Yes, I did it: I travelled around Europe, all by water, in a rigid inflatable boat, the ArgoFram! After three stages, I arrived here in Marseille, closing the circle – happy, but exhausted. Rémis recognised this (without knowing me) and […]

We get up, shower in the harbour building, have a small breakfast on board, the taxi arrives – Michelle gets in, gets out again, one last kiss, and she’s gone. – Will we ever see each other again?

I go […]

In the morning, Michelle goes for another jog along the long beach at Calvi, I do my strength training and gymnastics – and then we take a last swim together, shower in the harbour building and set off for Monaco: […]

After this heavenly night in a quiet bay, we set off early for Calvi, moor at this spacious, “open” harbour, check in with the motivated team at the harbour master’s office, rinse off our salt water – and first of […]

Ma Belle

On our way to Corsica, we cross the Arcipelago Di La Maddalena, a breathtakingly beautiful island paradise and nature reserve. We drop anchor in a shallow, turquoise-blue spot surrounded by a dozen sailing boats that seem to have already spent […]

Michelle has a special talent for challenging me with pointed statements, perhaps to test me? – I remain true to myself; fortunately, we always find common ground. Otherwise, we spend carefree hours, heading north again today along the coast, anchoring […]

We do as instructed, leave the harbour early, head north, anchor in the wonderfully clear water below the castle – and already the first rays of sunshine are dancing behind the rocks. We cut open a watermelon, and Michelle can’t […]

When I’m travelling “as a couple”, my attention is no longer primarily directed outwards, but also inwards, towards my companion. Michelle is wonderful, athletic and direct; we take stock of what is important to us and quickly find common ground. […]

I set off early, leaving Lampedusa behind and heading for Pantelleria. This is another isolated island, nestled around a volcanic peak over 800 metres high (meaning that the climate is more humid than on the flat, deserted island of Lampedusa). […]

Once again, I went up to Valletta’s old town, had a good breakfast, then drove from my parking spot to the petrol station in the marina, filled up with petrol and radioed the port authorities to let them know I […]

Off to Malta! Out into the open Mediterranean! – I don’t know exactly what I’m doing. With a leaky pontoon. Without any telephone or internet contact to the “outside world”. And on top of that, one of the displays on […]

Wind and waves lash against the coast, the ArgoFram rocks violently, seawater splashes over the windows into my cockpit, I reduce my speed – but everything is fine so far, all the pontoons are filled with air and it’s not […]

Finally in Syracuse – a place I’ve longed to visit, the city and place of work of Archimedes! I’ve been to Sicily many times, but this is my first time here.

While Pythagoras provided more theoretical insights and taught me […]

Another 300 km, another few hours on the water, another ideal sea – but this time with a worried view of the pontoon, which is actually losing air again. What’s going on?

It’s Sunday. Marko has contacted the manufacturer of […]

The weather is fantastic; I say goodbye to the border authorities and Greece, sail in large loops around the winding bay back into the open Ionian Sea and set course directly for Crotone in Italy. The 300 km or so […]

Now it’s time to move on – conditions look good for the next few days and I’m thinking about heading to Crotone in Italy, the former home of Milon of Croton (Milon lived in the sixth century BC and was […]

Katakolo is something of a place I have always longed to visit, even though I have never been there before… Here is the long bay that served as a landing place for participants and visitors to the Olympic Games for […]

Once again, Georges was right… once again, I’m being hit by waves from the north that aren’t visible on the weather apps! This time, I’m on my way from Crete to the Peloponnese, so I’m staying a little further north […]

Gavdos was really good for me. I like this island – apart from the landlady and her husband, the policewoman and the e-bike rental guy, I didn’t make any contacts, so this time it’s the island itself that I’ve taken […]

Gavdos – my destination today, the southernmost point of Europe!

