Beach day – ooohw yeah

Ship: Roald Amundsen
Date: 30.11.2025
Nautical Position: 15°08,1’N ; 023° 13,0’W
Ship: Roald Amundsen

As we stood up this morning, the great part of us was already in a good mood. How could it be different when you get woken up with the information: It’s 7:00, you have to stand up but it’s the 1st Advent, it’s warm outside, plus there are scrambled eggs, pancakes and even Nutella for breakfast (we only get such things for really special occasions).

After breakfast we continued our day with cleaning the ship. Other than usual we didn’t spend 20 to 30 minutes doing that but invested a whole hour, which gave us time to clean our cabins and the galley as well.

Before we could go to the beach, which was already the plan yesterday so we were really looking forward to that, we read the ninth chapter of “The General History of the Pyrates”.

The author wrote something about pirates (what a surprise) taking place at the Cape Verde Islands, so our teacher thought that would be really fitting, reading it while sailing on a pirate ship-ish through the waters of the Cape Verdes. The hard part about it was that it’s written in English of the 18th century, which made a few students struggle.

We dropped anchor around 12:00, so perfectly during lunchtime, for which we had very garlicky noodles. For Miri it was too spicy once again, but you can’t really compare her sensitivity to spices, so I’d say the rest of us pretty much enjoyed it.

As soon as we set the dinghy in the water and our deck was cleaned, the captain himself started to tender first the crew and then us students ashore.

Unfortunately, it took a little bit longer to gather all people on land than we expected, which also shortened the time at the stunning white-sand, turquoise-water beach.

Still, we really enjoyed splashing water at each other and tasting the salt of the sea for another reason than being in such heavy rain that your sailing gear gets soaked from the inside or dipping in huge waves while being in the jib net for packing a sail.

A few of us even discovered a part of the city and walked together with wild chickens along colourful houses, past fat-ass spiders, through the almost empty streets of Maio.

Since it’s our last stop before we’ll cross the Atlantic, which means being at sea for quite a while, lots of students took the chance to buy some snacks in a local supermarket where it wasn’t possible to pay by card, but they surprisingly accepted Euro.

To give the day a nice ending, we’re now watching “Master and Commander” on deck.

We’re allowed to sleep outside as well, only having to go downstairs at 3:00 tomorrow because that’s already the time we’re leaving again to go to Praia where we get our last delivery on the east side of the Atlantic and a few (hopefully super happy, energetic and cheerful) new crew members.

Greetings:

Paula: Benti & Livy, hoffe, ihr habt für mich eine Kerze mit angezündet. Wir haben hier leider keine, ist auch bisschen unpraktisch auf nem Holzschiff… hab‘ euch lieb. Maja, ich hoffe Du hast die Klausurenphase bisher überlebt und euch anderen gehts gut.

Got my music finally back, cool kids on repeat, didn’t have to say “not today” yet, so all good as always. Hope you’re doing great and both of you don’t stress too much. See you soon :).

JB: Liebe Freunde und Familie: Ich schicke euch liebe Grüße und das schöne warme T-Shirt 👕 Wetter in die Heimat. Alles Liebe 💐 Physics rock!

Topsi Lotta: Grüßt ihre Familie und das Kleingemüse und alle, die so freundlich sind wie Toast. Das Leben ist ein Zitronenbaiser.