update 28-Feb-01

Well, some of you will know us, some won't. We are Els and Harm Smit. Born in Holland in 1948 and 1945. Els is a nurse, I'm an electrical engineer.

 
We married on 24.Nov. 1970 and emigrated to Switzerland immediately after. There we built a house, planted a tree and in 1972, 74 and 76 our 3 sons were born. In 1984 we became Swiss citizens. In the retrospective this placed us a bit outside the European Union but we can live with that. Home is where we feel happy.

After the kids, Els went back to nursing and I have travelled part of the world for a number of companies during the past 30 years. Since 1984 for Cerberus, a company in the field of Fire detection and security installations.

Since our childhood both of us were attracted to water. Els has been rowing, I sailed. In the 80ies we spent 5 superb holidays with our sons sailing a traditional Dutch flat bottom boat with side keels in the Dutch coastal waters between the island. A nice way of sailing with children and it gave us good sailing experience.

After the boys wanted to spend their holidays in other ways, we sailed the Swedish East coast for a while in the Öland and Gotland area. Quite a different sailing water.

During this period we developed the dream of ' far, far away' sailing. We set ourselves a goal to stop working in the beginning of the 21st century and start living aboard a boat to see where the wind would blow us.

 

And that is what is coming soon. By now we have the boat ('Grote Beer') and at this moment (Jan.2001) we are in the process of preparations, in parallel to our normal jobs. Preparation both in organisational and technical respect. To Grote Beer this means a new sleeping cabin (the old one was 20 years old), an overhaul of the underwater hull area, and a few other bits and pieces.

 

In the past 7 years we have sailed Grote Beer on long trips to Scandinavia. Now it is our goal to move onto the boat in Mai 2002 and travel around for the next few (10?) years. Maybe far, maybe not. We really do not want to plan this in advance.

 

Since a few years we are members of the German high seas sailing club 'Trans Ocean' of Cuxhaven.

This way we hope to meet a lot of old and new friends on our way.

 

 

And finally, there is 'Liesje'. Her real name is 'Rosings Pearly Blue Esmeralda' but we find 'Liesje' simpler to pronounce when we call her in the dark..

She is our Brithish Shorthair and sails with us. And did not get seasick so far (I do).