It all started in 2008 on the Greek island of Lipsi. "We could sail around the Mediterranean in Chantal", the 27' yacht we had moored back in Poole Harbour, says Nigel. For some strange reason I didn't agree. However, we did come to a very English compremise - a Dutch barge around Europe.
So, how to go about it? Well first of all we rented a Locaboat in Loosedrecht, an area we later came to know well. This was to see if we thought we could cope with handling a boat through locks and bridges. All went fine and so we booked ourselves onto Di and Tam Murell's ICC course in France aboard their boat Friesland.
Having looked at various boats for sale on the internet, while we were in France we travelled to several boat yards to look at actual boats, and then up to the Netherlands, where we found our dream boat - Gesina.
The following year we went again to Holland, Haarlem in fact, to join Roger van Dyken aboard his barge Vertrouwen, to spend a week with him, his wife Marlene and two other Americans Shelley and Ken Smithson. The object of this week was to learn all aspects of skippering a 65 ton barge, and was the most beneficial thing we did.
Hi - we saw your boat Gesina on the 8th August as we were going down the Saone towards St Jean de Losne. We took a photo because we liked the look of her. We hope to buy a boat ourselves in a couple of years and would love to get something like Gesina. We'd love to know more about her and how you found her if you don't mind sharing. Deborah & Howard Keir
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