Tag: learning from each other

2nd Term – Week 8. 🚢 ⚓️ ⭐️

And this week is over. Another one gone. But I am glad it is over. This week had its highlights and its tough moments. Moments when I just wanted to be home. I thought to myself that over one year onboard I had never felt the will to not be on the ship, yet, there is always a first time right? It happened this week. Yes. Indeed. A challenging week for me. And I should probably write a deeper post about my thoughts on this… one day perhaps… 😉

Always happy when it is good weather! But sometimes the smile is there to remind me to continue smiling…

But I am better now and have taken a bit of a tougher skin on my shoulders.

My original post had actually quite some extra paragraphs added. But I decided to not publish them again because it would only make harm. I was probably relieving some valves out there but this website is not made for personal anger towards specific people. I think I like sharing everyday situations because they could happen to all, and it is not because there is social media and a website that everything is always easy happy, and pretty. As a woman on board, and one year only in the shipping industry, life can sometimes be tough to be respected and accepted with the rest of the experience I have. You see, every day is a work in progress to becoming a better and more understandable person 😉

Ruyter moored in Delfzijl, at Wagenborg stevedoring quay.
The ship in a mirror…

In Delfzijl we loaded in the sea harbour plasterboards. It is a nice cargo: it tolerates a few drops of rain and the stevedores hoist in our hold 2 electrical bobcats: we only need a couple of hatches open in the center of the ship and there it goes! Keeping the ship with a good trim makes it easier for them: they load fore and aft and do not need much instruction from outside. Besides you cannot enter the hold once they have started because they load all the way to the top, so entrances are blocked. The personnel goes in and out by being hoisted in a cage. It is funny.

Plasterboards stacked in the hold
The basket to bring shore crew in the hold by crane

Plasterboards are quite fragile if you have heavy weather it is apparently not a nice cargo to have. We made them seafast with airbags as we do with wood pulp.

It took us three days to load. It could have been faster but they work from 8-16… it is okay, I do not mind.

Almost the end of loading operation!

It gave me time to quickly go to town a couple of times and get fresh air. Till I still can. Indeed, it has been announced that France will enter her second full lockdown; so when I will fly home, I will not be able to go around like I thought I would… it is okay. But I like shops too haha 😆.

Saturday evening I saw a witch 🧙🏻‍♀️ fly by while we were at sea… the next morning our crew mess had a spooky look: skeleton, rats, bats, spider nets…. 👻 🎃

Me and my carrot cake…

If you like it or not, the Franse Heks (me) always likes a good reason for a special decoration!

All set for Halloween!

We are heading to Inkoo, 🇫🇮, almost near Kotka where we were just coming from 🙂 kieler channel again and 4 days sailing. It will be nice.

In the Kiel Channel

I am soon at the end of my term, in a couple of days I go home, so this is most probably the last story for this second term… I hope you still enjoy reading my stories. Please let me know in comments below what you think!Time flies!

See you next term! Xxx Sophie 😘 ♥️

2nd Term ~ Week 2. 🚢 ⚓️ ⭐️

Oh, God. I am late again! I think my Mondays only start on Wednesdays…. Or let’s face it. I am either procrastinating or too busy to take 30 minutes before the end of the week to blabber up some lines🤦🏻‍♀️… But I am here! 💪🏻 And time actually does fly! I have the feeling I have just come back on board but I am over 2 weeks now and we have already had quite some miles in, a few cargos and also a crew change already! L., our Engineer flew home and A. came back! I am sure we will soon hear some funny stories from the islands during our meals! #fun

Sailing out of Mariager Fjord
Such stillness before the storm hits us!

Last week we were sailing to Stockvik 🇸🇪 . We were indeed delayed because of the very strong winds we had to face. We had to slow down to not stop the vessel on every wave.