The conditions on the south side of Crete are excellent (while the waves are raging in the north) and I soon arrive in Karave, the tranquil harbour in the east […]

It happened just as Georges predicted! – I don’t choose a direct route, but head slightly north, straight toward the waves. Just like I did in the Baltic Sea. But the interval between waves is now a little longer, three […]

I zigzag my way around Turkish peninsulas to Rhodes, an island I once cycled around and got to know very well. And I imagined what it would be like to sail into this harbour, passing under the Colossus (a huge […]

Still a little sleepy, I set off for Kalymnos, sail to the best spot in the harbour, stop there for a while (no more than an hour, warns the harbour master), stroll through the old town and enjoy an ice […]

Lipsi is just across the way, a stone’s throw from Patmos (and also from Akri): 250 inhabitants, many times that number of tourists in summer, quiet but not sleepy, authentic but not folkloric, no “good” beaches but inviting bathing bays, […]

The next morning, as I leave Akri Bay, I notice that countless other yachts (with everything and everyone you could possibly want on board) are anchored in the countless bays along the coast and near small, uninhabited islands – yes, […]

Following Manos’ recommendation, I take a short trip to Akri, the smallest permanently inhabited island in Greece: around 40 inhabitants, no school, but two restaurants (for day trippers and owners of small yachts). And Manos was right: crystal clear water, […]

I set off for Chios, an island west of Izmir. It’s funny how a small stretch of sea separates Greece (the EU) from Turkey (Asia) – different languages, different mentality, different culture and politics today; it was different two to […]

Launching the boat in the nearby harbour off Dimitris’ workshop is tricky, as it is shallow and littered with rocks, and I actually have to get used to the moving “ground” again. After a few manoeuvres, I gain confidence in […]

The sea may seem so lovely, but one short, violent wave while sailing fast and the whole project is in trouble! – I have thought about what my goal is for this trip.
In addition to getting to know the country […]

I actually wanted to go to Ayvalik, a (chic) place with a new harbour and a petrol station. I needed to fill up. But the petrol station is closed for maintenance, of all days… So on to Dikili. My destination […]

And now we’re heading into the next bottleneck, the Hellespont, or in today’s parlance, the Dardanelles. A historic and legendary area, where the love story of Hero and Leander is set… Strong currents do indeed regularly test shipping here, but […]

Another delicious, hearty breakfast with Nasin in a restaurant near “my” harbour in Istanbul, then I say goodbye to him and his friends – onward through the Bosporus to the Sea of Marmara, to the marble quarry island of Marmara, […]

The winds are favourable again, the sea is calm, and I set off early – first to Eregli (to refuel) and then straight on to Istanbul. And again, just like before Sinop, the waves pile up an hour before I […]

The winds are favourable – I continue along the impressive north coast of Turkey: high mountain ridges that drop steeply to the sea and seem somewhat repellent. On the map, I discover a new harbour, much too large to belong […]

What I am asking myself here in Trabzon is: would it be better to spend a few days immersing myself in one place and then travel longer distances at a time, rather than hopping around every day? Perhaps this has […]

I discussed the mess with David – under these conditions, it is better to use common sense and accept reality: once you give in to blackmail, you risk being blackmailed again and again. The officials didn’t seem to be in […]

With the help of Evgeny, a highly professional clearance agent, we complete our departure from Russia – back to the Sochi Grand Marina, this time to the customs area, where we finalise the last papers and get them stamped. With […]

Once again, Lena and I have to go from one government office to another in Anapa to get to Sochi – luckily, we are informed about the “special situation” due to potential attacks from the Ukrainian side (I had been […]

Passing the many ships after the Kerch Bridge is very impressive – but I am already faced with a challenge: how do I get to Anapa without GPS, especially as it will soon be completely dark? I switch on the […]

Lena is tough! – Barely back on her feet (and with a fresh splint on her forearm), she wants to continue the journey with the ArgoFram. The weather and conditions in the Sea of Azov are excellent… let’s go. Passing […]

Before we set off from Azov, Nicolai stopped by and brought us some freshly prepared fish for the journey … And Alexei warned us urgently to be careful. If the wind comes from the west in Tangarog Bay, it can […]

Today we only get as far as Azov, once the north-easternmost polis of the Hellenes … Today it is a pleasant place at the mouth of the Don on the Sea of Azov, with a large port and transhipment infrastructure […]

… There is no chaos in Rostov; Prigozhin and his “musicians” have moved on – I sense isolated feelings of malicious joy among the population (“finally someone is telling the leadership in Moscow what’s what”) and that’s it. The markets […]

