Tag: living with each other

Posted at Sea. ⚓

Posted at Sea. ⚓

I used to write a lot of letters when I was younger. Like a lot. Every three to four years we would move to another country and the only way to keep in touch with my friends was through letters. Every three weeks I could expect letters from some of my friends because we were getting good at replying almost straight away to one another which kept the flow going. That was awesome. At that time, there was no internet yet. ( Like Whaaaaaat??!  Almost unbelievable when you think of it!) We didn’t have cell phones and an international call was still pretty expensive so you would only do it once in a while to organize a week on holiday back at their place or something. Yes a phone call to organize something « big ».

Nowadays. No ways. smartphones, messages, social media. It’s all over the place. Where has gone the piece of paper you will keep your whole life in a box that your grandchildren will find one day in the attic? 

Indeed, the digital and paperless generation is here. Why send a letter if you can call over roaming? (lets be honest, wifi is now  sooo has been ….). Why send a postcard of where you are when you can post a picture of you anywhere in the world to anyone and everyone all over the world?

I must be old fashioned in a way… or simply old (not!) ( by the way, for those who do not know yet… my age is stuck at 27).

In my early twenties, I went backpacking in Italy with four other of my girlfriends. At that time, some of our parents wanted to know every move we were taking so I « prebooked » hostels (booooring -we thought- where has the adventure gone?) and trains on my bank account until the girls would pay me back. My parents were not pleased at all with the idea and to get them to forgive me a bit faster ( you can imagine… ) I started sending a post card from every city we visited within those three weeks to say sorry and to thank them because without the advance of cash I wouldn’t have been able to travel. (longer story short). In three weeks I ended up sending 16 postcards. They were very happy of it of course and I was also so happy to send them because I was honestly thinking of them everyday and so grateful I was being able to travel and visit the world.

This is how my « postcard adventure » started…

Since then every time I can and that I find good enough postcards I send one home. For my parents. I miss them so much. Every day. They are the best parents I would have ever imagined having. With smartphones and internet all over the place, you can be so close and yet so far. With a card, I take time to write something down and send it. It takes one or two days to arrive home and I know they will appreciate what I have written (something I have nothing to say , it happens too!) but the thought is there. I took time for them.

Sometimes the postcard also comes a few month later… 2-to 4 month depending on how remote the place you have been visiting was…

Since I am sailing I have extended this habit to my whole family, and then to some of my best friends, that I now consider family and a few of my very good friends too. That makes quite a few postcards! It used to always minimum of 5, and then if they are cool a few extra and I rotate within my friends; it is now a minimum of 10 I send in every harbour now. Wow I just realized its like 30 harbours a year so maybe 250-300 cards that I send out!!! impressive… 🙂

IMG_0405

 

Another cool fact about my post card challenge is that by doing this I am also continuing a seafarers tradition: « posted at sea »… How many persons could say that they have received a letter or a card with funky coordinates and a huge ship stamp on it? 

In the old days, the only opportunity to get some news was to get closer to other vessels at sea, and give them the mail we had if they were returning to land.…

If the ships had the same home port, it was definitively no problem to deliver the mail. News about an arriving ship spread quickly and everyone came to check for news. But what about the ship returning to a different port, or even a different country? How was the mail delivered then? Who paid the postage and in what currency……?

Well, all of that led to an international agreement about Ship Mail known as Paquebot, French being the world’s official postal language. Simply put, if you are on the open sea, which belongs to nobody, the deck you are standing on is the territory of the country under which flag the ship sails. That means, that if you write a letter on the ship’s deck and on the high sea, you should be able to use the stamp of the country under which the ship sails. That also means, that if a ship enters a harbor, the officer should be able to hand over the mail to the local post office at that harbor in whatever country, and the mail should be delivered without any additional charge…

In the top right corner I stamp my envelopes with a ships stamp, and the dutch « post NL» stamp and write down my coordinates and « posted at sea ». I think 95% of my cards have arrived. Ar at least 100% have arrived home, that is for sure! 🙂

I love traditions.

 

There are quite some funny facts. When Granny receives them, she still thinks I am at the place when she receives the card. So when I come home and visit her and that she has just received that remote card, she thinks I I just arriving from some kind of banana republic in the Caribbean again.. It is sweet..

Or what I really find cool as well is when after a whole summer people send me a picture of all the cards they received with a huge thank you note. I really find it cool that it makes people happy.

