Paul Valley on Santo Antão in Cape Verde, which looks like the valleys around Machu Pichu; Sandy Island in Carriacou, which is the very image of the desert island; Canoe Cove on Marie-Galante with its lobsters; and in Martinique, Islet Madame, in the Havre du Robert, an extraordinary kite spot. And finally, the forest of Coeur Bouliki, a dense jungle full of flowers and wild animals. The encounters were innumerable. There were the grannies from Barouallie on the island of St. Vincent, with whom Lily shelled peas in front of the church. The fishermen of the village too, who showed us their ancestral techniques and shared their fish with us. The images will remain forever engraved, but they are mostly blue, fifty shades of blue! The smells too!

The homemade salted butterscotch that we prepared on the boat. The coffee from Cape Verde too, freshly ground in the morning in the grandmother’s mill. And the gentle noises of the night on a flat stretch of water, in the middle of a bay illuminated by thousands of stars. I also remember the yoga or meditation sessions alone at sunrise, a time of absolute happiness for me. There was the conversation with Lara during a night watch when we gave her the choice of doing the transat with us or not. When Lily started to swim and dive independently, with disconcerting ease, or when Lara mastered kite surfing and was almost better than me! If I had to offer some advice, I would say that if you want to do it and you persevere, you can do it. You have to work on it. With hindsight, we would have managed the schooling differently. There’s no point trying to reproduce school routines. Rather, look for an alternative path, listen to the children and let them find their rhythm. Let yourself be surprised. We wasted so much precious time before we really discovered it, and afterwards everything was so much simpler. And I could enjoy the sunsets on the coachroof even more. Already, I miss having no salt on my skin, the sunrise yoga, swimming without a bathing suit, and having the time to take my time.