- 21 april 2025
- Time: 0800 BT (UTC)
- Position: 41 04 3 N 025 20 0 W
- Course: 045 COG
- Speed: 6 SOG
- Wind: W 4 bft
- Weather: overcast
- Swell: 2 metres
- Sea state: 3 slight
- Temperature: 14 degrees Celsius
Floor’s update of the day:
It’s really nice to be back on the ocean again! Although it started a bit grey and it was drizzling during our morning watch, we had an amazing Eastern Sunday. Our lunch was served inside for the first time, which was actually very cosy and -like always- delicious!! After lunch, cleaning day started. Usually we do this on Saturday, but we all agreed we would rather spend the last day on land shopping, walking around town, calling our loved ones and eating ice cream. So we decided to sing a Shanty song to our captain:
‘I heard, I heard, the old man say (HOOH)
John Kanaka-naka tu-rai-ay!
Today, today is a holiday (HOOH)
John Kanaka-naka tu-rai-ay!
It was not difficult to convince him… Maybe because he’s very nice and allowed us the day off… Maybe because he’s slowly getting tired of our singing and just wanted us to stop and leave the ship… Who shall say…? 😝
So Saturday was the holiday and Eastern Sunday was cleaning day! After cleaning the deck with the firehose we had to clean up the bar… Besides the beautiful things we spot in the ocean, some people were lucky to even see the Niagrafalls coming down from the deck. The hatch can handle the waves and the rain… But we pushed it too far with the firehose. Oopsy…
After this task was done, it was time for my afternoon nap. When I woke up, I was surprised to find chocolate eastern eggs in my boots! This was so nice! Up on deck we had sailed to another season! The sun was shining and the ocean was blue again! Nils and Maria had done an Eastern celebration and now it was time to search for eggs on the ship! Katherine had the time of her life when this contest finally started and of course it got even better when she was allowed to eat the chocolate afterwards!
The rest of the afternoon was very relaxed and Pete and I made bread for the next day. The first time without supervision of our bread-chef Nils… Definitely our biggest achievement of the day!
I really like the atmosphere in the afternoons in general. People are journaling, reading a book, Thomas plays the ukelele and we’re wishing each other good night and good morning when we switch watches.
Time flies when you’re having fun… And we’re having a lot of it here on our own little village on the ocean. I love the conversations, the funny new words I learn in German (Mitbringsel and ‘Thomas, sei nicht so motzig’ are my favourites 😝) , our own ‘Twister-Taal’ (a combination of Dutch, English, German and sometimes even some French), how we’re getting to know each other more and more and realizing how special this experience is and how blessed I am to be able to share it with such an amazing group of people! We’re all different. Different ages, nationalities, interests and taste for music haha… But we all share the love for the ocean and mother nature. And not less important… Open minds and tolerating hearts haha! When I was apologizing to my roommate Iris for waking her up after my evening watch, she answered me: ‘You don’t have to worry about this, I’m always happy to see you’re back’. Even if this is after midnight and the waves make me bump around our cozy little cabin 😝 How sweet is this?! ❤
On the end of the day we share our highlights. This is always very difficult for me, since there are so many highlights to choose from… But I’m always allowed to share my top 3, so today I’ll share this with you as well 😊
- Waking up finding the chocolate eggs in my boots
- Having dinner after another original speech from our chef, with a dolphin swimming right next to the ship
- Looking at the stars in the sky and the sparkles in the water, when suddenly another dolphin appears and glows in the light of the bioluminescence! ‘These kind of things just do not exist!’ Well… They do here on the ocean… Truly one of the most magical things I’ve seen in my life!