Thank you Yoad!
Sorry Laura… 😉 but it was so great that the card arrived faster home than you did! ❤
mom, dad.. ❤
Or better! As some of my friends do not travel as much they send me a huge letter once in a while… they think they will then be forgiven to not travel as much as I do… but they do not know that they had nothing to be forgiven about… but I LOVE reading letters so I never told them!! Hahah

I also have that special friend who has been telling me for months now that I had to check my mail box but I have never received anything yet… all summer I was told he wanted to write me but he never did. So I have send him – hoping it would help- a few envelopes pre stamped and with paper and my address already written on them but…. It seems that that even didn’t help.

It started when he left in Barbados on semester break: « check your mail box Sophs! », « well you don’t even have my address kiddo! » I answered. «  life is full of surprises » he said back.

Later in the summer it was a lot of  « I really want to write you a letter » « I am going to write you a letter » « I want to , I will I promise »… haha well I still haven’t received anything

I guess some people write and others don’t. I do not know.

In the end the small/ big question is : do I do this to get letters and cards back? What is more important, getting letters or once in a while a text message? Do we write to satisfy ourselves? Or the others? mhmh

I do not know. But I do know that I do keep my letters forever and that text messages are sometimes erased easily and forgotten very fast…. What do you think?

Anyways, I do believe that if you promise you will write, sometimes it is not really about the letter and its content but more about the word and the promise that define you as a person.

 

I love staying in touch with people and I find it pretty difficult when at sea. I am extremely lucky to be able to use whatsapp in the middle of the ocean… it has been a huge improvement since I started sailing. I do not need much more. Just the people I love close by. I do thinking it is a nice experience to not have phones and internet, to be disconnected for a few days when sailing; but to be honest, I have done that experiment long enough in the pas, and I have nothing to prove. Now I want my friends and family close. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything else.

Ok Ok to be fair, even at sea, you would be surprised, but we also have some rules: no emails and phones ( mhmh sneaky sneaky sometimes! I admit!) during weekends and past certain hours: indeed our offices are in two very different time zones, we constantly change country with different agents, and none of them answer in the middle of the night or during weekends. So we do the same now; and we feel way better 🙂

 

Yes staying in touch with my friends. One of the most important things for my. Being in touch in contact, sending messages. – yes. I am addicted to text messages-. But why and how? Why on earth do I have such a job and am never close to any body of my family and friends?

When I was student I really was a party girl, going out every weekends till 5 am with my friends, having a lot of social activities, meeting up with a lot of friends always. Never alone and never stopping one second: studying, rowing, chief scout, the navy, working, going home. It never stopped. I like to be challenged like that but it is also very stressful. 

Living in a big city such as Paris is great. I LOVE it! But you also get those friends – friends of friends, friends of friends of friends that show up all the time because they are in the « same group » but you don’t really want to see them, and you kind of also want to be alone when its too crowded and even though you have a lot of people around you, you can also feel extremely alone sometimes…

so? Whats the link Sophs??!

“All that is not eternal is eternally useless.”

Well when I went at sea I first found the same feeling as when we were moving younger: time would just automatically « get rid » (ok sounds a bit harsh I know..) of those people you didn’t really want to stay friends with. And only the best ones would stay in touch. And that is what happened! I never changed my number so that I was always available. And people who actually wanted to stay in touch with me did. When I think of it we are often close to shore and I can very often check my phone and emails. Just not social media – at that time-.

So i could totally stay in touch with my besties and family. 

I just found a lot of « air » around me and freedom of doing what I wanted.

Well, now. Sometimes I truly miss people and wish I were very close to them. But  therefore I can WhatsApp and send cards! 🙂 and we do stay in touch.

I mean it . I make a point of honor to stay in touch with those I love.

I have made a commitment to myself. (upon quite a few, this is one of them).

img_1004.jpg

Your commitments shape your life more than anything else. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way, they will define you. Tell me what you’re committed to, and I’ll tell you what you’ll be in 20 years, because we become whatever we’re committed to.

– what wait? Will I become a postcard??!! Haha

– no a link, a faithful and trustworthy friend; hopefully someone who values some friends more than anything and that even without post cards or letters back, even if I never reach out enough. Someone who may be independent but nothing without the people she loves.

I say that. But keeping commitments can be quite hard. But without you will only be drifting through life, and while everything will melt around us, what lives we should be living! (2 Peter 3:11).

