Updated October 2020, or when I decided to be activity my old blog by making a journal of my life and stories at sea ….
P R E S E N T. P A S T.
I am (still) Sophie. Half French, half Dutch. Nearly 34 Just turned 36 !– I have stopped and I am still counting…
I am currently chief officer on a big Dutch sailing vessel we call “Tall Ship”, the “Gulden Leeuw” coaster from the Netherlands, M/V Ruyter.
She is a three masted topsail schooner with a length including spars of 70,10 meters and 44 meters high. We can be up to 84 persons when sailing over the ocean and we can also do day trips and receptions onboard with up to 230 persons onboard. Indeed, we might as well say that sometimes life can be a soap here! She is slightly less than 3000GT, 89,9m long and 12,5m wide. She can carry anything in her hold but mainly Bulk and dry packed goods.
But everyday is a new and different day. We cannot get bored.
AH! this hasn’t changed, every day is still different and I still never get bored! 🙂 Gulden Leeuw is my home for now almost 4 full years. I sail more than 250 days … ok, ok, I got it. There is too much to modify from my “About” page that I should probably just create a new one for an updated version…. it would be smarter and faster.
My P A S T. and F U T U R E. paragraphs haven’t changed…. only my P R E S E N T. Therefore you will notice that I will not add them here below. It would be as if I am copying myself on a nw page, juste to make it sound longer right?
If you still want to check them out, once more, to make sure you didn’t miss out on anything, press here.
(N E W) P R E S E N T.
February 2019 I quit my dream job on that big ocean crossing sailing vessel Gulden Leeuw. I needed something else. A new horizon. New people. New goals. I wasn’t happy: overworking, daily, yearly, not enough time for myself. I wasn’t happy in my skin anymore. I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Another big Dutch sailing vessel had offered me the position of chief officer a couple of times and I thought this was faith calling me to grab that opportunity with both hands. After my interview, we realised I was missing the all ships paper I needed to sail there in the offered position. I decided this was the time to #getthatdone. I needed to move on. And it is what I did. I never returned onboard GL only to pick up my luggage and personal Items I had left there, 6 months later. No bad feelings, good terms.
Some how the moment I handed in my resignation, God must have been checking on me from up there because another dream job fell on my laps: chief mate onboard the infamous Bark Europa. Yep! that one and only! Remember? a few years bac I had left that beauty to be chief officer on GL! Interesting how the winds change right? That was then settled: beginning of April till mid July: Cape Town to Arhus. This would give me time to collect information for my new school and find an internship onboard a cargo vessel (…) and have -if possible- a summer home after some what 7-8 years! Get the school done, get my new all ships endorsement and present myself to my next dream job: the Stad Amsterdam.
Well it didn’t go all as planned of course, but again, God made it even better for me!
Within less than 10 days, I had found myself a position as trainee on a motor vessel. They said it wasn’t easy and that many kept searching for month before finding one. This was my second application. The first was sent to the vessel where my friends J. was working. But he told me he didn’t like it anymore and was quoting there he sent me a screenshot of a post from a facebook page…. the captain of M/V Ruyter had a free position for an intern… I sent my CV. and there it was.
Not true: I sent my CV, had a few mail exchanges, followed a link sent by the office for two sorts of online IQ tests, had a meeting in the big office in Delfzijl and the next day got my reply that I could join as soon as I could/ wanted…. this is the longer version.
Fun fact 1: the captain though I was choosing Bark Europa as my intern position…. He didn’t understand I was going there for a job. He was trying to convince me that for an all ships paper a cargo vessel was probably more accurate for learning argo operation skills…. that was funny. Anyhow, I joined them in September 2019. The same September 2019 I started my school in Urk to get my all ships ticket.
Fun fact 2: it took me 6 month to accomplish my internship and my school including exams…. I think also school was quite astonished by it. The difference is that I already had experience, and master papers… only limited by my sailing endorsement. I already had had stability lessons and navigation classes…. I just need to catch up on cargo operations. Oh and… English, Math and…. Dutch! I think that was the hardest – besides handing in over 10 school reports during my 13 week internship – – oh and books, classes, tests and exams, all in Dutch, of course – I had to pass the official national Dutch exam without having had one simple dutch lesson in my entire life!
Fun fact 3: believe it or not, God was really checking on me: new job, new school, new internship, a job offer after only 2 weeks onboard as trainee, all exams successfully passed. – also the Dutch ones, no excuses now!- It went so smoothly that here I am: chief officer of M/V Ruyter since beginning of may 2020; since crew changes were again possible during lockdown in France and all over Europe, due to Covid-19 pandemic.
Two months on, two months off. this is my rotation. 6 permanent crew members, ABs and cook are Indonesian, Officers are Dutch, or partly (me). Not the Stad Amsterdam as planned, but something new to learn about and to have fun. I am happy onboard and that made a huge weight in the balance.
(N E W) F U T U R E.
Sure I couldn’t leave you all here wondering what was going to happen in the next pages of this blog right? haha So here it is: the final truth:
The blog is about the sea and what I learn from it. It is about the cargo ships and what I learn from the harbours, the cargo we transport, the ship. It is about people living together in a small environment and what I learn from it. It is about life, about challenges, about happiness, about fun, about goals, about adventures, about sunsets, about friendships… and what I learn from it.
Hopefully you will find some food for thought for yourself and to wander in your life too. And remember….
… Not all that wander are Lost!
Oh! and also remember… someone is always checking upon you… from up there, do not forget him!
Happy reading ! Xxx Sophie
S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R. 