Date: 3rd of December 2018
Position: Atlantic Ocean 20° 48,9’N, 028° 55,1’W
Etmal: 123 sm
Weather: Water 26°C Air 24,5°C Wind NE 4 Bft
from Inja
I decided to write this blog post for all those of you guys out there, who aren’t able to read all the other posts, because they are in German (especially for my aunt and uncle in Waukegan). We left Tenerife 8 days ago, heading south-west to catch the trade winds near Cape Verde and get over the Atlantic faster. By now we experienced stable winds and are cruising west in direction Fort de France, Martinique. Even though we still have over 1500 nm (2778 km) to go, our goal is to arrive there on 17.12. Currently we are sailing at speeds around 5.5 knots (~10 km/h). Could be better, could be worse.
A few of us are hoping to have no wind at all for a day, so we could go swimming in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Wouldn’t that be a unusual and exciting experience? But the chances are small, so we are just living our life on our 36m long home. None of us got seasick after Tenerife, which is probably also because the waves here are pretty comfy. If I´m honest I expected gigantic waves on the Atlantic, but I´m fine with this too. I think we’ll get enough of those on the way back to Germany.
By now everyone got used to the everyday life here. Since Tenerife we got more routine into our daily life, which is nice, because you can develop a sleeping rhythm. On one day we have 8 hour watch shifts and on the other we have lessons (which, by the way, are so much more fun and interesting than at home!). A normal lesson day starts at 7:30 with breakfast. Every morning a small group of us get to clean the bathrooms between 08:00 and 08:30. Lessons start after that and go until 17:45 (with a lot of breaks in between). A few days ago, we caught some plankton out of the sea in biology and checked it out under the microscope. Then we had to try to draw it and a pack of Oreos was awarded for the best drawing!
In German we had to design a poster about a character in our assigned book, which we did on the front deck on a beautiful day in the sun. What a life! On the day we have our shifts (everyone has different shift routines so I´m just going to explain mine), I get up at 23:45 (on the lesson day) and start at 00:00. Together with three others, I take care of the boat and steer.
We have 4 positions: two of us are look-outs, that means we watch out for other boats or things in the water, that could danger us. One stands at the rudder and steers (which isn’t as easy as it looks!) and the last one is on the bridge listening to channel 16 and measuring different weather parameters every half an hour. Every three hours we send the current weather progressions to the German Weather Service via satellite.
After 30 minutes we rotate clockwise. We continue this procedure for 4 hours. So at 4:00 in the morning I get to go to bed. Normally I first get up around 10 and read or listen to music on deck before I get lunch and go back to my shift. After 16:00 I am done for the day and can do whatever I want until lessons on the next day.
Every Saturday we have movie night and blue sack auction. The teachers collect all the stuff they find lying around and put it into a big blue garbage sack. If you want your stuff back, you have to pay 50 cents to get it back. If no one claims it as theirs, we start an auction. The highest bidder wins. All the money adds on to a collective fund which we will use to arrange a party in the Caribbean or get ice cream for everyone (or even both?!).
I hope you kind of got a feeling for what life is on a tiny boot in the middle of a gigantic ocean! I will try to write English posts regularly now, so all of the English-Speaking readers can be kept up to date!
Inja
P.S Mom would you please send Bobby Car a link of the website? And please water my cactus and load my phone! I found the sweets in Tonys calendar, thanks a lot, I was very happy! Love you and miss you!
P.P.S.: Nathalie wünscht Christopher alles Liebe zum Geburtstag und denkt an ihn!
P.P.P.S.: Nathalie says Hello to her dear family over seas (Well, everybody is over seas right now…) Dale, Laura, David and Sophie! I am thankful Inja wrote this Update and by the way: She is the one with the Cubs shirt 😉 We have more than a great time and I can’t wait to share more of our experiences with you!
Aloha, willkommen zu meinem Blogeintrag über den zweiten Dezember, den ersten Advent. Heute wurde ich weihnachtlich mit den ermunternden Worten „Es gibt Frenchtoast“ geweckt. Ich raste zum Frühstück und wurde von der Backschaft mit unangekündigtem French Toast überrascht… Das war auf jeden Fall eine angenehme Abwechslung zwischen dem ganzen „Do-it-yourself“-Brot, das wir normalerweise immer essen. Norbert kündigte heute beim Frühstück an, dass unser in Teneriffa zugestiegener Steuermann Lothar eine Unterrrichtstunde über den Umgang mit dem Sextanten durchführen wird. Diese Möglichkeit nutzte ich natürlich nach dem Frühstück aus und ging motiviert in die astronavigatorische Unterrichtsstunde. Nach zwei Stunden kam ich mit einem brummenden Schädel wieder heraus. Man mag mir sicherlich angesehen haben, dass ich nur 20% von dem verstanden hatte, was Lothar uns geduldig zu erklären versuchte.