The same for half commitments and temporary ones. Or even those where the values might not be the best hearted: competition, wealth, fame. There is none of that at sea. And if there were, these wouldn’t end up very far trust me! No disappointment or bitterness. I am trying to ban these. And it would be a huge mistake to think that God’s goal for your life would be material prosperity or to be popular with a lot of success.

Staying in touch with people by letters and cards, messages, calls is a way to value the person we want to stay in touch with. It is pointing out the value these other persons have for us. And fixing the attention on the things that are eternally important: friendship, family, love. A way to keep them close to my heart and hopefully, me close to their heart while I am far away. Mixing up the sayings: so far but yet so close. 🙂 <3. Ok ok… a little quote from the Bible…. in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever” . He really got it right didn’t he? 😉

Gotta go post my letters!

Thank you all of you who give me lots of joy writing them and thinking of you!

I ❤ you!

Sophs ❤ ⚓

What ever it may be… I am ready for it, Or the start of my 5th ClassAfloat school year.

What ever it may be… I am ready for it, Or the start of my 5th ClassAfloat school year.

Ok. So here it is. I a sorry I haven’t shared anything in ages! I have literally 3 drafts in front of me but I do not know which one to post and none of them are « finished » to my opinion.

A lot of things happened this summer and I am realizing now at one week before the end of the summer season that…. It went extremely fast – as usual- and that I need to spend more time with the off going crew too.

I could start a small debrief of my summer. See what worked what didn’t; the goals I set myself professionally but also personally. Did I reach any? What have I achieved or not? Most of all did I have fun and have I made some people happy? That is all the essential maybe of all the questions I could ask myself.

One week  ago, the next group of students joined the vessel for 9 month in a row.

My last days of freedom, my last days of having a crew mess for crew only and not shared with 20 staff members. I know… small details but it does feel somehow like the Canadian invasion! Not in a bag way… but an invasion is still and invasion. You need to get used to it again. Your routines are suddenly a bit pushed and moved around and the first days people are more in the way till they also find their marks and new routines too. I must forgive them in advance.

IMG_3745

Not so long ago, we were sailing with our last group of trainees of the summer. We were on the north sea. It was rainy and there was absolutely no wind in the beginning. All sails were set and we were slowly moving forward with the engine clutched in. The wind was going to pick up later in the night and we were going to be happily sailing all the way back to IJmuiden then Amsterdam only under sails. This is what we like. You know, when it is not cold and trainees are motivated. They have been asking so many questions and have been on time and are motivated for anything we had been doing. They gave energy which is good and our last trip of the year all together as a crew was in a nice atmosphere. We were just taking pictures together and trying to immortalize these last gatherings. Even though separation is soonish, we are a happy crew.

All this was coming to an end way to fast. Way earlier than what I was expecting. Too soon.

Why does time work like this? That moments are either too long or too fast? why? Who is up there making these moves and why?

Then ALLLL these questions starting flooding in my head.

 

I had been longing for these new students the whole month of June and now I am almost afraid of them. Who are they? The new crew. Let’s talk about them? All joining a new system, a new vessel and replacing others we have worked with, taken care of and had fun for the past months. How will these new ones will be?

I have spent weeks getting to know these great humans I have been working with. Will I ever see them again? Will I ever work with them again? This vessel? Another one? This side of the world? I do not know. Nobody knows. Was it worth it? All these efforts? All these efforts for such short term. Why do I do all this?

How can I handle all these changes all the time?

 

I know I will meet new persons and I will get to/ have to get to know them well while onboard. I will have to explain -once again- how the ship works. Explain -once again- without showing that sometimes I can be annoyed. Trying to be clear in my explanations and instructions but not overload too much – even though a vessel to handover is a huuuuge amount of work- and despite me talking too much…

How to do this once again with the best smile I can, trying not to show that sometimes I just want to go to bed or that questions get answered by themselves.

What is the difference between a short 2 days and a 9 month long sail training trip? In the end both experiences change peoples lives: they will remember it forever. And in both cases we do the same instruction and we handover the responsibilities to them to learn to work in a team and manage responsibilities and troubleshoot on different levels.

Why on earth do I do this???

Will I be able to survive once again a new full year of students, knowing in advance how heart broken I will be in May when they all depart from the vessel? Will I survive once again all these challenges I know we will encounter? Will I be able to trust myself to make the best of it? Take the best decisions possible for the community and the vessel? Will I be able to learn from my past mistakes and have these ones help me in my future decisions and standing strong where my weaknesses occur?