We pass through the lock and descend from the reservoir into the Don, travelling along countless untamed bends in the river, past wild vegetation in places, towards Rostov-on-Don. It’s Saturday, leisure parties are out and about on the river. And […]

The canal journey continues, as do the locks, but in fact we are only moving along the western side of Volgograd, travelling in a wide arc around this metropolis until we reach the Don, or rather a reservoir over 170 […]

We took it easy today – a little too easy? First, we continue south on the Volga, sailing for miles alongside rows of houses on the starboard side until we reach the junction with the Volga-Don Canal and the first […]

The journey with the AgroFram on the slow-flowing Volga in this seemingly endless landscape is not very spectacular, but it is leisurely and without any incidents. Only when the first high-rise buildings appear on the horizon on the starboard side, […]

Kamyshin is a provincial town divided into two districts with just over 100,000 inhabitants and is located on the Kamyshinka river on the western bank of the Volga. One part of the city lies to the north, the other to […]

We actually wanted to go to Saratov, a 600-year-old city with a population of over 800,000 that lies high above the Volga. But its marina is located on the opposite bank of the Volga to the east, lower down, near […]

The entrance to the marina in Syzran is ‘tricky’: sandbanks that have been shifted or accumulated by the Volga over the winter and are neither marked on a map nor reliably marked by buoys – but fortunately the ArgoFram has […]

The arrival to the megacity of Samara is incredible and impressive: the Volga stretches for kilometres along one side of the city, enthroned high above with its skyline – again, there is a lot to see… We quickly left the […]

Oleg leaves, Lena arrives, and we continue south along the Volga, without a
plan, until we stop at a marina that stretches out into the Volga and is
flooded by it – we are in Ulyanovsk. The city itself lies high above […]

From the west, we travelled along the Volga via Sviyazhsk to Kazan, from where the Volga branches off to the south… We, that’s Oleg and me – Oleg, who welcomed me in Murmansk last year, with reunions in Solovky and […]

The Volga takes me from surprise to surprise – to be honest, I didn’t even know this city from hearsay. Cheboksary? After all, it has half a million inhabitants… and is the capital of the Russian Federal Republic of Chuvashia. […]

Nizhny Novgorod took me completely by surprise – the expanse of the Volga and the even greater expanse beyond the riverbank, the completely transformed city with the old centre and the satellite suburbs spread far and wide, the new football […]

Plyos is something of a posh (spa) resort on the Volga. Only a few hundred people live here permanently, but powerful and famous Russians have their dachas here – and there are several sanatoriums founded and still run by the […]

From Cherepovets across the Rybinsk reservoir, well over 100 km long and about 50 km wide, then shooting into the bend of the Volga – we head for Koprino, briefly against the current, to a tourist spot, well done, for […]

Oleg is seriously ill – if Oleg is not well, my project is not well. Cold nights on the ArgoFram, lots of wind during the day, the unusual stress… Luckily there is Svetlana! Svetlana is a fairy godmother and lives […]

These boys spent the evening at the landing pier a little outside this village, as boys sometimes do… And they were completely set up when we roared in out of the blue with the ArgoFram, wanted to use […]

Mikhail and Alexei are friends and neighbours, and work as engineers for the Volga Baltic Canal. – Alexei is a friend of Oleg, and I am a friend of Oleg, so I am also a friend of Alexei (and therefore […]

Immediately after the first lock on the Svir, the river between Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga, this family spontaneously helped us find a suitable landing stage for our overnight stay – and then invited me and Oleg to their […]

Oleg and Denis own the newest marina in St. Petersburg, where I felt so at home (they deal with yachts of all kinds, currently somewhat limited due to circumstances…) – they immediately saw that my yacht does not offer […]

Piia and Jarrko are the harbour masters of the Kotka marina and run the entire operation with cafeteria, sauna, laundry and also organise concerts there. We first met in 2021 (maiden voyage) and again in 2022 when I returned from […]

Marko is a boat builder (www.LarsenB.com) and developed my ArgoFram in 2020; Andi is a service technician and provides me with the necessary security or information if problems should arise. (On my journeys in […]