Barbados 5/27/1937
Dear Marie and Valdemar!
Here all of us come and join Lars’ telegram birthday greetings which I hope you received in time. We Others come a little late with our Greetings but is not our error. Why is there no floating Post offices in the middle of the ocean? If there had been one you would have got this before, but anyhow congratulations! And as you see in the diction, this greeting comes from America where it is said that fried doves fly right into your mouth but you shouldn’t believe that. We haven’t tasted any, but on the way over there were every morning 4 or 5 flying fish on the deck for the breakfast meal, but they were neither fried nor, cleaned! We arrived yesterday morning after 30 days of sail and I must say the joy was Just big on board in “Restmore” as that time by Columbus when Peter shouted the classical words: “Tierra” especially since we hit America a day before we expected after our carefully figured out Latitude.
As you see Lars can write his name himself now, but how! But it was nice that it was like that, it was that way that the error was of course. We started from Dakar, my goodness, how long ago it was! The commandant and his wife and other officers we met said “Good Bye” and the commander knocked (hit) his chest and Said, “Ca fait quelque chose ici de voir vous partirez !” (“It does something here to see you go!”) Our goal were the Cape Verde Islands but the, current took up and since it was difficult to tack against the wind and current we changed the course direct for Barbados since we had enough food and water on board. The weather was as it ought to be the whole time, beautiful Tradewinds, and since “Restmore” was self-steering all the way we didn’t have much else to do than eat and sleep. The only thing that was difficult was die partie, in Danish “the high hat”(pottie), For one of the first days when Peter emptied it he said “there is something to that” and then he threw the hat along into the Atlantic ocean and then we had to construct a seat on the cracker box and then the cracker box also went overboard, and the new one was leaking, so after a while when the crackers were eaten we had good use for the cans . we had a lot of fun with the radio, we listened every evening and made sure to recognize the number of the dial where the good music was. We listened to something from Copenhagen Kalundborg. Our favorite was when we were alone on the town hall square for the King’s anniversary (27 April) celebration. listened to the bells of the town hail and to the noise of the crowds, but we couldn’t recognize your voices. Were you there? The announcer said the people of Copenhagen don’t sleep tonight but maybe you took a good nap in order that you could get up to see the sun dance. The photo of the little fish is not supposed to be your dinner someday but only included that you can see what a flying fish looks like although I must tell you that luckily there were also bigger fish between those that landed on “Restmore”. For the children the long trip went well also. They played, fished, or looked for land. We didn’t see one steamer on the whole trip. we were at a point where the water tank really has to be filled with rum. Rum pudding is on the menu. It actually smells of rum in the streets here but there are also other things that are nice and cheap: bananas, Tomatoes, Grapes, and Pineapple. We are anchored outside the Yacht club which is and very fancy and Impressive, a big beautiful clubhouse, although children are not allowed, so we stay at the beach. The beach is beautiful with white sand and palms planted so you can have some shade. The gardens are full of flowers, a real paradise. The day we arrived the “‘Dannebrog” (Danish Flag) went up at the consul’s house. His name is Larsen and he seems to have a little more time than Mr. Peteren in Dakar but the British people here give a very stiff impression when we remember our nice little Frenchman. Our first plans now are to sail to Trinidad where we want to “over winter” lay in hibernation when the hurricane time passes over the West Indies Islands, and then we sail north to Martinique, St. Thomas„ Haiti, Cuba, Miami, Florida, Washington, New York etc. and then Lars, Anne, and I turn our noses to Copenhagen so Lars can learn to read in a Danish school so far that is what our plans are. however, if they will turn out is something else. And how are you doing? It seams to be an eternity since I heard from you.