Guido had a family wedding to get to in Curaçao. He could have booked a flight from the Netherlands and been there in a day. Instead, he looked at the options and thought: why take a plane?
So the young Dutch pensioner did something slightly different. He stepped aboard SV Twister, our 1902 classic schooner, and set out to sail from Holland all the way across the Atlantic to Latin America.
We caught up with him around day 56 at sea. This is his story.
If you can sail, why fly?
For Guido, there were really two reasons. The first was simple: why fly when you can sail?
The second was the ocean itself. About 70% of our planet is covered in water, yet Guido had never experienced it like this. Not from a plane looking down at it, but from the middle of it, day after day, with nothing around him but sea and sky.
He wanted the full experience. Holland to Latin America, across the ocean. And that is exactly what he got.
Finding the right boat and crew
Before finding Ocean Nomads, Guido did what many aspiring crew do. He put his profile on crew-finding websites such as Find a Crew. But he quickly realised there was something he could not know in advance. The people.
On a small boat with only one or two other crew members, the chemistry between you can make or break the experience. You can read a profile, exchange messages and have a video call, but you don’t really know what it will be like until you’re out there.
So Guido decided he wanted something different. A bigger boat, a proper crew, ten or fifteen people, it did not really matter.
Then he found Ocean Nomads. What appealed to him was not only the sailing. It was the community and the way we bring people together around shared values and a love of adventure. It meant he had a much better chance of stepping aboard with people looking for the same kind of experience. And, as he puts it, it turned out very well.
On a boat, there is no escape
Ask Guido what the trip was really about and he does not start talking about sailing. He talks about people.
There is something about being on a boat that speeds up connection. Guido describes it simply: there is no escape. You’re going nowhere. You can’t walk away from the conversation, you can’t go home for the evening, you can’t disappear into another room for a week. You have to figure each other out. And according to Guido, that is a good thing.
Connection at sea goes deeper in one day than months on land.
Perhaps that is one of the strange gifts of an Atlantic crossing. You arrive knowing a group of strangers, and a few weeks later you have shared watches at 3am, cooked together, sailed through squalls, watched sunsets, laughed until your stomach hurt, and seen things nobody on land even knows happened.
The things you don’t forget
For Guido, some of the biggest moments were not the dramatic ones.
One night, two dolphins appeared at the bow. The sea was glowing with bioluminescence, and every time the dolphins surfaced they carried more of the glowing plankton on their bodies. Soon the animals themselves seemed to be lit up in the darkness as they played around the bow.
He did not have time to film it. And perhaps that is part of why the memory stayed with him. Some things are just yours.
Then, weeks into the crossing, something much smaller appeared. A tiny barn swallow landed on the boat. They were more than 1,000 kilometres from the nearest land. The little bird had somehow made it all the way out over the ocean and found one small sailing vessel in the middle of it.
For Guido, that moment was unexpectedly moving.
How did it manage to cover all this distance to land on this ship? There’s a message there.
Maybe there was. Or maybe it was simply a tired little bird looking for somewhere to rest. Either way, Guido won’t forget it.
You don’t have to be an experienced sailor
Guido’s story is a good reminder that an ocean sailing adventure does not have to start with years of experience. Sometimes it starts with a question. Why fly when you can sail?
This winter, SV Twister sets off again across the Atlantic, sailing from the Netherlands to the Caribbean and back across eight legs. You can join for one leg or combine several. Some legs suit people with little or no offshore experience, with an experienced crew on board throughout.
See the eight legs and explore the SV Twister expedition here: oceannomads.co/trips/sail-around-the-atlantic-twister
And if you’re not ready to step aboard yet, come and meet the people who do. The Ocean Nomads community is a network of sailors, adventurers, boat owners and ocean lovers, and it is where many of these crossings begin.
Because sometimes the best way to get somewhere is not the fastest one.
Come sail with us. 💙
