Tag: merchant navy

5th term, week 3 🌊❤️

11th – 17th of October 2021

So I woke up this morning to a nice sailing in the Baltic. I enjoy it a lot when it is smooth sailing and of course, it is never promised when it is the autumn season and all the strong winds are being blown just on top of Europe and do not seem to want to leave. Okay, the skies are not as blue as I would like them to be but I cannot have it all right? Clouds are good enough too.

We are on our way to Uusikaupunki with soja bean meal. And finally, after a slow loading in Kaliningrad, we have 2-3 days sailing and hopefully, I will be able to catch up on some rest before getting out of routine again.

Soya Bean Meal!

I enjoy the watch on the bridge and sailing up North because the sunlight is different up there. Just… lower and warmer if it makes any sense. Finally, at sea, I managed to have a beautiful sunset and those colours! My God, for sure no filters were needed! And this is where the colour of the sea because nice and blue and the clouds take their various aspects of different shades of grey and the light just seems it is passing straight through the clouds. It is marvellous and I am always very pleased to view this spectacle.

I must also say that although we are mid-October, the cold has not begun yet. I remember my internship when after the shipyard in Kaliningrad we also loaded soja bean meal in Svettly, our night watches were freezing cold and I had to keep moving to see my body warm. I had heard in September already people talking about what is called in French an « été Indien »; an Indian summer. I have absolutely no idea if the expression translates itself into English as well. But it is that the warmer temperatures come back in October for a couple of weeks and even till the end of October. I must admit that at our latitudes and being at this time of the year; temperatures around 15 degrees celsius are quite enjoyable.

We arrived in a quiet Uusikaupunki on a large and clean quayside. I think I had never been to that part of Uusikaupunki yet. Only at the Yara factory. This time we were way closer to town. The day we discharged, I must say we were quite lucky weather-wise. There were still quite some clouds but we only had a couple of showers so we managed to discharge pretty fast in two days. Luckily I did not have to play the « open-close » game too long and as the trucks were coming and going I could easily move around with the hatch crane choosing the areas to be discharged without pressure from the weather or the big crane from shore. 

Ruyter alongside in Uusikaupunki, Finland

And….. Well because of the winds increasing outside and because of the regular rain showers they had our next cargo loading operations slightly delayed. Also, they wanted to load a huge vessel before us which would take days…. But at the same time, the wind was increasing outside and two days later as we were still alongside, gusts of wind were about 35-40 knots. We were just on standby to know if they would let us pass before the big vessel, or after; or if they would decide to temporary bring that other vessel at anchor – pilotage and weather permitting- so that we could load in between….

Zoom in on the grab ready for discharging in Uusikaupunki
Discharging the soya bean meal in Uusikaupunki

These are the port « calculations ». As they were indeed « late » (we had given our notice of readiness); they have to calculate and find what would cost them less…

This gave us time to thoroughly clean the hold as we normally do after each cargo, and make ready for the next cargo to come. At the Yara terminal, we know they always come for a hold inspection and an ultrasonic test, so it had to be ready for that.

The crane in Uusikaupunki, and Ruyter in ballast behind. Waiting for the berth in the next loading berth
Hold cleaning time!

The nice thing about having a few days in the harbour without cargo operations is that you can take time to do some maintenance jobs together with other crew members. If we were at anchor, we would have to do some anchor watches and some rotation of course to always have the bridge manned which also means that there is always someone sleeping and we then try to avoid noisy jobs onboard. In the harbour, as we are all on day watch; we can be more efficient in our maintenance or bigger projects. And we can make more noise! It is really a win-win situation. (although I like my night watches at anchor because I have then more time to work on my website and these stories right? Haha!)

The crew working together on the maintenance of the hatch crane!
Cleaning up and fixing new hydraulic connections in the workshop

