3rd of March, +/- 2 weeks to go

We, Dick, Sylke and ELITSHA will leave Cape Town around the 15th of March and will sail to the Caribbean. We are busy sorting out the last things: emptying our house and making it ready for a tenant for a year, selling my car, learning to bake bread and rolls, learning how to catch fish…. We have got a new rigg, second pair of sails, two more new lithium batteries, more solar panels, a new tablet to connect to our navigation tool, water tanks are clean, have to buy a dingy, safety tools like Epirbs and life raft, medication for a year, food for three month, AIS (Global ship tracking intelligent system).

We registered Elisha in Germany, got registered at the German Seefunk. We have a good health insurance for the next three month and another one for after this period. We have our flags for St Helena, Brazil, the Netherlands, Suriname, and a German Flag. We bought digital maps and huge, real paper ones for the south and north Atlantic.

We bought our, 37-foot Mediterranean, built 2004 in South Africa at Fortuna boat builder in 2018. We did not like the name and renamed her to ELITSHA: isiXhosa for New Horizon. For almost three years now we have had a lot of fun with her. Sailing at the Cape of storms made us ready and curious four more adventures. After 18 years of sailing with tourists in Holland on our 100-year-old, two mast clipper “Westenwind” (I will tell you more about have been part of the world’s biggest traditional sailing fleet later, when we are at sea and I have more time) and 14 years of doing different work in South Africa, we crave to be at sea again, this time without tourists: Just Dick and me. We would have taken our daughter Zora with us but she prefers to finish her study in Amsterdam (good girl) and will visit us in Curacao in August and in Cuba in November, together with Sue, a friend of hers.

Zora is with us at the moment to help us with the preparation and for her to get more comfortable with the “crazy new plan“ of her Mum and Dad. We bought a satellite phone and will be in contact with Zora every day. So, dear family and friends, if you are worried about or want to hear how it’s going with us, contact Zora. Dear UBUNTU’s, if you have questions regarding the organisation, contact Zora or write me an email………and of course, all of you, please like and follow our blog. We try to post new info and photos at least every week and if you want, contact us via email on sylke.funk@ubuntuforafrica.com.

Sponsor sailing

Our whole journey we honour to UBUNTU for Africa, a German based NGO, who collects money for projects with people from underprivileged backgrounds in Hout Bay. Sylke, Dick and Zora started and supported this and more South African NGO’s while living in Hout Bay www.ubuntuforafrica.com

On our website you can donate for the sponsor sail: For every sailed mile or for every 10 or 100 miles or one of the stretches you can donate an Euro, pound or dollar and for South Africans: for every mile or every 10 or 100 miles or one of the stretches you can donate Rands directly to Kronendal Primary school “UBUNTU kids”. I’ve worked pleasantly for 10 years as a school counsellor at this wonderful Hout Bay Rainbow School. UBUNTU for Africa places township children at this school. COVID-19 hit them hard. A lot of parents are not able to pay school fees anymore. Dear South Africans, please give your donations for sailed miles by us to this school.

The mile donations of sponsor towards the German bank account will go to the township schools, where we run projects. Please check out our website and Facebook sites.

Our route

The total distance of the direct route from Cape Town to Curacao in the Caribbean is 5742 nautical miles. We will stay around Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire and hopefully Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados (currently they are still closed) till the hurricane season is over (end of October). Then we will sail to Cuba.

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