The more purple, the harder the wind!
Sailing in the Baltic can sometimes be tough too… Ruyter on her way to the Bothnia sea 🌊

Upon arrival we were at anchor ⚓️for three days just in the bay it was amazing because very quiet and nice weather too. The wind slowed us down to be able to have a notice to readiness on the expected time. But actually, the harbour said their quay was in maintenance so we couldn’t moor yet. Therefore the anchor days. We haven’t seen any maintenance while we were there. Pity because apparently there are very nice hikes to do around Stockvik 🌳 . Instead, we had the chance to enjoy the fjord and the leaves of the trees starting to turn red 🍂 . It is amazing.

At anchor in Sundsvall, enjoying the view.

Time at anchor is ideal to do lots of maintenance jobs. I am really up to date which is nice because I can either enjoy the rest of the time or plan what could be improved. I like that. The days were nice and sunny ☀️ and the evenings so cold. We could feel we were up North there. But of course, we couldn’t resist a swim 🏊‍♀️ in the freezing cold water. I guess it was around 6-8 degrees 🥶 ! But it is nice and gives lots of energy. We challenged the trainee and also our Indonesian crew to swim! They all dared. Once. Except for the cook. I went twice 💪🏻👊🏻.

Always happy to go for a cold swim! 💪🏼

I really enjoy this cold water therapy. To be honest it is way colder than my very cold daily showers 🚿. You should try too! It is very healthy and good for the skin! 😜
After stockvik, I was hoping to go to Sundsval again ( same Fjord) and load wood pulp ( nice clean cargo!) to Spain ( nice sunny warm weather!) but nope. The order first went to Uusikaupunki ( just love these strange Finnish names!) to Sweden. Of course, as a Sophie, I directly made my voyage plans but hey, it would have been too easy: change of plan: we will be loading sugar beet pulp pellets in Liepaja 🇱🇻 . I am sure this was just a sign for me to practice my voyage plannings. But ok. I don’t mind. Just did them again. 🤓
So after tasting the salt, which was really salty; I am curious to taste our next cargo to see if it is very sweet or not. Apparently, it is used for food for animals…. I do not mind being a little crazy about that! 🤪

Try to get technical here… 😉

As I said at anchor, it is always nice to do jobs you do not have the time for. I love launching the MOB boat and going for a short ride. 🚣 I was alone this time but finally could drive at my own pace and sail around the ship for pictures 😉. We also had fun in the engine room 👩🏻‍🔧measuring the valve clearances of the Main Engine. It is always quite some fun. At least for me; and I know for Captain H. as well. Except for this time, our trainee didn’t really like a tiny joke of mine 🤭- wrong jokes happen ha! But when you know me, you know I only like to play around and have fun -so it didn’t end up as nice as I wanted 😂 . I had a nice Sophie moment and just went for another lonely job greasing the anchor winch on the foredeck. 🙄Nice and isolated. If people cannot handle my jokes…even though I wouldn’t kill a fly…. Well then…. I don’t know, they just do not handle them. I think they are funny. 😬I guess we keep on learning always and at all times right? That is my lesson: be aware of my (too) direct teasing. And for the others: just toughen up and do not be so sensitive. 😉 ( mhmm am I sometimes sensitive? 🤔Oh well… life onboard…. It makes us grow faster right? It is all good now.)

Discharging salt cargo in Sundsvall
I am always trying to stay positive; happy selfies help me with that!

Monday is a new day and we will be discharging our 3k ton salt and heading directly to Liepaja. The sun is shining. Be happy. Don’t worry. I am just going for another cold swim. 🥴

See you next week my friends! ✌️


Take care all of you!
2 weeks onboard, no symptoms. Corona free. I like that.

See you next week! Xxx Sophie 😘 ♥️
@ Stockvik

1st Term ~ Week 5. ⚓🚢

1st Term ~ Week 5. ⚓🚢

Week 5.
Ok. 5 weeks onboard already. So I have done more than half of my term 😱 . Time really goes fast when you are busy and having fun! 😜

Alongside in Bayonne: nice sunset

I do not even recall all the things we did this week. Oh yes. So we discharged in Pasajes 🇪🇸 then sailed to Bayonne 🇫🇷 but had to wait a day at anchor first ⚓️.Trust me that was not a problem to relax a little and of course…. Have a swim call just before the pilot came on board in the heat and ☀️ !