This time, we worked on some painting jobs – in between drops- and some hydraulic couplings that needed to be renewed in the hatch crane. A nice (not so nice) job because it is impossible to keep a clean working area with oil splashing and dripping everywhere. But nice because different from the normal jobs; and it is also part of a bigger project: every time changing a few and in the end, it is like having a brand new hatch crane! Besides, it is always nice to change an old rusty piece for a nice new one too. It is quite satisfying to clean up metal, dearest, change gaskets and put the whole puzzle together again and add the usual layers of primer and paint!. Yes quite satisfying indeed to know that hopefully, this will last for another couple of years ahead. It was funny because I guess we all have those moments – not laziness- but more when you know ahead it will be a long dirty job and you are not looking forward to it; well I think that day captain B. Had that moment. Haha. We started opening some couplings and were ready with our buckets to catch the dripping oil and after two full buckets and as it was not slowing down he started losing faith and motivation. I was glad at that moment that I said: opportunities like this do not show up so often that we have time to have this « surgical operation » on the crane with no loading operations…. And it was not cold cold weather either that we could stay outside to work. But we started on the Starboard side and the wind was blowing so strong that the oil was being blown out directly from the pipes to the deck. And well… It was a bit… too much. But I told him instead of quitting for the day that we could go on the protéide: less wind and especially because the job still needed to be done in the end. Now, in a couple of weeks or months; the job remained so it was better to just go for it and have it done.

Tool selfie!

I am glad I said that. I must have sounded convincing because we closed it all up and moved to Portside…. Even though I also really didn’t want to be in the wind with my hands full of hydraulic oil, sometimes, what needs to be done, needs to be done.

And we did it.

A beautiful rainbow although the weather was getting worse!
View from my porthole when in Uusikaupunki

Finally, We got a call from the agent that we would be shifting berth to the Yara terminal on Saturday late afternoon. I just had the time to enjoy a great walk ashore: my first time in the small town of Uusikaupunki. It was good to step off the vessel for a longer stroll than to just check the fore and aft drafts. Even if the city was only 20 minutes away; walking clears your mind and I am always in seek of new architectural sights. I always enjoy checking out how the cities are made and how the houses are built in different places of the world. I know for sure it is because of my architecture studies. Or maybe just because I am curious. For sure; I should start a page on the blog with the places I have visited… I would fore sure because a bit of a Travel blog haha. The little town was cute but not much was happening for a Saturday afternoon. It seems that there, everything is closed all ready for the weekend; and I only met on my way a few people also walking like me for an afternoon walk. Hopefully next time I will have the chance to go there again on a normal day: I saw a second-hand shop and would have liked to have a look inside for sure! Maybe find some cool Finnish woollen garments as a souvenir! Anyways, for sure, Uusikaupunki was not a very touristy place, nevertheless, cute enough to fulfil my curiosity.

We shifted berth to Yara in the late afternoon and we could enjoy a very nice Golden hour moment from the fore deck with the trainee and one of the ABs. Really beautiful. And it is not the first time that such sunsets happen there! We successfully passed the hold inspection and the ultrasound test of course. We were ready to load.

In less than 18 hours we would be underway again, bringing the fertilizer to Klaipeda, Lithuania.

Hopefully, we would also be there on time for my birthday on the 19th. And then we could go ashore for a drink or two to celebrate it. I know it usually never happens like that on birthdays…. But I could always keep my hope up … right? We would probably still be at sea anyways. And Klaipeda is a 24-hour working harbour so, chances are very few. But you never know what our next sail will be and maybe we had to wait in the harbour for 1 or 2 days! And then… all the possibilities are open right?

Besides I always like to find a good excuse to celebrate. The crew is nice and happy, we are going on well, the trainee seems also fun so far and he listens to what I say or ask him to do. And when there are eventually small tensions from living together on a ship, it is always nice to release the pressure with a good beer ashore. It usually lightens up the atmosphere. Not the alcohol drinking part; but just the time off in the harbour together.

The Golden Hour during mooring operations in Uusikaupunki

Soon we would have a change of maroff ( engineer) so it is nice to spend some quality time with those that are still on before they go home. Anyways. We are not there yet. First, we had to finish the loading operations and sail south again.

This was a satisfying week

Enjoy your Sunday and see you next week!

Xxx Sophie

5th term, week 2 🌊❤️

4th – 10th of October

We left Uusikaupunki for Szczecin in Poland with a cargo hold full of NPK fertilizer.

As you can remember we really had lovely weather in Finland but as soon as we started sailing south, the wind increased and of course was coming from the south. Have you not noticed that the wind usually comes from where you have to go? Maybe it is me but….

When sailing on Europa or Gulden Leeuw, you have to use the wind if you want to sail so it is probably one of the only things that take all your focus: wind direction and strength to anticipate sail area and manoeuvres and try to reach your destination only using the wind only. Since I sail on cargo ships, I tend to check the weather forecast less. We do not download a grib file every 4 hours, but keep an eye on the general picture to know what to expect when sailing out of the harbour of course. But We still go with winds against, and with wind 6 or 8 Bft. It doesn’t mean it is always nice, but as long as it is safe (which it is for our type of vessels!) then we go!

