Calling the North Sea love at first sight after leaving the North Sea-Baltic Sea Canal and the Elbe would be a barefaced lie. Too large was the aversion to the seasickness that didn‘t let us wait for it very long, when we reached the known water. This meant mixed feelings for the next few days. It was hard and took a lot of strength to hold the balance between the admiration for the first larger waves and water till under the horizon on one hand and sprinting to the ship`s rail and feeding the fish every five minutes on the other. Same were the growing expectations of our heads of watch. Their orders even made us sailing seven hours just under sail.
We all pricked up our ears after the turning down of „Olga“, our machine, which had accompanied us the last days with its hum as well as its active support. We were used to our new environment. Nevertheless during the sentry duty we were all interested in famous landmarks like the lights of Dunkirchen, when we noticed them. The English coast itself at the horizon was another exciting highlight.
To come back to the love of the beginning: We were also able to welcome some new guests on board. A group of small birds that must had been brought away from their original course by the wind sweetened us the day with their chirp. Because of our concerns about their well being, we fed them with rests of the breakfast.
The shout „Dolphins!“, that reached us on Wednesday morning from the front of the ship led to a big excitement on board of the Thor Heyerdahl. Only a few of us had seen dolphins in the wild before. The dolphins joined us another day again to accompany us on our way towards Falmouth and I‘m sure it wasn‘t the last time.
The rising wind with more than 5 Beaufort on Thursday shouldn‘t prevent us from arriving in Falmouth harbour on Friday morning. In the evening we had the opportunity to eat ashore and fill up our candy reserves. Saturday morning we started with „run and dip“, the sport program we were already used to from our first meeting during the time of application. On Saturday afternoon we set off towards our next destination Safi.