Walt Disney said, “All dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.”
Baudouin and Corine de Hemptinne shared a dream for a long time, and had the courage to pursue it together in 2005.
The couple borrowed 250,000 euros from a bank, bought a boat and refurbished it to suit a family of five — they have a daughter and two sons, Alexandra then 8, Leopold, 6, and Joachim, 4. On July 3, 2006, they set out for a 14-month journey across the North Atlantic.
“We’ve always loved the sea,” said Baudouin, the attache for economic and commercial development for the Walloon and Brussels regions at the Belgian Embassy in Seoul, during an interview in his home, Wednesday. And the couple fulfilled a dream of making their nautical passion a family project.
They set off from Greece. Bypassing the Strait of Gibraltar, the family then sailed along the West African coast to Senegal, where they stopped for two months to get involved in a school project. The boat crossed the North Atlantic to reach Guadeloupe, the Caribbean islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico before heading back to Europe.
It all sounds like a long and relaxing family vacation. However, it was far from that, and they knew this from the beginning.
It took one year to prepare. While traveling, the family had to manage everything from generating electricity to distilling ocean water to drink. They had to catch fish to eat for dinner. The three kids had their daily school work to do. Someone had to keep watch at night to look out for other boats in order to avoid a collision on the high seas.
Corine said the children’s schooling was the most difficult part.
“When you’re on a boat, you have a lot of wonderful things. To say ‘Ok guys, go inside and study for three hours’ was quite hard,”
Corine said. But, everything they were doing was part of their education, about which the parents are happy.
They saw a broken down boat adrift full of Africans trying to reach Europe. The kids learned to distinguish edible from non-edible fish by referencing a poster hung on a door. “Fish from the deep sea is mostly good to eat,” Baudouin said.
Now memories of the trip are preserved in books, photos and short films that they have made.
Looking back, the couple is content that the journey ended safely, and that they could exercise freedom.
The children are the priority now, and the family moved to Korea in 2009 because of Baudouin’s diplomatic work.
When our kids become independent, Corine said, they’ll be off again to follow another dream. “The only thing that you regret is what you have not done,” Baudouin said.