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Over a looong Easter weekend, we filled two boats with eight people each, from completely new to really-not-so-new to sailing. Starting in Southampton, we initially set out to cross to the Channel Islands. Unfortunately, this Easter turned out to be the coldest since 1962 - and the boats' only heaters required being plugged into shore power. Moreover, the forecast proposed 'gale' for just when we were going to return to England! So we decided against freezing ourselves to death and stayed on the South Coast. On the first day we went through the Solent down to Poole, where we got a visit from the parents of one of the crew, and later had fun with Karaoke in the pub. The next day, we continued westwards to Weymouth, a lovely and very pretty harbour town. From there we sailed back to the Isle of Wight, where we moored in Yarmouth. On Easter Sunday the weather cleared up, and we paid a visit to Cowes for lunch, only to return to Yarmouth in the evening (the marina there was a lot nicer...)! We were all very sad we already had to return to Southampton on Monday, but everyone was determined to soon hit the waves again...

You can see even more photos in the gallery!

Tales from the crew

"Every morning, when the crew of Ballistic was still sleeping close to each other, skipper Nikolaus went to the best bakery he could find to get some nice breakfast for his crew. Together with croissants, baguettes, and other delicious food, he came back to peacefully rouse the crew that was (of course) still sleeping. When finally they were awake and dressed, the skipper had already made breakfast, prepared the boat, and done the dishes from the day before. What a lovely man! But there is more! Nikolaus also bought delicious whelks, which we decided to cook instead of eating them raw, despite James trying to convince us to have them raw. For this trip we had flown in the German head chef Jakob. Apart from his wonderful cooking skills, he was also able to control Ballistic in every condition. However, cook Jakob had an evil side, because he tried to throw one of the crewmembers, Valerie, over board. We are still guessing why he wanted that. Luckily, we were carefully instructed by Nikolaus to clip-on our safety lines, so Valerie survived.

This trip was a real test for our sea-legs. While Severine needed a foot massage from the skipper to recover from her bucket-love, Lucy had to recover for several hours after we stepped back on land. This true sailor is definitely born on sea. The daily entertainment was offered by our comedy-duo James and Jack, also known as JJ. The funniest act was the one when James was steering right into a massive wave while Jack tried to get down the jib. The result: Jack (without proper boots) got overwhelmed with water, hilarious!"