It is hard to point to one moment where this started. If I look back, it probably began much earlier than I thought. Earlier than the first boat, earlier than the first passage, earlier than any decision I consciously made.
There was a world map hanging in the living room when I was a kid. It moved with me, from one place to another, always finding a new wall, but never losing its place. Other things changed around it. The map stayed.
But what I remember most was not just that map.
In the evenings, my mother would be in the bathroom, drying her hair. That sound, constant and familiar, always meant it was time to sleep. Next to my bed sat a small globe. It lit up softly in the dark. And while she was there, I would lie in bed staring at that glowing world, running my eyes along the lines of continents and oceans, imagining what it would be like to actually move through them.
I did not know how. I did not know when. No one knew it would be on a sailing boat. But something was already there, quietly waiting.
In some of the old photos taken in front of that map, you will still find my grandmother. She is no longer with us. She passed away in 2025. And somehow, that makes the map feel different now. Less like something fixed, and more like something that moves with time, just like everything else. Just like we do.
Where It Really Began
Long before Sueño or Discovery, there was Helian. A small 33-foot sailing boat, where we spent time exploring the South Coast of England and the French Channel Islands. Catching mackerel, learning how life at sea actually works, and figuring things out as we went. Sometimes just trying to gather enough to pay the next harbour fee.
Even the sail number carried something personal: BEL2408, my birthday.
It was not comfortable. The boat was small. The margins were tight. But it was real in a way that very few things in life are. It taught us more than anything that came after. That period changed something. It made the idea of life at sea tangible, no longer abstract, no longer a picture on a wall. It showed us what it actually felt like to live it.
And it led to a decision: to go all in.
After that, I chose to formalise everything. I completed the necessary commercial licence, alongside STCW certifications and training in safety, communication, and navigation. Not as a formality, but as a foundation. To understand the sea properly, and to operate within it responsibly and professionally. To earn the right to be there.
Around that same time, my path in diving was unfolding in parallel. I trained within the CMAS system, a demanding and almost uncompromising environment known for shaping highly capable divers. I set my sights early on becoming an instructor and progressed as quickly as I could. Alongside training, I qualified as a lifeguard, taking responsibility for the pool during our training sessions. That journey has since grown into more than 2,800 dives.
At the same time, I completed my studies. Over time, I came to see them more as a foundation than a direction. They made me aware, quite early on, of how easily life can fall into a predefined path, one that looks structured from the outside but is rarely questioned from within. I knew I wanted to step outside of that. To find something more intentional.
What mattered more than any qualification was the willingness to commit. The ability to learn, to adapt, and to go deep into something. That is how I approached sailing. And it is how I approached the sea.
Racing, Passages, and Everything in Between
Through a series of coincidences, I ended up on a racing yacht called Liesl. It was a completely different world. Faster. More precise. More demanding. It forced me to look at sailing in an entirely different way, not just as movement, but as performance, timing, and constant adjustment. Every manoeuvre had a reason. Every decision had a consequence.
Over time, it led to us becoming Belgian IRC 1 Champions and North Sea Champions, with strong finishes at Spi Ouest-France, Rolex Cup, Heineken Regatta, Antwerp Race and Semaine Olympique de Marseille. A result of the team, the discipline, and the countless hours spent refining every detail.
I am grateful for it, and for the skipper and team manager who had the patience to shape what I brought to the boat. It shaped more than I probably realised at the time.
Later came Sueño, a 44-foot yacht, bringing us further north into colder waters and longer passages. A different kind of sailing altogether, quieter, more endurance than precision. And then Discovery, a Lagoon 52, which took us through the Mediterranean and across into the Caribbean. During that time, I began spending extended periods at sea. Not just weeks, but months at a time.
A lot of those years were built around experience: deliveries from one place to another, learning systems, refining decisions, spending time offshore in conditions that were sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally beautiful, and always instructive. The sea was always there.
In Between Two Worlds
At the same time, life on land never really stopped. Work was always there. Responsibilities as well. Sailing happened in between, longer periods away when possible, making the most of the time we had.
For me, a big part of that time was spent in Asia. Eleven years living there, moving through different countries, cultures, and ways of life. That kind of immersion changes how you see things. The pace. The priorities. The way people connect. You start to understand that there is not just one way to live, and that the version most of us inherit was never the only option.
That time shaped something else too: a deep appreciation for food. Not in a refined or performative way, but in its simplicity. Local ingredients, shared meals, the way food brings people together without needing much explanation.
My love for the kitchen began earlier than that, though, passed down by my mother who was always there, quietly cooking. From the very beginning, we made fresh bread ourselves, gathered oysters at low tide, and learned to cook simple dishes well. Small things, but they matter. They are part of how we live at sea.
When It Becomes a Choice
Over the years, the contrast became clearer. Between a life that felt structured from the outside, and one that felt more natural from the inside. Between fitting sailing in, and actually choosing it.
For more than 25 years, the idea of something like this was always there, not loudly, not urgently, but consistently. Like a heading you keep returning to on a chart. Over the past two years, Naora has taken shape. Something that had been quietly building long before it had a name.
At a certain point, it stopped being an idea. It became a decision. To return to the sea. To move without a fixed base. To live it fully, and to share it with others who feel drawn to the same rhythm. Not as something temporary. As something chosen.
What Actually Stays With You
I am aware that I have been fortunate. To have experienced things that are not given to everyone. To have had the space to explore, to move, and to see different parts of the world. And to have parents who are still in good health, something you do not take for granted as time goes on.
I have been lucky in another way too. To have a partner who understands this. Who knows my ways, my restlessness, and the need to return to the sea, not as something temporary, but as something essential. And who never tried to change that.
We are not built for a standard path. And we have never really tried to be.
A quiet thank you to my parents. For all those Sundays I was not there, because I was out at sea. They always knew. They always said: that is where you belong.
And to my father, for the countless hours of work on Helian and Sueño. Fixing, building, improving. Making things possible that otherwise simply would not have been. Without him, this would have looked very different.
And then there is one more group I do not say thank you to often enough. My friends. Most of them I have known for almost a lifetime. Over the years, those friendships have stayed, evolved, and deepened in the way that only long friendships can.
Everyone followed their own path, but there was always something shared. A sense of adventure. A willingness to go beyond what is expected. And a quiet push, encouraging each other to keep going, to keep building, to keep chasing what felt right.
There has always been that mutual understanding. That sense of looking out for each other. That matters more than you realise until you stop to notice it.
My daughter has been part of this life from the very beginning. From her first days on board, still in her maxi-cosi, to who she has become today. She is 19 now, chasing adventure wherever it leads, just like us. Time does not wait for you to be ready.
Happiness is not something you accumulate. It is not in possessions, or in what things look like from the outside. It is in how something feels. In certain places. In a meal shared at the right moment. In music, in silence, in the people around you when none of it needs to be explained.
But most of all, it lives in what you remember. And those memories rarely come from what was planned. They come from what was experienced, often only becoming clear once it has passed, once you are far enough away from it to see its shape.
Why Now
So why now?
Because it is time. The experience is there. The miles are there. We know the oceans. We know the routes. We know the places, not just the ones on the map, but the ones that matter. The ones that do not make it into the guidebooks. The ones you only find by being there long enough and often enough to notice them.
For years, the sea was something we did in between. Between work, between responsibilities, between everything else that made up a life on land. We made it fit. We made it work. But it was always around the edges.
Now, it becomes the thing itself.
For me, the ocean has always been constant. It is where things make sense. Where everything simplifies. Where the noise drops away and what remains is only what matters: the wind, the water, the people with you, and the horizon ahead.
It is where I feel at home.