Most of the time we will reduce the engine reps and accept to be slower than what we would like ( I mean….it is not like if we are a super fast vessel either….). Sometimes we also have to adjust slightly our course too. We want to avoid having big waves hitting the bow because they only make damage and stop the ship every time she wants to move forward!

This time sailing south, was not such heavy heavy weather, but was a good 35 knots of wind for a good day and increasing to 40 knots now and then. There were waves and wind and rain. Everything to please me.

To be honest, when arriving in Szczecin, I thought the rain would still be there but no! The front had passed and it was clear!

To sail to Szczecin, you first have a 4-hour river voyage under pilotage: we must have a pilot on board. Most of the time they are happy with steering themselves so we can just enjoy the ride – and be there for serving coffee haha – oh yes and of course be responsible on the bridge, in case the autopilot fails for example or reducing speed etc… The pilot is not familiarized with the ship itself so we do always need to be on the bridge with him ( or her – I think I have never been with a woman pilot onboard yet…. But I know they are out there!!)

From my porthole, I could see the pilot boat!

In the morning when opening the hatches at 5 am, I was pretty glad it was clear with stars and dry. I knew we were probably going to discharge with two cranes so I opened forward and aft only a few hatches just to make sure I « controlled » where they would grab the cargo from. Sometimes crane drivers just pick from where ever because they do not listen to you and it is quite annoying because you have to be able to adjust with filling the ballast tanks too.

While you discharge you take « weight » out of the ship and it needs to be replaced by another “weight” for the ship to keep her stability while entirely discharged. Otherwise, you would risk capsizing and if not, simply putting the whole vessel in danger.

Alongside in Stettin, discharging fertilizer

Most of the Yara loading ports cover their fertilizer with plastic. I had already discharged steel coils in another quay in Szczecin, but never fertilizer yet. The cranes usually just grab the plastic out of the ship and put it on the quay somewhere aside. This time, for the first time I saw the workers taking the same plastic and fixing it from the side of our railing toward the quay. This way if cargo came to fall off from the grab ( which usually happens a bit) then it would not fall in the water but the plastic. I was quite surprised to see that and thought it was very good. Very often as sailors we can get pretty frustrated because, on board, we have to label and sort all our garbage and washing water and not pump overboard; everything should be retained and in the meantime you sea the harbours just spraying off the quays with a big hose or rinsing the grabs in the harbour water like if it were normal. I am often surprised how rules are not the same for ports and ships….

Anyways. Plastics out, hatches open, no rain expected and there I thought we would be out within the end of the day. But nope. I was wrong. The fertilizer was directly put into bags and forklifts were bringing them into some parts of the harbour. It was like a mini-industry on the quay. But because of that, it was going slow. We are used to trucks being loaded and that they come and go and most of the time by the end of the day we can already have the bobcat in and start sweeping.

Not this time.

We were still there this whole next day. But hey. What can we do right? No danger? No rain? Everything going smoothly? Perfect. On the second day, I was a bit nervous because after opening all the hatches there was so much fog for a couple of hours. I could barely see the foremast. Fertilizer is a sensitive cargo and it should not get wet; any droplets, droplets, drops or signs of water, I should be closing the hatches. But it was only the visibility that was gone. The air was dry, I stayed outside to make sure I would be in time to close. But no rain. As soon as the sun came out, it was beautiful again.

Last few grabs of fertilizer to be taken out, with the bobcat in the hold, then sweeping time!

I must say that I enjoy a lot the sunsets and early mornings. When everything is still quiet and all are sleeping, slowly the world starts up and the sun comes out, it is quiet and then because busy. It gives me time to enjoy the moment: a cup of coffee and just be there outside for the cargo. Just the cargo and only the cargo. It is my « only » important duty in the harbour: the cargo operations. Things can go wrong very fast if you do not pay attention.

Always a happy crew even when working hard on cleaning the tanktop in the hold! Getting ready for the next cargo!
An this is how the cargo hold looks when it is nice, clean and dry!

The fertilizer was finally discharged by the end of the next morning and we could take time to clean the hold again for our next cargo. The very cool thing was that with hatches open, the hold dries very fast. It was still a nice 18 degrees outside so perfect weather. In the wintertime it is way more difficult to dry the hold: you really need time between the two cargoes to put on the air dryer when necessary; otherwise, it is impossible to be ready for the next harbour.

