Birthday celebration

This week both Raphaela Legouvello and Freya Hoffmeister celebrated their birthday at sea. Congratulations ladies! Raphaella is making a solo crossing of the Indian Ocean on a surfboard since 8 april this year: from Australia to the Reunion Islands, 6500 km, 70 days, it sounds very long and lonely... With modern means of communication however contact is no problem: you can belisten her daily phone sessions on Raphaellas’ website every afternoon. Freya paddles with Wendy Killoran along the south coast of Newfoundland. Wendy is doing a circumnavigation of "the Rock", Freya joined her for two weeks. Next week she takes the plane back to Germany and comes to the meeting of the Salzwasserunion at Spiekeroog. I am looking forward to meet Freya there! Though I should be careful as Derrick asked her to smack me on the head ;-)

I am also often travelling around during my birthday: september is a busy month with the Seakayakmeeting of the NKB at Vlieland, the PZH - race-biking weekend in the Ardennes, and…
This year the NKB-seakayakmeeting is the reason why I celebrate my birthday without family. But that’s only a few days and a few miles away from home. More serious is that I am not at home at the birthday of my twelve year old son Jelle next week (because of the Seakayakcourse of NKB en SAU at Spiekeroog). We have planned his kidsparty some days earlier, but I will not be home in the weekend when the family comes. Not quite the way to make yourself popular with grandmothers and granddads… Poor Janine.
Jelles’ biggest desire for a birthday-present is a mobile phone. The bygone weeks I couldn’t pass by any telecom-shop with Jelle. I never knew there are so many of those shops! Mobile phones are very important for a twelve year old kid. Some adult kayakers share this interest: Wenley and Derrick recently posted items about important specs of their favourite phones. According to Jelle, they are both riding the wrong horse: it isn’t waterproofness, durability or sturdiness that counts: a phone should be "cool, bling, foldable" and above all offer a lot of games! Jelles’ process of selection is inimitable, but this morning we finally succeeded.
My own phone doesn’t meet any of the specs of Jelle, Wenley nor Derrick, but with duck-tape preventing it from falling apart in pieces, it’s the one and only real kayakphone!