Amsterdam, Netherlands 10/5/1934
Then we came so far and we got your 2 letters in Delfcyl and Amsterdam and say hearty thanks. We also thank for the invitation to the aunt in Cap town, we will right away set the course over there south southwest and a half line west but since there are around 5343 nm which means 107 days sailing or figured over in potatoes it will be 214 lbs. which is too much for our wall cabinets (storage plade) – we will on the way down touch on (go into) Rotterdam – but we hope the aunt will become 100 years old, then we will surely reach her. It is possible to sail through the canals all the way down there and it might be that on every bridge as so far there stands a man with a fishing hook with a wooden shoe on where you have to put in 2 1/2 or 10 cents for to get him to open the bridge.
We have had our first passenger, a Dutchman, Esperantist, Vegetarian, Naturalist, Freethinker, imagine all that in one person. He sailed with us from Levarden to Amsterdam, in exchange he bought half of the gasoline, but since he preached so much for the fisherman in the different towns, that there was nearly fight on the dock, we sailed so slowly that he would come too late to Amsterdam, so he wisely took the train the last bit. Here in the harbor the Danish singer from London has his motorboat laying and wants to sail to Denmark and sing in the different harbors from the boat. We were invited by him and his wife for coffee yesterday and we treated them with cocoa today. He borrowed a sea chart from us which he will return to your address next summer. Will you keep it for us. So far we have managed the whole way by borrowing charts and otherwise we sustain ourselves very well but may be it would be a good idea to go over to the old Viking method and we four giants – just as the 4 Scandinavian pirates you wrote about went forward a little rougher, Until now everything has gone quite peacefully. From the fishermen in Helgoland we got 21 flat fish all in one time, now, how we ate!
In regards to the family Today it would probably be quite good if you would dare the little plundering (what the Vikings did – plundern) especially since we soon are on the bare bottom that means we are broke and we have a motor repair coming up here in Amsterdam and so I will ask you to send 100 Krone as quickly as possible by mail to the address of the Danish Consulate here in Amsterdam. The language here we manage proudly very well “Kannitverstahn” and otherwise most Dutch people speak German and quite a few even Danish, of course – skippers. Thank you for the advise for Lars with the tobacco in the ears but luckily the toothache is over. It was the two corner teeth that came out, so we saved that expense with the tobacco. You are missing a story about Anna. I’m sorry to have to inform you that there is nothing special with her. She has neither thrown anything into the water nor wrecked “Restmore” into pieces or done other naughty things (Dummheiten). She is laying peacefully in her bunk and is starting to raise her head from the pillow but she is fat as a butterball and red cheeked like Peter, when we have been fighting. Lars has not developed his bad habits lately. He has learned to sleep long in the morning and the whole family rests in deep slumber until Anna starts talking babbling around 8’o’clock. We have plan for buying a heater not to let us be frozen in Northern France Harbors. It’s too cold now to sail long distances. It was sad with Elbow, it was him who wrote about the round the world sail cruise and if it happens like that then they can be expected home of grandchildren and greatgrandchildren in 2005. It happened a little before. Now we have to turn into our bunks as it is 10 o’clock (the clock struck 10) and we have a cruise tomorrow at 8 o’clock and should be well rested. So good night and sleep well.
With many loving greetings
from the pirate family.