And our next harbour was…. Svetlyy! Close to Kaliningrad in Russia!

It was just a big day sailing there so the next day we arrived at the channel entrance and it was perfect timing to get the pilot on board and be in the inbound convey. That is how it works there: convey in, convey out, during the day or the night. Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not and you have to wait for the next convey. It is a bit annoying because Ethen they put you on a waiting berth, then you need a pilot for that ( of course) and there is the Russian administration, with the face check so if you are sleeping because you were on night watch then it is just inconvenient…

Loading Soya bean meal in Kaliningrad

But again. What can you do? It is the Russian administration take it or leave it. We took it – or were asked to take it – I believe no one is happy to go to Russia: no roaming, gangway watch, crazy immigration and customs paperwork, language barrier…

It was perfect weather: dry, sunny, no wind!
And the sunsets there are really amazing!
As you can see they get better and better through the evening…

Last year around the same time we were also there to load the same cargo for the same destination port: Uusikaupunki (again). Although there was a lot of shifting berth this time, I must say it went quite smoothly: arriving on the waiting berth, waiting 10 hours, shifting to the loading berth, waiting 5 hours, starting loading (great weather all hatches open – perfect conditions – we could do some good maintenance because of that!), loading very slowly for 24hours, shifting to the waiting berth and finally waiting 5 hours for immigration to come…. The pilot was already all morning onboard. But we made it for the outbound convey so…. Just in time! 😉 That was an easy Sunday half in harbour, half at sea, but all ready to go.

In kaliningrad, we have to wait for the pilot, so here was the view from my porthole, at the waiting berth

I like weeks like this. It keeps you busy in a good way. I like being productive without being in a hurry. The only thing is that I would like to have a bit longer trips because these are all short trips that knock you out because you do not get into a rhythm and your sleeping schedule is ruined…. So if anyone out there could do something about it, please?

Just kidding. It is fine… for the moment.

Now I am looking forward to a nice Uusikaupunki discharging… hopefully with good weather again. It really helps!

And off we sail to the next harbour!

Fingers crossed! See you next week!! 

Xxx Sophie

4th Term, Week 6 ⛴⛴

7th-13th of June 2021

So… here we are again, a new week and a new little blurb on what I have learnt this week…. I ended last Sunday at see between Heroya and Uusikaupunki with a beautiful sail: sunny, no wind, relaxed, all up to date, perfect. Just like it should be. I very much enjoy those times on the bridge when I can just enjoy the navigation part and looking outside at the sea and even enjoying a cup of coffee in the sun. A little bit of vitamin D always makes my day!

Perfect sailing weather to Finland
Even during the night watch😍

Sometimes days in harbour are tough and very demanding. I know that and I accept that even though my lack of sleep can make me (bit) lazy and probably a bit grumpy too. I often think of how mental strength makes things easier and have-ing a good mindset or the kind of one that « just gets it done » make all the difference. But to be honest, I sometimes also need a pull or push to stay in that mind set too…When I was on the sail training ships one of my motos were:

« If you sit they lay down, if you stand they sit, if you walk they stand, if you run they walk »

The idea was that you always had to be one step ahead of the people you were training, or those you were leading…. It feel the same here. Not that I am ahead or leading anybody but as we are only 6 onboard, if we do not get the good dynamic for working – and happily working- well the jobs suddenly get more heavy to do.

Doing a short tour on deck while sailing: my happy silent place…

Sometimes I wonder if I still have that strength in me but then I think: wait Sophie these are totally two different jobs! Indeed, what I now find the most disruptive is my lack of sleep; but because it can sometimes be so random and over a week never have the same pattern: sleeping at times when I would normally be fully away and vice versa and also not having a same day following the other. And I found that that was my weakness. So as soon as I can I try to get my rest to keep it up. But of course the body doesn’t really understand what is going on: has to sleep, doesn’t have to sleep? How long? Two hours? Six hours? Well to be honest it happened that I sometimes had the chance to have a 2 hours nap or a 6 hour sleep and couldn’t close my eyes even though I was exhausted…. There was absolutely nothing I could do but toss and turn in bed. The body just doesn’t always follow…. But then surprisingly, when things need to happen, there is no problem anymore.

Luckily I had now a few days where I could rest and catch up. And that was great!

