Expectations

1 May 2019

Update from the ship, this time from Juergen.

‘It’s my first trip at open sea, blue water, the Atlantic Ocean, northbound. Must be an adventure to be four weeks offshore, off email + internet + Facebook + completely out of my daily real world. I had no specified expectations, just that the waves at the Atlantic might be quite bigger than those at the North Sea. In the first part of our journey from the south we had a lot of sunny days, some with smooth sailing, others on engine. Then bad weather came up in front of the Azores and later a few days behind them. Bad weather means storms with 7-8 and 8-9 bft and waves may be up to 8 or 10 meters height, a bit more with the heavy gusts.

Sunny weather you can get everywhere in western Europe, but for storms like these you have to be on open sea. I never expected what it means to be on watch, standing outside at the wheel, steering, inside of a storm hundreds of miles away from the nearest coast. Feeling the cold of the wind and heavy gusts and the rain and hails and the ups and downs and the rolling of the ship at the same time … it makes me feel happy and I was laughing out loud… deep inside. I loved it more I can tell. It was like a dream come true, me, on the wheel, in stormy weathers!? YES!

Now the winds are gone and my adventure comes to its end in two days. I’m thankful for a very good time on board, new sights and experiences. By the way, that belongs to the crew! They are verv kind, always friendly, interested and helpful and you can always trust in their seamanship. That helps to stay relaxed… in a storm in the middle of nothing …’