1st Term ~ Week 6. ⚓🚢

Well? Mhmm what has happened this week? I do not even recall…. Am I starting to get old? Or is this just routine coming in slowly? “Routine”…. Is there even such kind of thing on board a cargo vessel? I doubt it. No. Wait. I am pretty sure about it. Not one day has been the same since I came on board and, definitely not also when I compare my internship with these days…. I am pretty thankful to have my phone 📱 with me to go back into pictures!! Haha, smart eh? 😛

Ha yes! So… I was telling you about the corn! 🌽 The mais Waxi pro! Apparently very nutritious and also used for athletes training hard… Well…. The popcorn was a fail, unfortunately. Our cook tried to make some but only one popped. The others got burnt…. I am quite sad about it. I like popcorn. But I also know it was an experience so….. He then tried to boil it simply in water. And there it wasn’t too bad honestly! Well… the first batch was cooking for over an hour already and was still a bit crunchy but very tasty! Like… well. Corn. But corn with taste if you see what I mean? And the second batch cooked over two hours in water. And I thought was pretty lekker. So approved be Captain H. too.

I kept the full box I had thoroughly rinsed, labelled it and placed it in the food store… I shouldn’t forget to tell cookie about it so that we can have more! 🙂

We were three days in Hamburg 🇩🇪 but these were pretty busy days: day 1. Discharging + getting big provisions onboard 🛍 + all our fire equipment 🔥 needed to be checked by a company for the renewal of the certificates + and the ship had her internal audit. It was busy but we managed.

Moving bulkheads involves a lot of moving around with the hatches and the crane so it takes quite some time. You have to think ahead and it goes in a few steps. You cannot shift them directly to the aft. It is not difficult but it requires a bit of concentration to move to adjust cm by cm.

We were supposed to clean the hold and move the bulkheads back to their parking position directly after discharging but….. (luckily for us!) they were a bit slow in discharging so it took longer and one of the bridge we needed to pass through for loading our next cargo was broken so…. We got delayed one day…. So day 2. We did a good clean of the hold, moved the bulkheads, shifted berth twice to a waiting berth and then to our next loading berth.

Finally, we shifted berth again and started loading rapeseed meal from 3 river barges with a crane from ashore. It was the first time I was loading like that. It is quite fun!

I had some learning moments with that loading. Just with the fact of being alone on deck for some time, I could only refer to myself and because with the last scoops well… my plan ended up not being a good plan and good that the captain saved me from my mistake because we would have been sailing on the bow…. 🤦🏻‍♀️( only slightly… and when I say he “saved me” he didn’t come like riding a horse or so but more like…. Well, I felt like s*** for quite some hours after that… 😢 I am endlessly learning; yes about the ship, about the other people with me and mostly about myself, which is a good thing I presume🙇🏻‍♀️).

Oh well finally en route to Belfast 🇬🇧 where we arrived Sunday evening.
This was quite a great trip, to be honest: dolphins 🐬 in the Irish sea and we even spotted whales 🐳 ! We even had a helicopter 🚁 drill from Falmouth coastguard on our deck! 🙂 And of course A birthday 🎂 onboard…. Commando Captain was lucky to get a ⭐️ extra on his years and….

An original prototype of my new future toiletry bags hand made in sail cloth! Can you imagine that I had no idea if he would still be onboard for his birthday and I had been sitting on his gift 🎁 since 6 weeks, tempted so many time to offer it as I find giving hand made gift so valuable and exciting! I really had to be patient this time. He says he loves it. I hope it will last. Well I did also tell him lifetime guaranty which should be good enough for a Dutch right? I am not looking forward to seing him go home yet. We all go home at one point don’t we?

Till then, there are still some nautical miles ahead of us and at least one cargo; hopefully two? 🤞🏻 …..

Till Next week dear friends! Take care!
Sopietje xxxx ❤️ ⚓️ 🚢 ✌🏻
@ Hamburg, Germany

1st Term ~ Week 4. ⚓🚢

We have been the whole week underway from Sundsvall (Sweden) to Pasajes (Spain). This was a nice good sail: very good weather and very easy. We sailed via the Sound, North of Skagen, then the channel of course and 1,5 days in the Biscay. 🌊

I have been working quite a bit on trying to update all the chief officer’s marad job list. Indeed, There are quite a few « ghost » jobs or double jobs, or simply one job declined into several « steps » which makes it quite « overwhelming » (read very annoying😣) when you print your weekly worklist.

A nice crew moment enjoying the silence of the foredeck

Hopefully, there will soon be a more efficient and more applied to this vessel maintenance jobs.. 🙃. I like that. Maintenance programs are pretty frustrating because they tend to make our job more administrative and controlled by the office and still there are so many grey areas that do not always make sense or forgotten areas. Offices usually have no clue of all the work done by crew… let’s all admit it. If we even do not know what we are doing, how could they know ?!! 😂🤪 just kidding… I like efficiency. Doing things once but properly and good. Mhm, thinking 🤔 of it… it is probably laziness… 🤦🏻‍♀️😂

Passing Ouessant, I had a premiere. Even though it wasn’t in my watch, captain Harry kind of forced me into reporting to Ouessant traffic…. just for fun. In French. Well, I don’t know how but I try my best Franch accent and they replied in French! How did they know?! This was the first time I was reporting in French and it was quite weird for me. I realized I didn’t know how to say « standing by channel 13-16 »… I know I know… I think the crew just wanted to hear my Fench. To be honest it was already a week we had been joking on their accent and the way the French coast guards contact the foreign vessels-in French- and no one understanding even their best English!! 😂 oh well…. I will not change myself. And I had fun too…. they will see who will be the one laughing when we are his week in Bayonne 🇫🇷 😍

