Ever since I can remember, sailing has been at least a small part of my life. My parents own a sailboat, and the summer holidays from my youth were always spent on the boat and on the water. I have nothing but fond memories of those summers. My parents do still own this boat, and every now and then, when the weather is nice enough, I will join my father on a sailing trip for a day.
For a couple of years in my late teens and early twenties, I had my own little sailboat. During the summer I would take my friends with me to have a carefree holiday in Friesland, one of the Dutch provinces. I can only remember being very lucky with the weather, getting ridiculously tan in the Dutch summers, and very often having barbecue for dinner since we only had one tiny little gasburner to do our cooking.
For a large number of years, I have also been active in the local nautical club in the town where I grew up. This started with me taking sailing lessons for children, to having lessons in windsurfing, to me giving both those sailing lessons for children and later give lessons in windsurfing. This sadly mostly stopped when I moved away to study, and since I have not returned to my previous hometown, I have not returned to this nautical club. However, it is quite a fun fact to surprise people with when I tell them I used to give windsurfing lessons. Nobody ever expects this from me.
This is all a lead up to a goal I accomplished recently. To be legally allowed to sail with a motorized boat of a certain size and speed, one needs a navigation license. Until very recently, I did not own such a license. But seeing as it is a lifelong license, and I could probably use it in the future (and maybe should have had it in the past, to be completely honest), I wanted to get this license. There are two types of licenses I wanted to get, the details of which I will not bore you with. It is important to note that these are international licences, and I have successfully passed the exams I needed to pass. I now have my navigation license.
I'm just this awesome 