I need to look beyond and not only in the following days.

All the efforts that are put now into place are for a greater and better cause.

I need to remind myself these three following resolutions:

The first resolution: Choose to be who God wants you to be. – I honestly just know he want’s me to be Big Sophie, and I am still just a sophie….

The second resolution: Choose short-term pain for long-term gain.

And the third life-shaping resolution: if you have the choice, better chose God’s values, not our trendy world’s… 😉

Hebrews 11:26 says, “He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward” .

Moses made a value judgment. He clarified what mattered most to him.

What matters most in life? What would I want to matter most in life?

Integrity, humility, and generosity. 

These are important to me and living by them are a difficult task but I am confronted to them every day. It is only since I have started this blog; or maybe because I wanted to start it because I realized what we were doing here onboard.

 

Living on a vessel, in the middle of the ocean, with 79 other persons around you that trust you with their life when we are at sea. Trust you in the decisions you might take when sailing to keep them safe in an environment that can sometimes not be so friendly. Who am I to say I am stronger than the storms we will encounter? I am just a sophie.

These young people; my job; the people I work with. I try to give them everything I know when I first meet them.Everything I know about the vessel for them to feel comfortable in their living and working spaces. To feel at ease and safe. But I have myself everything to learn and from everything.

 

I try to give them what I have when possible: my time is the next step for those with who I will or will want to go further. Sometimes I do not want to but I just have to – if that makes sense?- and in the end, for those that will go beyond these to steps I will give everything, anything and and my entire « who I am ». I will be extremely dedicated. I know for my self that my expectations are pretty high that it is sometimes difficult for people to follow me. But some just manage to be just spot on and even beyond.

On an every day basis; to be honest, I think I am a selfish person. Or as selfish as another I guess? And I always feel guilty about it, when I want to spend time with people for example, because I would make time in my tight schedule for those I think who deserve it.

It ends up I can often feel alone or disappointed because I have the feeling I am giving giving giving always so much and that it never comes back. It is not true. It does come back but often at the moment we expect it the least or in the form we didn’t expect either.

Trust me. I know. I have been already so lucky. And I trust it does come back in one way or the other.

IMG_3796

Living on the ship can be very difficult. There is no escape. You are who you are and you cannot hide. At one stage or the other you will be discovered for who you are. This is just the way it is. We all have our ups and downs and we can all be understanding, as much as we can for the others. But we are who we are. And I am just a sophie. again. For years, integrity has been a real life rule. You can only say what you so and what you do determines who you are if it is done with integrity. In such a small community, for so long, the real you pops out. There are no lies and no false. Integrity is a life rule. Trust, honesty and truth are all included in the term integrity. A high value that enable me to rely on myself and on others. I want others to be able to rely on me for anything and at any level need.

Why is this so important? Because if you don’t decide what’s important in your life, other people are going to decide for you. They’re going to push you into their mold. And you’re going to live your life by their values, not yours. It is my life, my choices, and I am actress of it. Only me can decide upon my actions.

And I do want people to rely on me. I am proud if some tell me I am a role model and that people look up to me. Even though I do not always understand how or why; If I am- because I am told I am- I need to push my values to the end, and I need to decide for myself to show all these young people that they are the actors of their lives and that with what they are given then can go far- whatever the « given » is- if they act with integrity, generosity and humility, ready to learn from anything.

Just to make sure. I am writing these words. But please understand that these values are absolutely not yet « acquired »!! I am totally still working on them.

Aspiring

to one day being able to live by them… I am still working on it and I believe for a long time still…

Working again again and again. And overcoming again again and again my failures.

Persevering.

But hey, nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right?

« Lets not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up » (galatians 6:9)

There are many things that work to keep us from completing our daily, temporary or permanent missions. 

I don’t know if the worst is when I push things again or further in time or if I just loose hope. (that happens so often!!) (I try to kick my butt very often by stepping outside of my Sophie brains and seeing the bigger picture and stop thinking and overthinking too much). The typical procrastination vs. discouragement. « Shall I push away or just quit? » « Am I made for this? » how many times I have asked myself these questions? Sometimes everything seems so difficult: leaving people we got to appreciate a lot, in two days, a few month or in a year: Colleagues who leave the vessel after 5 years, students who became close friends, crew who shared our daily watches more than 10 hours a day during easy days and tougher days.

Life can not be so easy sometimes.