The Biscay was amazingly flat with a wonderful blue sky. We saw soooo many dolphins 🐬 it was just great. We had to stop for a short refreshing dip session, hoping they’d come to swim close too but of course it didn’t happen. Only when we were 2 minutes underway again they came back…. I am certain it’s because of the guys. They kept on doing be splashes and bombs… you know just like kids while I was peacefully « granny-swimming » (trying not to wet my hair as I had just washed them…. didn’t work if course. Ended up jumping too. No bombing ;)). We were ahead of time so that was really enjoyable. No pictures though you know… no helmets, safety boots and all the protective equipment #safetyfirst …. but you can imagine how it is with 1174m of water below your tows… 😏😱 And it was Our super trainee’s birthday too which made it like a holiday too with 🎂 🍰 and coffee and all… you know… 😉 those are some of the enjoyable moments of life at sea. The biggest swimming pool ever and the company of just a few awesome people to laugh with. 👌🏻⭐️⭐️

Dolphins playing on the bow

The lupine forest 🌳 🌸 is still doing good. I did a bit of gardening and made a 4 bottled garden to give more space to the roots but I am still missing earth and.. ok ok bigger garden pots and all. They are still growing, not as fast though. I wonder now if it is because captain Harry is not taking care of them anymore … 🤔 ah men… one pot is oke to give water to and take care of but suddenly 4 pots are way too much right?! 😂

Preparing more pots for the Lupine flowers

This week went actually by so fast. It was finally nice to be sailing a week and getting into a routine. I loved the highlights that make out job probably one of the bests with sailing on the ocean, no noise, a huge sun and blue sky and just enjoying the wind 💨 on your face reminding yourself you are alive and that is great! 🙌🏻

I am halfway through my term and it feels like only two weeks… 😉 big hugs to you on land slowly enjoying some unlocking down processes 🙂

Sopietje ❤️ ⚓️ 🚢 ✌🏻. @ Pasajes, Spain

1st Term ~ Week 3. ⚓🚢

Of course! If I publish my week 2 almost at the end of week 3 there will be a slight timing problem right?…. and you wouldn’t want me to overload you with my stories and pictures two days in a row…..

End of week 3. Good news is that the engineer and I that both joined at the same time have not brought any unfriendly 🦠 onboard. No symptoms within the crew, this is so relieving🥳 Whatever comes now is not from our ship family but from stevedores or other people that might come on board. In harbours, we are not allowed to go ashore for a walk even if we do not present any symptoms and obviously do not carry it. How do we know is the stevedores have the same restrictions like us. How can we know if they have the same sanitary and social distancing? They do not wear a mask 😷 or respect social distancing… how can We know if we are still safe leaving the harbour?… 🦠 🦠 as if we were the ones bringing little covid-19 with us everywhere we go. Grr, 😖 it’s so frustrating. Oh well…

We stayed 5 days in Sundsvall 🇸🇪, but it was a good stay as we managed to do a lot of good maintenance: a lot of greasing actually, I felt like I was the grease monkey, a job we would usually get as a green hand on tall ships… but such an important task as the wear and tear can become terrible on moving parts and watertight rubbers. We took time to grind, wire brush, clean and regrease aaalllll moving parts we could see: all threads and nipples. This became a pretty big job but also necessary as we found out that some moving parts didn’t have nipples and therefore were not greased… the answer « it has always been like that so greasing is not necessary » is not always the correct answer. When you know who did the maintenance if the ship before she came into captain Harry’s hands… you would probably doubt everything you see around you. I do miss my tall ships though… you can probably tell by the picture in the mast… any opportunity to climb up I take… not even afraid. ⛵️ 😊
I like it when you have time to repair and cross jobs of the list, it is so satisfying. But 5 days in harbour, we were ready to go!

Another cold swim 🥶 🏊‍♀️ -just because we can- a nice sail in the MOB boat 🚣‍♀️-just for the good testing of the crane- and the oars… (no comment) – 3151 tons of wood pulp in the hold and a lot of fun with the crew lashing with airbags (big bags fill with the air compressor to avoid the cargo from moving or falling and getting damaged while at sea) the cargo.

We have two different kinds of wood pulp one seems to be in sheets very compact and the second one is more fluffy and gets damaged easily. They do diapers, masks, tampons and stuff like that with it. It is interesting to be part of the production line when you think of it 🤔

Every day passes and everyday small improvements and big fun. This is how it is supposed to be. And I live it. There is not one day I have woken up wondering why I came here. 🤪crazy Sophie.

Our lupine forest 🌱 🌸 🌳 is getting bigger and bigger and it is obvious now to be that we need to do something: over 38 seeds potentially growing up to 1,20m each in half a plastic bottle… yeah 🤦🏻‍♀️…

Off we sail to Pasajes 🇪🇸
Take care on land ❤️ Sopietje ⚓️ ❤️ 🚢

S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R.

Just another view of the world through Sophie’s eyes while working and traveling at sea

Tag: seafarer

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S O P H I E. T H E. S A I L O R.

Just another view of the world through Sophie’s eyes while working and traveling at sea

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