INTERNSHIP ~ Week 10 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻

Ok ok…. so this has been a pretty interesting week. We were tugged into Delfzijl and then suddenly the vessel was full with inspectors and engine repair technicians, people from the office going up and down between the bridge and the engine room… of course, we had a typical fall dutch weather arriving: fog, rain ☔️… perfect for discharging fertiliser… hatches open, hatches closed, open, closed, needless to say, it took for ages compared to how fast it was loaded!

And then the news came out: the whole engine is coming out. Including the main block. 😕 zo zielig! This sounds like a kind of déjà vu here…. 🛠. It confirms that we will not be sailing for the coming next weeks but will be at the shipyard and doing other interesting stuff there! 🙂 there are always bad things happening. But sometimes it is just the way it is and you don’t have the choice and just take it as best as you can and still make fun. So here is to our next weeks getting dirty in the engine room! 🍻 😬😜

The crew on the bow when finally alongside

The good thing is that I will have plenty of time to learn new things and assist where needed and I like that! The captain 👨‍✈️ has been teaching me how to weld and i find that pretty cool! Although I still need to practice breathing in and out (not just only for the welding! 😂) I am looking forward to the next little welding projects we have to make the ship look nicer!

We had a bit if a crew change too, our engineer is going home and the new arrived. Jaya, one of the ABs flew back to indonisai and Robbie flew in. I am looking forward to getting to know them as i have heard so many nice things! ✌🏻

Ruyter being towed in the narrow inshore channels

I am slowly realizing it is soon coming to an end and it makes me realize I want to spend as much time as possible with the people on board. I know I will see them again but I am not looking forward to the goodbyes. I know myself, I shouldn’t think about it as it makes my heart of steel shrink a bit more! 🖤 For now, focus on day by day, school, work, walks, talks and gezellig moments with 🍦 ice cream and cappuccino.

Typical Dutch… Narrow channels, ships and flat green countryside

I will miss it. And the people here. for sure.
But hey I am not gone yet! Haha 😂 🤓 #franseheks

Take care all! Lots of love Sophie xx✌🏻 ⚓️ ♥️ @ Delfzijl

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 9 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻

Ok. So the start of this week was awesome. Remember we were ar anchor? ⚓️ and sailed into Kotka to load fertilizer? Well. Yep. That was probably my last loading operation. And my last sail…. 😢.

Loading fertilizer in the port of Kotka, Finland

It looks like snow!

Ok. Rewind. ⏮ Finland has actually very nice landscape from the sea. The pilots we got onboard were all kind and talking about their dogs (they seem to all have beagles here!) and their hunt trophies… there was so much 🌬 wind so the temperatures were already below the 0s… but it was ok. I always think there is no bad weather but only bad clothing. Besides, i remember the times sailing down south from Salvador 🇧🇷 to Punta Arenas 🇨🇱 and the weather getting colder and colder, fingers freezing then burning. Well you have to train your body to the cold 🥶. My captain now, only swears by cold showers and all the benefits you get from it. Don’t tell him but i am giving it a try! And 🍀 the water in my cabin isn’t that cold! 😅

Urea flying in winds feels like I am in a blizzard!

Ok so loading fertilizer in Kotka 🇫🇮 it looked like we were in a snow blizzard for a few hours and I think they were pouring as much cargo in the hold than out of it! 😂 and I for sure had lots of fun laughing there with the captain finishing up the ballasting and the loading, sweeping the coamings and closing the hatches and making ready for the departure in the middle of the night until I woke up the next morning with a super puffy face and eyes!! 😂 then I was the centre of a laugh 🤭. It turns out that fertilizer is not as harmless as snow ❄️… oh well 😔.

We had a great easy sail underway to Delfzijl 🇳🇱 , home port of the vessel 🚢. Until…. Kiel. Kiel Kanal in: perfect 👌🏻. Kiel Kanal out… perfect untill the 💥. No more main engine… the explosion was heard up to 3 km around Brunsbüttel!

Ruyter alongside in Holteneau locks, at night

And I must admit that my heart stopped beating as I was in front of the engine room entrance knowing that both the captain and the engineer were down there and I could hear or see anything moving anymore. But they were safe. Tugs out if the lock, back in the channel for two days and starting to dismount a few parts and cylinder heads out…

Over 10 years sailing ⛵️, I have never spend so long in the NOK! 😂 😂 but luckily enough we did have sweets to comfort us 🍬 🍭 while dismounting! We are just such a power team! 💪🏻 and i am very grateful for sailing with such nice and kind crew, almost as if i didn’t want to leave! Grapje 😉

Still « smiling » even without an engine!

And I am realizing I have done 2/3 of my internship already and I only have 4 weeks left. And time is flying too fast. 😔 this will be my second main engine complete overhaul/change…. ✌🏻 to be continued…. 😉😘

Take care and 🤞🏻 xxx ♥️ ⚓️ @ Port of Kotka

INTERNSHIP ~ Week 8 🚢 ⚓️✌🏻

Week 8… week 8??!! Wow. And again wow wow. Where are these days going?
I am more than halfway through my internship on board and I do not even realize how far we have already come!

A happy trainee having fun cleaning under the hatch covers together with the engineer

This week was very busy with loading and discharging. Discharging our RDF (garbage bills) deep cleaning the hold with apple 🍏 chemicals, leaving Norrköping to Jättersön, also Sweden 🇸🇪, to load wood pulp for Rauma Finland 🇫🇮 and then direction Kotka 🇫🇮…. a few touches and goes with 6-8 hours in the harbour and of course arrivals and departures usually in the middle of the night or during meal times… all seafarers know it usually happens this way 😂.

Washing the cargo hold with strong soap and a high-pressure cleaner

Pretty proud of saying i was in charge of all these cargo operations, ballasting included 💪🏻 and that it went pretty well indeed! It was a lot of fun and even what I thought would be challenging: the weather getting colder and colder here 🥶, I am still playing “onion” with layers and haven’t taken out the big winter coverall…. at 5 am with 30knots of wind 💨 opening hatches are not that fun but it just reminds me I have spent two seasons in Antarctica and good old memories of furling sails up in a frozen rigging were the coolest thing ever. 😎. Burning fingers and ears and runny sniffy nose is soon going to be my daily state. Just a good preparation for skiing season right? 🎿

This week workwise was pretty interesting: the cargo we transport (what do companies do with wood pulp: pretty cool and super clean and lots of fun inflating air cushions to seafasten the blocks!) the new places I have never been too: Sweden and the first time in Finland! Ok well so… I have only seen the coast right, but it is as if… ok I really miss exploring new places I admit. I am lucky I don’t even have time to think of it though. One day I will travel more. I know. It is in my blood.

The sea fastening of wood pulp blocks with airbags

And well ending the week with a day at anchor out of Kotka to recharge and call my MOM ♥️ yeah…. that is what I call recharging… I hope you don’t always read in these posts that everything seems so easy for me to achieve…. being a “trainee with experience” is not always the easiest position and letting go is something I am working hard on. My parents are the only people on this 🌍 to whom i can sometimes empty all those feelings i keep for myself and they will not change there opinion on me and i love them to death for that ♥️!

So there went week 8 a spooky 👻 week but a good week on the move! I shall remind myself a bit more often to take a daily happy picture again because I am having fun despite me 📚!
The good thing is that challenges can always be overcome with help from up there 🌟 , love and trust! ✌🏻

It is often long days in the harbour but it is also fun

Take care all! Lots of love Sophie xx✌🏻 ⚓️ ♥️ @ Rauma, Finland

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: travel

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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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