But again and again, lets not get discouraged and start over with new crew, new colleagues, new students. Life is full of surprises also right around the corner.

«  Let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up ».

Do you ever get tired of doing what’s right? I think we all do. Sometimes it seems easier to do the wrong thing than the right thing just because we are tired or done with things, fed up, but integrity and generosity come back when stepping out of the box.

When we’re discouraged, we become ineffective. When we’re discouraged we work against our own faith. When we’re discouraged , we’re saying « it can’t be done ». That’s the exact opposite of saying « I know God can do it because of what he said ».

 

Every time I am « assessing myself »: How do I handle failure? Can I take example on others on how they do? When things don’t go my way do I get grumpy? Do I get frustrated? Do I start complaining? Oh yeah…. totally. I try not to though. But unfortunately those who are the closest of me will know all my interior sophie dilemmas….

But I know my self now for somethings: I do finish what I start, and I do  persist and always try to reach the goal I have set myself. I know what I want and I am not a quitter. I refuse to be.

If you are discouraged don’t give up without a fight.

Nothing worthwhile ever happens without endurance and energy.

You have to continue hitting it and hitting it chipping away the rust, sanding and applying layers and layers of primer to have good base and a well maintained vessel.

And I guess that’s true of life too. Nothing really worthwhile ever comes easy in life. You keep hitting it and going after it, and little by little your life becomes a master piece.

The fact is that people are really just ordinary people with an extraordinary amount of determination. Great people don’t know how to quit.

I, just try my best not to. I still have quite some work to achieve for that. Sail training is not only me for the others but others for me.

 

Why on earth do I do all this?

Because if you would see these youngsters coming onboard and leaving the vessel; they are not the same anymore. A trip of 2 days as much as a trip of 9 month.

Because people grow, because we grow, because we are in the heart of what humans are and we have all of it: the difficult moments and the good moments.

Because the difficult ones lead to constructive moments, learning processes that end up being good moments. Because the results aren’t always immediate; the reward comes later and the reward is often spectacular.

Because even if it scares me, I do want to have my old small stone heart broken at the end of the year , at graduation in may, because it will mean that I would have given my best and all what I have and who I am. I will have given myself once again at the point that I will be crying so much for being separated and asking myself all these questions again.

That is me heart is broken it is because I am a human and I have feelings and that I care. 

And I hope I can say that I do care about each one of the students that has joined the vessel.

Cheers to my trainees and my colleagues!

IMG_3558

This new coming school year is going to be a great one. again. I trust it and I know it. Why wouldn’t it applying all these life values?

This is our year. This is what we do and what we want. Lets give these young – and I am sure beautiful- young humans and spirits the best of what lie can teach them on the Gulden Leeuw.

 

Well that is a high aim but…

… I am ready for it.

Sophs ❤ ⚓

Take your rest when you can!

Take your rest when you can!

Taking your rest.

The Gulden Leeuw is sailing all year around. We have very little time when we are for a few days in harbour, and usually those days are filled with so many things to do that the crew has never that much time to rest before going back at sea. It is, by the way, often said that sailors take their rest back at sea because they go back in a normal routine of watches and systems and regularity. Having said that. Every day is so different onboard that there is also – specially for sailing vessels I guess – the hidden rule to take your rest when you can because you never know when will be the next time you can go to bed.

Sleeping and sailing is a mixture that is pretty interesting actually. We are lucky we can go to bed several times a day, in between our watches. But it also means that we usually don’t and even cannot sleep more than 6 or 7 hours in a row – if you are lucky. Well for somebody like me, needing a lot of sleep, it is sometimes tough, but you kind of get used to it. Indeed I am still there! 😉

Sleeping several times a day means that :

1. You can be in a watch in the middle of the night and in the middle of the day, that sometimes you are never there for sunrises or sunsets, or for some meals; so your routines is a bit strange. And 2. That time flies also in a different way. I cannot really tell if it goes faster or slower. Looking back I would for sure say faster but when I am looking forward to something, it is way too long.

Indeed. You go several times to bed , so you think that your day is over several times a day but.. it is not. You remember when younger you would maybe tell yourself: «  yes! Still 5 sleeps till this or that », « still 4 sleeps till holiday », « still 3! »… a good way of counting down. Well I have tried it here. It doesn’t work. Every thing seems two times longer than usual. And again, when looking back, you just wonder where time went!?

