A normal day of freestyle on the Regina Maris

Date: 03.04.2024
Position: Horta, Azores
Etmal: 0 nm
Total: 10496 nm
Ship: Regina Maris
 
We had planned a lot of land program for our time on the Azores, but just as the past five and a half months have taught us, not everything comes as planned. We wanted to do a bike tour over Faial and wander up to the volcano Pico. The problem – the windy, rainy and stormy, in other words very unsteady weather which accompanies us already over a week here in Horta and is the reason that we have to change our plans from day to day. But who would we be, if we would not find other things to make us a beautiful time and do not get bored? 

A normal morning

Our day started as usual with breakfast and the daily duties that must be done. Those were followed by the Silent Hour, we still had to do from Sunday. Due to the past days, we were all really tired, why we enjoyed an hour of peace. After that we had a “psychology on board” practice with Johanna. 

Workshop time

For the rest of the morning our teachers had planned another workshop. It already started quite funny with a verbal argument that showed us a realistic example and caught our attention. Today’s topic was violent free communication. We learned about the differences between violent and violent free communication as well as about the communication model by Rosenberg.

It sustains of four steps: 1 observation – 2 feeling – 3 need – 4 request. During the workshop we got an introduction into the single steps and learned exactly how they work and what is important while using them. All in all, it was interesting and even tough a lot of us had already some knowledge everyone learned something new. There was a quote that summarises the workshop in my opinion quite good and stayed in my mind:
 
“All violence is the result of people that make themselves believe that their hurt is caused by others and that those have to be punished for that.” – Rosenberg 

Evening Preparations

For the evening was a get-together with the students from the High Seas High School planned. After they already saw our Reggie on Cuba and we just missed each other on Bermuda, we were all looking forward to finally see their ship, the Gulden Leeuw. Many people need a lot of food, that’s why the preparations were already going on. Our galley duty had the chance to help the High Seas out in their galley and could make an interesting new experience.

We were in charge for some salads and the dessert, therefore some stayed at the Reggie to finish the preparations while the rest went into the Museu da Fábrica da Baleia de Porto Pim, an old whale oil fabric, here in Horta. They reported that it was interesting, and they could learn more about whaling history.

Surprise, surprise

Afterwards, almost everyone of us went directly over to the Gulden Leeuw, but our time there was short. Suddenly, their mooring lines whipped and all OCs had to quickly leave the ship. They already had a lot of problems to secure their ship to shore and about 10 mooring lines whipped in the past days, so they had none left. That is why they directly needed to leave the harbor to go for anker. We could just save some food that we carried in the stormy weather to our Reggie. Even cinnamon buns could be evacuated.

For what do you need plans when you can freestyle

Plans change fast, something we definitely learned on this journey. The planned get-together with the High Seas turned quickly into an improvised dinner alone on the Reggie. Back on our ship we looked what we could make out of the food we managed to save. To pass the time we watched the animation movie to the book “Old Man and the Sea” we read in the English lessons.

During that we filled a whole table with burger buns, the galley started to fry the patties and we cut tomatoes, cucumbers and onions while watching. In the time of 20 minutes, we free-styled to create a dinner.

In the past five and a half months we got really good at being flexible and finding creative ways to solve problems. It was a surprising and a bit chaotic turning of the evening, but that is how our ships life is like and as you can see not just on our ship. At the end we were all sitting happy together, ate and laughed. The rest of the evening was relaxed and some dared to leave for a short walk out in the storm.
 
Greetings: Ganz viel Liebe an alle zuhause <33 Ich freue mich schon, euch alle bald endlich wieder drücken zu können!

Anbei noch ein schöner Zeitungsartikel über unseren neuen Bordarzt Christian:

https://www.hna.de/kassel/schiffsarzt-wartet-auf-azorenhoch-92984458.html