I especially love the sea and I know it is very unpredictable: one day it can smile at you and be very pleasant, next day, you may be caught by vicious winds and pulled and tossed about by huge waves

The sea is dangerous when your equipment does not work well or your load is not stowed safely and you are in the middle of the ocean in winter.

My favorite ship, the Mezada, on which I traveled all around the world for a couple of years, went down in one of those storms with everybody on board after I had left her.

It had been an ill-fated ship even when I still was sailing on her: one day we ran aground in the river Schelde and spend 24 hours there before 13 tugs could pull us off.

Once we had a madman on board who set fire to her in the middle of the ocean on our way to New Orleans. And on one of my trips up the Great Lakes (Canada) we crashed into a dock, leaving us with a large hole just above the waterline which had to be fixed before we left for Europe.

Still I love the sea.

There have been times when I was very much afraid, there have been times when radio contact was lost, engines broke down in storms and everything looked very bleak, but for me the sun always returned again, and with it the dolphins and the birds and the sound and laughter of people ashore.

Yes, I still love the sea