It’s half past one o’clock in the night and the only noise you hear is the ocean and the sails in the warm North-East-Passat. When you look up, you are able to see more stars than you have ever seen before. There are billions of them. Small and big ones all around. Five minutes later footsteps can be heard. Somebody says: „Ina, in twenty minutes you have to be on the poop deck. You have got sentry duty together with Hennes, Clara, Charlotte and Lorenz.“ At first I don’t fancy to stand up, but then I remember the funny night before and five seconds later I’m ready.
Since we have left the harbour of Santa Cruz we are allowed to sleep on top of the dry last. Actually only Fine, Leila, Marie and me are sleeping there, but I’m sure when it’s getting warmer there will be more people who are interested in sleeping outside on the deck. In my opinion, the best place to sleep is outside, because under deck the air is very bad and hot. In addition, we installed a fitness and spa-part on the fore ship. On the port side there is our bike with view to the horizon and on starboard there is the pool „Fatu Hiva“. At 4 o’clock we have the official opening. Johannes cleaned it and put out the dead flying fishes, which flew onto the ship that night. Another special aspect are the lessons and the meals on the main deck. From time to time you see somebody running behind a peace of trash because the wind blows it away. Other highlights are the whales and dolphins. Yesterday for example we saw a school of dolphins and it was an amazing and breathtaking moment when 50 of them jumped and swam around our ship.
On board we are a big family and now we are the greatest team in the world, on the one hand side in the old sentry duties, on the other hand side in the new ones. Our teachers are our friends, we lay in the cabin with them and remember funny moments or jokes together. If there are any problems we can talk to them and we can be sure of getting help. I’m very glad about this relationship because this helped me to get over the homesickness and the time of seasickness.
Another highlight of the Atlantic crossing is the mysterious letter on our blackboard in the messroom. It was adressed with the flag alphabet to Luca so that she would open it for all students. Against our expectations it wasn’t written in normal German handwriting but in an old one. It is an enigma which was given to us from a person named Hans Peter Jürgens. He was a sailor and hid a treasure on the Thor Heyerdahl. In the euphoria we discovered a map behind the picture in the library painted by Hans Peter Jürgens. On the old map you can see a crossword-puzzle, stamps from old KUSis and words without any connections. We also discovered a wooden fish on the topmast. Up to know we are searching for advice to find the words for the crossword puzzle and we are very excited for the next advice.
In my opinion, crossing the Atlantic is the best part of the journey so far because we have a lot of time to think and everything is more relaxed because of our new daily routine.