There was a point where I thought, "I'll just stay in the Netherlands," but why would I stay?
In Summer of 2023 I had the plan to sail from The Netherlands, to Belgium and then to England to visit London. But 2023 brought a Summer full of hard wind and bad weather, so I had to cancel that plan.
In beginning of 2025, I introduced the plan to sail motorvessel Lady Liselot to The Med, The Mediterranean. Since this trawler yacht has an airdraft of 5.3m with the mast down, I can only reach The Med, by sea or by the river Danube. I decided to pick the most challenging route: Via The North Sea, The Channel, which later becomes The Atlantic Ocean.
But, that brave decission caused a lot of stress in my head, causing weeks of procrastination.
Weeks became months.
BUT, on one point in August 2025, I decided: "F*CK IT, JUST DO IT".
All this also caused that I decided not to produce any longform videos. The footage is there, but whilst travelling, I want to be in the journey and not being a content producer.
Part of my procrastination is the 'fear' of not knowing what will happen when I arrive somewhere. I claim I am searching for new destinations, but that sentence is way, way out of my comfort zone. Because of my ASS, new destinations always create underlying stress. The problem is that I often have 10 scenarios planned out in my head, which then turn out to be completely inaccurate in practice.
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There was a point where I thought, "I'll just stay in the Netherlands," but why would I stay?
Sailing MV Lady Liselot
Dr. Henk-Jan van Essen balanced a PhD defense with single-handed trawler voyaging on 'Lady Liselot'. Follow his 2026 mission to London and Paris in this feature.
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There was a point where I thought, "I'll just stay in the Netherlands," but why would I stay? Location
- Parijs (48.8575475,2.3513765)
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