By Julian
Water. Blue shimmering water all around. As you probably guessed the topic I’m going to be talking about has to be something with water: Crossing the South Atlantic Ocean. Today we crossed the point of no return. That means we can’t go back anymore because the way forward is as long as the way back. This doesn’t mean that we have the same distance back to Cape Verde as forward to the Caribbean, but it means that it would take the same amount of time. So now we are on our own and if something happens on board we have to fix it by ourselves or we wait 9 days. Because of that we have to make sure that nobody gets injured.
In our daily routine we are split into two groups, the higher chemistry class (A) and the lower chemistry class (B). We’ve a two-day routine, that means when for example group A has school then group B has watch. The next day we switch. We are very busy most of the time, because our school day is from 8.30 am to 5.50 pm with a couple of breaks. On the other hand, are the watch days, which are, except for Sunday, also full of activities: You are on sentry duty, do some individualized learning sessions, cleaning up the ship and sometimes you are mess steward or you have an internship. In the rest of your time you do the exercises from our special charges for example rubbish, navigation, news and much more. On top of that a lot of people play cards or chat with each other on the cargo-hold.
But what is special about this period of our trip?
Since we are on the Atlantic Ocean we are fishing and we had a lot of luck (on the second day of fishing) and got one very big golden mackerel (96cm). in the next days we caught 3 more (83cm and two little ones). Every time it starts when somebody shouts: “Fish, we got one!“ and then all members of the crew come very fast to the main deck (doesn`t matter what their exercises are, except the helmsman) and everyone helps to pull the fishing line from the poop deck to the main deck. Then we pull the fish on the deck and gut and clean it. That is where the mess stewards come into play and have to turn the fish into a delicious meal. We use the leftovers from the fish and flying fishes that jump on the deck as bait.
Furthermore, crossing the Atantic Ocean means that we are approaching the Christmas time. Most of the KUSis didn`t know, that Christmas wasn’t far away, until our Christmas wreath and our Advent calendar were set up on the first of advent. When you walk over the ship you see some people working with wood or sewing in order to make the some presents or you hear some trumpets playing Christmas songs. Today we had our first selfmade Christmas cookies (very delicious). And slowly you can see and hear the Christmas feeling coming up.
As you see we have a very busy day, but if you want some time for yourself you can go to a lonely place like on the top of the deckhouse, enjoy the fresh air and give free rein to your thoughts during your freetime. This deep blue water all around gives you a feeling of freedom and relaxation. Because you never see land and very, very few times other ships on the horizon, you really get the feeling of being alone on this world. But we`re not going to stay alone for a long time because Neptune himself wrote us a letter that he will join us soon…