Just smile and be happy, in the end it will all be fine

Another nice thing about sailing up north was that days became longer of course so at the end of my watch I could really enjoy the sun rising again and I simply love those moments. They are magical and peaceful. I feel that I do not have enough of those moments anymore: no sun sets, no sunrises…. Like if the job of the chief officer onboard cargo vessels was the « filling in position ». The captain having the watches that are the most « normal » ones (besides when we need to come in the harbour or leave in the afternoons… of course that is tough. And the other officer has also mostly a « day job » starting at 4 am in the bridge and the afternoon in the engine room, with a long 10hour rest at night. Well. On the other hand, if you do not sleep well one night you are ruined for the rest of the day, in my watch hours, I know I can eventually go back to bed at a maximum of 6 hours later…. That is also nice.

The sun rising at the end of my watch… Just amazing!

Oh well, I am of course not complaining! I like my watch, it is fine for me, but explained sometimes that I get quite disorientated when I normally go to bed at 4 am and sometimes I have to get up at that very same time!

When we arrived in Uusikaupunki a few days later, we found the Leonie again. Actually we never really lost her: she had to bunker so we catch up on her until dropping anchor close by in Uusikaupunki only 1,5 hours after her! Funny! There was « congestion » in the harbour, so we had to wait…. Of course. So again, had time to put all my administration in order and up to date and enjoy a very nice, calm and beautiful time at anchor.

Along side in Uusikapunki, astern of Leonie

Luckily we did not have to wait long before we could sail into the harbour and start discharging, moored ahead of Leonie. We finished discharging very early in the morning and off we were to our next harbour in Finland: Kotka.

Discerning at night in Uusikaupunki
And still in the early morning…

In Kotka, we would load fertilizer and sail to Delfzijl. We know that trip, we have done it a few times already. It was the famous trip where our engine « exploded* » (* did not really explode but you get the idea!) in Brunsbüttel 1,5 years ago when I was trainee onboard.

In Delfzijl there is a draft restriction, we have to be even keel and not over 5,00m otherwise we hit the ground…. And we do not really want that. I like training for even keel because it makes the loading a bit more interesting – not that it is not interesting- but more that you have to be in control of how much and where you load. Of course, although it is always the Captain’s plan – and it is always the same way we are loading almost every cargo… -… I applied it well – or as best as I could- because I pretty much was the only one up during loading….

Indeed, you remember how I said that all our schedules were blown away when we had short trips and fast loadings? Well this is exactly one of those situations….

I would never want to miss this… Yet I do miss my 4-8 watches on sailing vessels…

We arrived in the end of the afternoon in Kotka. They load quite fast here, so we know that we will be out again in 6-8 hours. As we need a pilot, and of course need to maneuver the ship, the captain has to be on watch then. So he is the one finishing with the loading plan and starting up the engine; then he wakes up the ABs and an officer. In this case the other officer. Because the loading is my department (deck officer), the engine officer comes on deck for cargo operations usually only if we are loading 24hours. So there we were: basically the captain and I swopped watches so that he could get some sleep before departing again, which he did.

In the meantime just another cup of coffee in the sun… #happysocks ready to go in work boots…

In Kotka, the loading goes really fast, usually around 600-700t per hour. I like it when it is fast. I had per instructions to wake up the captain when we were at average draft 4,5m. Remember, we could only load up to 5,00m, so we still had 50cm to go. On our ship, it is approximatly 1cm= 10tons midships, and closer to 1ton per cm fore and aft while loading in those areas.

Regularly I check the drafts marks to have an average draft so that I am able to calculate how much cargo is already in the hold. The first time, after approximately one hour, I had already 900 tons in! I had to recalculate thinking like « wow this is going fast! ». Then I reminded myself that the stevedore said they would put two big tractors to load the belt so it indeed goes way faster. I did a quick calculation… if in 1 hour we had 900t, how long would it take to reach the target of 3000 t? Well 3×900 = 2700… I think captain would only have a short rest before I’d have to wake him up again!

Alongside in Kotka

So there I was, an hour later: 1800t. I like it when it goes fast. It was also nice because I was then very busy deballasting all the tanks and striping them via the ejector to make sure there was no water left inside. It is easy to do, but it takes time because you have to do one tank at a time and the ejector is quite a slow system – even though very efficient. It was a busy watch, and I am glad the weather was good and no rain was forecasted otherwise I would have really been busy. The only thing was that the wind was picking up so I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to take the drafts later for the draft survey.

