Summer has returned with temperatures up to 30 degrees Celsius and a morning swim in the archipelago of Bohuslän would just have been wonderful! Instead, I was at the same time rushing the children: Get your clothes on! Eat your breakfast! Don’t forget to brush your teeth! Be careful, don’t spill! I have just cleaned everything for Karolina to come home!

Karolina’s adventurous sail will come to an end tomorrow, when moored at Marstrand and me driving up in the early morning, on Friday, 17 August, to fetch her by car. It will be wonderful to see her again, of course, but also, maybe a bit sad for her to leave beautiful Bohuslän, wonderful Mahina and the great fellow crew. Also for me, it has been an interesting time where I have learnt a lot taking care of the children, the house and the office, which was more than a full time job… But I have enjoyed it, too, although I had imagined some more “relaxed” time by the boat.

It will be interesting for me to meet Karolina again and experience her conversion. There must have taken place a change inside her, wouldn’t you think? But Karolina denies this.

I see Karolina now as one of these adventurous people. I put her into the same category as all the other “crazy” people who enjoy doing extraordinary things like mountain climbing, skiing on Greenland or living with wild animals in the jungle. However, Karolina sees this totally different. For her, all the “adventurous” people she has met along the way - on board Mahina and ashore on other boats - are just as normal as herself. They all get cold, sick, hungry and tired and could just have been anybody among yourselves just reading this.

You don’t have to be crazy for taking part in a sail like this, she means. Anybody with some interest in doing something different and extraordinary can do it. For the price of feeling cold, tired and sea sick, the rewards are enormous. Getting out of the rat race (for a while) and looking at your life with new perspective as well as gaining a better self-confidence is what you get, in addition to seeing fantastic natural scenery. And of course – it doesn’t necessarily have to be sailing!
It is just a question of willingness and to risk the normal safety of sleep, food, warmth and feeling good as well as to dare doing “the jump” outside the normal day-to-day life.

While I have the greatest respect for Karolina’s courage and her willingness to sail on this leg, she promises to be the same old Karolina, with just some new perspectives.

I wonder what you will think when you meet her?!

This will be my last Mahina-mail. Thank you for sharing my thoughts and feelings. Without you as my “audience” it had been tough for me, not to have had anybody to write about my life as grass widower for these almost three weeks. For me, writing these letters, as well as sending weather forecasts three times a day to Mahina, has been a way to be on board together with Karolina. Sailing in these waters is, as you can imagine, something I would have loved doing as well.
But who knows, one fine day maybe you will be receiving new E-mail updates from another adventurous blue water sailing, maybe with more than Karolina taking part from our family...

All the best and looking forward to seeing you all soon!

Leon