1st Term ~ Week 1. ⚓🚢

1st Term ~ Week 1. ⚓🚢

Week 1 back onboard Ruyter!

And there I am, back onboard the Ruyter again for my first official term with Wagenborg!

It feels strange but really nice at the same time! Everything went so fast yet so slow due to our little virus friend not so friend…🦠

Traveling during covid-19 times and full lockdown…

Passed all my exams in February, passed them all, received my diploma in March and was scheduled to be onboard mid-April, but finally, all crew changes got postponed till 1st of May. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of lockdown time with my parents and brother at home. There hasn’t been one dull day between sorting ♻️ , arranging, fixing 🛠 , creating 🧵 , working out 🏋️ , walking the dogs 🐕 and baking 🍰 . And I really miss their presence and I am looking forward to seeing them in two months, safe and healthy 💚💙.

My welcome committee

After a long travel day, I joined the vessel in Rotterdam and got a welcome committee waiting for me as I was arriving by a small boat. It was a few months and to be honest very difficult not to give a hug to this second family, and keep the so-called social distance. Smiles and happy faces. This is what I like. 😃 I missed them and they obviously missed me too. It is good to be back; and not as trainee anymore but a chief officer. Let the fun begin! 🥳

Practising my welding skill…

I just needed a new overall and new gloves to be ready to go: back on the job, still learning and progressing in my welding skills ✌🏻 and already trying to have a good start and scrapping off jobs from the list… this is how we like it right? Chop chop! 💪🏻 it is nice to come with full new and fresh energy and just getting things done ✅ ✅ ✅

A hold full of Lupine seeds
And…. A small experience to see if they will actually grow!

We discharged lupine seeds 🌸🌿…. imagine a cargo fuuuuulll of flower seeds… well ko need to tell me what to do with those that were collected from the sweeping…. 😉 giving a try to a onboard small garden behind the sink in the Bridge…. just to make sure the captain wouldn’t throw my homemade garden pot made from half a bottle onto the blue shelve, I included him…. he probably thinks it is now his garden…;) good. Hopefully, he will not forget to water them either…. he is dutch after all right? 😉 And I am terrible at growing plants! 🌱 😂
…. @ Paris – Gare de Lyon

Nice weather sailing
Heavier weather sailing… To get sea legs back…

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 13 … & The. End. 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻♥️

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 13 … & The. End. 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻♥️

My oh my. It is the end. Or is it the beginning?
I am so confused.

Confused how I have already spent 13 weeks onboard!

Three months went by. Already! How fast does life go when you enjoy learning and what you are doing?! But most of all when you enjoy the people surrounding you making everything seem so easy and fun? #girlpower #teamruyter

End of internship: Frontside overall

While France 🇫🇷 is striking their butts off and complaining as always, I need to wait till some kind of transportation is available for me to fly ✈️ home or take the train… I am lucky to have a direct flight. And I am lucky 🍀 to have almost a week extra onboard 😎✌🏻

Got painted…. On the Backside!

But I am still confused. I came on board as a trainee having absolutely no idea of what would happen. And I leave now not feeling a trainee at all. I leave being one of them.. being trusted and respected (I think 🤔?! 😆) for my work and who I am, with my teasing, my jokes, my person and probably determination to go from A to B as a team.

Nice last evening BBQ

We had a goodbye bbq last Monday on the aft deck (check out the crooked bbq! 😂) because of crew change (Ruyter women signing on and off!) and it was a moment to share together. It was awesome. But then I just broke into tears in my cabin because I realized how happy I was and I actually didn’t want to leave. Of course, there were other reasons… probably a lack of sleep… not mentioning the wine that sometimes gets me all emotional 😂… but I felt so so so grateful.

So thank you 🙏

Thank you for supporting me in my challenges. And thank you for the changes in my life and the people I have met.

Girl power… team Ruyter.

1 task book 📖 filled and sent, 6 reports, 5 exam reports, over 25 homework exercises, quite a few cargos with ballasting and deballasting, 2 weeks of shipyard in Russia, 1 💥, 1 month with no engine in Delfzijl, one clean overall that turned dirty just to pretend I did something (…) later… I am proud of what I did and thankful for the people that helped me get here. I am so grateful and its perfect timing just before Christmas 🎄!

Underway to my next adventures!

My parents cannot wait to have my home (sounds weird… 😆) and I cannot wait to tell them all the good stories! But I know I will miss it ALL!

There are always rainbows somewhere…

Till my next adventure… with lots of love 💕 sopietje xxxx ⚓️ ♥ @ Delfzijl

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 11 & 12 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 11 & 12 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻

Ok so here is the thing. I didn’t take time to post! I always wait till Sunday is over to prepare the post and Monday or Tuesday to post it! I just got caught up and procrastinated ….

Climbing up with a harness? Yes! Always in for that! 🙂

Caught up in school. I finished the last Cargo assignment onboard, which means I have already passed 5 of my written exams that had to be done onboard. The school will just check in an « interview » if I were the one writing them! I haven’t been doing so much homework because I wanted to be part of what was going on deck… to be honest, I am pretty stressed that the subject I hate the most is about cargo! But its what I love the most onboard…. I think it comes more from the fact that the books are horrible to read in dutch and the exercises are like 150 questions per subject… 📚 I feel very lonely and ready to break into tears when I am in front of that book. 😢 so I have tried to be doing a few side subjects with not much (enough) concentration. Oh well.. 😔. The other reason is that I have spent way more time with the crew in the evenings. Watching a movie together👌🏻, getting a cappuccino or talking for hours. Getting to know people better and realizing you hadn’t expected you’d probably miss them a lot more than you would have thought. I have been trying to enjoy as much as possible their presence – way better than studying! 🤓🥰

A new door in the hold…
The main engine is out!
Hoisting the main engine out of the engine room

I was so lucky I have been able to meet up once with an old friend of mine, Jonno, working on a tugboat not so far from Delfzijl. It is like almost 9 years of friendship. And he didn’t change a bit! That was one of my highlights🤪.
Workwise so much has happened in these two weeks: the engine is got out with a nicely cut door to the cargo hold. It was pretty fun. I got annoyed by the shipyard foreman thinking I wasn’t strong enough…. well, you don’t tell that to me! 😂 Captain Harry repeated it made him so proud when he heard the story 😂 💪🏻 badass chick … or just a Sophie putting someone back in his place… the cargo hold is now painted again 🙂 We are getting the ship in tip-top shape before sailing out again… 🙂

Girl power!

I already miss it while my last days are counted…. 😢🥺
Xxx sopietje ♥️ ⚓️ 🌟 @ Delfzijl