We did a draft survey before starting loading and we had to do another one after loading so that we knew how much cargo we had. The idea is to take the drafts fore and aft but also midships on the Portside and starboard side. Then with trim corrections, ships various weights and the amount of ballast before and after, we can calculate how much cargo we have in our hold. For school of course, you would have to do this by hand, but we have a excel sheet program that a previous captain sailing onboard Ruyter did very nicely by locking the fields we couldn’t touch and enabling only the cells where we had to enter information. Perfect tool!

I finally checked the drafts marks and we were getting closer to the average of 4,50m -where I had to wake Captain H. up. Only 5 cm to go, which meant 50 tons. I was loading in the stern of the ship and as you recall, we had to be even keel for Delfzijl. I had the instruction to not go over 5,10m on the stern draft. And it was getting really closer so I decided to wake up captain because it would not be long before we were done with loading! 50cm is 500t, which is a big half hour! I think we were not really expecting to be as quick in this harbour, but perfect!

Ruyter loading fertilizer in Kotka

The only thing that made me a bit nervous was that by the time I got back out on the stern, we were already at 5,00m! Oh no! I ran to the stevedore controlling the belt and told him to move forward – which he acknowledged. But it was going too slow to me taste and I could see the water coming to 5,15m! I shouted at him to stop which still took too long to my eyes…. But eventually it happened…. And I was at 5,20m!!! Ahhh 😨 my heart was beating quite fast…had I just ruined the whole loading plan?

I asked the stevedore to load as far forward as possible to get back even keel as quick as possible. And there it happened. Yes! IT happened! You might be thinking right now: what? What Sophie tell us! What happened?

Well….. we had just 20 minutes of loading to be done till completion and there was a fault on the last belt. So they had to stop to fix it. That did not take long. What took long was that the previous belts did not stop during the last belt’s fault and… the cargo accumulated on them so the mechanics couldn’t restart them because there was too much cargo on them! Yes I know…. Silly right?

The loading went very fast in Kotka

It literally took them over two hours to get that fixed…. In the mean time the Captain was wake – of course, I called him because we were supposed to be almost at the end of our loading process!- I felt sorry for him because he was missing out of two night good hours of sleep, but yeah. I didn’t really plan that, and honestly, he didn’t say anything either about it. He was just happy and ok to be there! We just laughed at how we thought we were so unlucky these past few trips with losing time on events that were not our fault: loss of time waiting for bunkering, loss of time at anchor because of moving sandbanks on the Humber river, now this….

Oh well, there was nothing we could do about it so we took a cup of coffee. I think the cup of coffee is for seamen what the cup of tea is for British people… haha

Once the belts were running again we could load forward again. The ship came up right perfectly! We even added slowly slowly till we were perfectly on the draft marks. For that we had to stop the loading process to empty what was left on the belt: approximately 30 tons of cargo and then they could in the shed add grab per grab. 1 grab is approximately 6,4tons. So captain decided to add 2 grabs forward and three aft and see again what our drafts were. This way he could really control and choose where to position these last bits of cargo: more or less aft to be even keel.

I was standing on the hatch crane and checking if he was not heeling on one side or the other. Indeed you want a balanced ship because if you heel 1-2 degrees, for example, the bottom side of our hull is approximately 6 meters more outboard so for sure you are not on 5,00m anymore, and you may touch the ground in Delfzijl. Does that make sense to you? 😉

So. Finally loaded, draft survey done, waiting for the pilot I closed the hatches and made as ready as possible before I was sent to bed. Yep, I realized as exciting this day had been, I was quite tired and needed so rest, that was sure! The ABs and another officer would come half an hour later to take the lines in and sail home to The Netherlands. I was glad I could finally close my eyes! We were heading for a nice 4 day sail to The Netherlands and we could get back into a normal rhythm again: perfect: Saturday and Sunday at sea, no bad weather in the baltic but maybe some stronger winds in the north sea… we are not there yet. First things first: sleep, the rest will come next week!

Oh wait!

Happy birthday Captain H. 🎉🎉

Did I mention we had a special birthday onboard this week? No? Yes? Well it was Captain’s H. Birthday!!! Of course, I prepared a nice deco for the bridge and managed to get a picture of him in it, and of course, we had a delicious chocolate cake! He is « 39+ » but I am sure he feel like he is still in his 20’s! I always like birthdays on board…. Or maybe I like cakes. Or just both, could be. Anyways! Happy Birthday again Capatin H.!

Take care and big hugs!

Sophie