 

sophie 2

When new trainees join the vessel, we always try to tell them they have to go to bed and remind them to take their rest. Days can be long, and nights even longer! It is difficult, and I understand them completely. People always think they will miss out on things if they go to bed. I can understand that. I am a Sophie and I literally have difficulties making choices; so if I know something might happen I can stay up all night for it! And making the right decision, balancing choices such as « fun+ no sleep » and « sleep + good day the next day » well I’d probably choose option 1.  It is difficult to think in another way such as: « If I wouldn’t have known there was this opportunity, then I would have continued my life the same. So I should just act accordingly and pretend you didn’t know that it would happen, thus take your rest ». nope. Not for me thank you.

The best example would be when at anchor. If we are sailing for weeks already and we arrive earlier at anchor, we usually split the watch in 2 and do 2 hours-2hours instead of 4 in a row. Well sometimes people complain a bit, but I answer that it is actually a bonus because we could be sailing so no split watches.

To be honest, I usually end up staying up with trainees or crew or talking the time to finally watch a movie and realize I stayed more awake than if I had ben on watch the 4 entire hours. whatever.

To take your rest is pretty difficult. Sometimes, you do not really have the choice. The rhythm onboard is ongoing, crazy, chaotic: new trainees, familiarizations, schedules, drills, guests, corporates, daysails, Liaison Officers, maintenance, technical issues, shifting berth…. And all this at the same time – of course, what else?. I sometimes wonder how we survived some days onboard. But we did and days went great (in the end)!

I love when things get really busy because I do not have time to think, it is just ongoing. If I have my brains with me (small notebook I keep in my pocket and locker and write down everything on it) then I just need to prepare a good schedule. Take time to plan it ahead and check with all departments if everything works well on their side.

« just » and « good » schedule…. Of course. The art of managing different departments with the known and unknown in order to please the captain by scoring most of the necessary requirements and the crew by hopefully according them half a day off to go sight seeing and discovering a new place.

In other words, inventing the unicorn.

So there you are with your busy schedule, people running around to get things done and you orchestring the whole and trying to go forward with your own duties and to concentrate on one of these 60 pages captain’s manual you had to read for two days ago for the corporate event, the harbour, the sail training or any other reason why administration came int the sailor’s life… 

But then off course, how many times does one interrupts your motion, to download a grib file because the program is not working, to cast off mooring lines from the vessel alongside, to give the shopping list to the Liaison Officer, to check out some things with the deck crew and answer their questions, to run to the Race Office mobile Home to exchange the crew list for the race pennant… Your day is pretty much full and by 17:00 you realize you haven’t gone forward with your work yet but it will have to be reported to the next day because you have a VIP-firework-evening-trip-with-Classique-Chic-buffet-for-200-guests and that you scheduled yourself behind the bar to promote « department-exchanges » and that you are late to start filling in all the glasses of wine for welcome drinks, and you have to wear that so famous corporate smile…..

Yes the schedule and safety harnesses check and fire extinguishers check still on your notebook since two weeks will wait the next morning…. So will the boring manual you attended reading three time already…

 

As I said, I love being busy, but… I hate being disturbed in my work. I like to be in silence, no talking or noise around, no interruption then I can focus on one task at the time and chop chop things take no time and I can be so efficient. As soon as there is a question that you have to solve something for someone or that there is a coffee break or a question outside on deck, every single task of mine takes five times longer and instead of having two « items open » I have 5 running at the same time, for 5 different persons! priorities, priorities… the worst is when you come back to the shared computer you were working on and someone has kindly started a new task for them selves and you have to wait your turn again….

Then, (and only then of course! 😉 ), I get short and sharp to people and ask people to come back later and later isn’t a good moment either. I do not know why but some days everything seems to happen at the same time and everyone wants you to solve something at the same time and that is when you tend to explode to the nice guy bringing you desert in the bridge…. How awful am I?!

When I am tired, I guess I tend to be sharper faster. And maybe I do not contain my « anger » long enough, and my face gets that annoyed and grumpy mask. 

Yes. I am also known for saying things directly and not always keeping my mouth shut long enough… Although I am getting better at it, I know 200% sure that some people are happy I say out loud what some think and happily, or luckily I do not know, most of the times it needed to be said.

Then you also learn pretty fast that there are ways of bringing the message, of course and listening, nodding and accepting what people have to say is very important too. Take the British for example. They ace at the « politically correct » answer. Every one is then a winner!

I will of course not mention I still have a long road to acquire this wisdom….

