The Plan for the Next Few Months

Last week, I gave you a little recap of what I’ve been up to in Europe, so this week I thought I’d turn things around and give you a quick look at what’s coming next.

For now, the plan is to stay in Europe until the beginning of November, mostly here in Beatenberg, Switzerland, where I’m making good use of the mountains for trail running, getting quite a bit of office work done and, honestly, enjoying the quiet and cool nights while I still can. I know that once I’m back in West Africa, I’ll probably miss sleeping in cold, fresh air pretty quickly.

On November 4, Jango and I will fly back to The Gambia, this time with some family. We’ve organized a little arrival tour through The Gambia before heading back to Santana. Then it will be time to see how she survived the rainy season and get her ready to move again.

If everything goes according to plan — always a dangerous sentence when boats are involved — we’ll sail Santana north to Dakar, which should take about two days. I’d like to show my family a bit of Dakar and Gorée before the next big project starts, because I actually have something that could possibly be described as a crane appointment.

What exactly a crane appointment means in Africa remains to be seen. But at least I’m on the list in Dakar to get Santana out of the water sometime in November, which is already a good start.

Once she’s out, I want to spend some time working on the underwater hull, replace another valve behind one of the through-hulls, possibly replace the shaft bearing and give her a fresh coat of antifouling. Hopefully, sometime later in November, Santana and I will be back in the water, ready to go again.

Ready to go where exactly?

I have no idea yet.

But I guess that’s something I’ll be writing about here over the next couple of months.

Stay curious, stay salty,

Floh