Once in Bayonne, it was a bit difficult to be so close to the beaches with such sunny weather because we were once again not allowed to go ashore. It is a bit frustrating but at least we also know we stay healthy!
The agent there was pretty nice. His English was not too bad at all; probably because he was also cheating being half danish… 😉

A clean ship in Bayonne before loading.
A dusty ship in Bayonne after loading.

He brought me a big box of earth from his garden for my lupine forrest 🌱! So guess what I did this week…. Again a bit of gardening. From 1 bottle I am now at 8 bottles! Hopefully, they will enjoy having more space for their roots and more food in the earth… I should maybe start thinking of giving them away to the people around us 🤔.

Giving fresh earth to the Lupine forrest

I am not sure if captain H. likes all my experiments…. He said it was starting to become a farm in the bridge…. Let me explain…. In Bayonne, we loaded grain again. Corn. One of the best qualities ( Mais waxi pro) that is used for food ( jelly, Amidon, maïzena and else) as it is edible. We ate some. It is super tasty. Well, I picked up a full bucket of course and I wanted to wash the corn ( mind you that cargo is realllllly very dusty!!!) and try to boil it or even make popcorn of it – wait, do you think that by planting one single corn 🌽 I could get a plant of it? 🌾 I’d love to see what happens and if it is still good or not! If it is then I will continue washing the rest of the grains and make small pouches for the popcorn to eat in front of a movie in harbour our maybe to give to our cookie for meals!

Cleaning the corn. Hopefully, we can eat it and make popcorn from it!

Well yeah… He said it was a farm…. Well I disagree, I always clean up my mess and till now I do not see the pigs and cows yet… unless…. Where is that smell coming from? Who farted just now? … never mind 🤪🤭

Loading corn in Bayonne

Leaving Bayonne we had a four and a half-day sail to Hamburg to discharge. We had so much weather in the channel. For sure we were lucky to sail south and swim because the winds were increased on our stretch back north. On one of my watches, I had for a couple of hours 40+ knots established…. 💨 🌊 it was mostly downwind which made up fly and surf the big waves but when I think of it… I remember the times on the tall ships ⛵️ where you would steer outside with 4 layers under your foul weather gear, speeding 10 knots with a tiny storm sail…. That was some much fun. Hardcore. But fun. Here I can still enjoy my cup of coffee and the foam from the frothed milk doesn’t even blow away… #spoiled. Books do not slide from one side to the other, although I must say the vessel gets a bit more “nervous”…. Nothing to compare with though. This is a comfort I do really appreciate too. I am probably getting a bit older. (🤫chuuuut!)

Happy to be back in France

In Hamburg, one of our ABs is flying back home to Indonesia 🇮🇩 …. And we are welcoming back our fresh and rested one. Crew changes are always nice and sad at the same time. A lot of mixed feelings. Next week it will be the turn of our captain too. I am not looking forward to so much change right now… Rules in Indonesia are pretty strict… after a COVID-19 test, even if negative, he will have to be in quarantine for two weeks in Jakarta then 2 weeks home before being able to finally enjoy his family after 6 months. I hope he has a good book and that is data bundle is big enough to…. We will see what happens next!

Oh! Oh! Dust everywhere!
Never mind! 😉

Hamburg 🇩🇪 will be busy: internal audits, annual safety checks, discharging, loading, ballasting, deballasting, changing berth, cleaning the cargo hold, moving the bulkheads… all in two days. But we are sailors. 🚢 🚢 ( I say that now, we will see next Sunday if I still say that haha)

Take care all of you! And especially to all the moms out there as it is in France Mother’s day. I love mine to the moon and back 💕 and I am the luckiest person alive to have her. Je t’aime maman ❤️ ❤️ ❤️.
Tchuuuusssss ✌🏻 Sopietje ⚓️ 🚢 ⭐️
@ Port de Bayonne