Trust me. Event if it doesn’t always sound like it, I love my job and wouldn’t exchange it for anything. I love those busy days because they gather the crew together. The crew works so hard and we rely on each other a lot.

I always believed that a leader should get people to overtake them, and I was already working like that when I was chief scout in Paris. Let me explain.

If you sit, they ( the youngsters, the crew, maybe anybody looking up to you? anybody) will lay down; If you stand, they will sit, I f you walk they will stand, If you run they will run.

Until you want your team to believe that they achieved things as a team, as their team by their own.

This is to my opinion how you will want to se them grow.

But it can be tiring. I admit. 

And It also happened that I ended up not being patient enough and doing it myself (fast and better of course…). Now I learn and practice a lot « delegating ». You’ll see it is pretty could.

The idea is that you make someone else responsible for a task you want to see achieved.

Works- almost– well.

But it also means you know exactly what you want, that you give the good job to the good person and that you are clear in your explanations. It tales time to explain. But it give you also a better overview of who is doing what.

I try to do that in schedules. If we know ahead what is going to happen when, and with who, then you would just need to apply stricto senso the schedule hanging on the door.

hahahha… not that easy… Some just like to read what they want to read. Sometimes I didn’t write down everything either, and sometimes I do mistakes. Yes I do! And often, last minutes changes occur squeezing into an already tight schedule, things to do that would require – at least – 4 times the amount of time we have… of course. Gulden Leeuw style? In the end, what matters the most, is that we always manage.

sophie 4* check out my new schedule for the week!! 🙂 #citybeach #therightchoice *

« If you get tired, learn to rest, not to quit. »

When I get tired, it is easy, my voice goes away the first. And no. It isn’t because of the beer that I almost never drink. My captain’s who know me, as soon as they hear my voice slowly disappearing send me to bed for two hours. They know I will only go for less than an hour, but they know. That is nice. It is all the talking. Ok, ok I already hear some of you thinking I already talk so much, it shouldn’t be a problem… but it is talking over music at a party, talking louder than other people around or just repeating myself, explaining and training all day long. My voice disappears.

The other day, sailing out of Sunderland all our trainees -56- needed to me familiarized before departure with the vessel and they received instructions in the bridge, for their watches, for climbing, wearing harnesses, for line handling…it is a lot of information. And divided into smaller groups means easier to go around the vessel but also means more talking. A couple of hours later, in a short amount of time it was an abandon ship drill, shifting berth, working on our generator that decided to not work just the moment we needed it, finish bunkering water, making sure the vessel is ready inside to receive 150 guests, making sure all trainees have their tall ships teeshirt on and and are ready at their stations to set all the sails for the first time, making sure we are in the parade at the good time, that sails come down, all passengers disembarked, no trainees lost in the crowd and full speed back to the start of the race setting once again all the sails and shifting to sea watches for the rest of the week….

You just need to go for it. When you think some job or task is to big, most people will walk away from it and end up doing the tasks they know: emails, small non priority jobs, cleaning etc, doing jobs they know. On the opposite, you need to tackle it straight in the flesh to get over with it and done. Then go for the easy known « safe routine jobs ». Just get it done and go for it. This is the way to get forward. Not pushing it away. In the end you realize it was doable, and only then you get better at it.

We managed. I have no idea how, but we managed. And it also went great and surprisingly smoothly! It is all in the mindset. If you believe you will win and manage, you will. If you think you will not make it and that it will fail… the chances are pretty high it will.

Mindset is important also for your crew to mirror your same mindset. What other people think is impossible to do might be common for you.

To be honest, hat day knackered me. I would still do it again though… #crazysailorlife

Since I have been sleeping a lot in the race. I have a full list of things I would like to do while at sea to have more time in harbour, but…. I sleep and read. And my sleeps are finally deep again. Hopefully I will manage not to be angry to fast. Angry at myself for snapping at someone kinder than me. And also getting rid of those black pockets living constantly beneath my eyes…

Only three days racing then back in harbour. It is a short one again… and the story will start all over again :-/

I love my job and not one morning I wake up not looking forward to what the day will bring. To be honest there are also moments when I do think «  shall I just quit everything? »… no sophie. Go get your rest and breath in deeply, and think before you speak; or just don’t speak at all, it would be better haha! ;p

« Do what you love and love what you do »

Time for a nap in my hammock now…. See you later! 😉

Sophs ❤ ⚓