Date: 12.12.2020
Author: Mats
Position: Antigua
Geographical Position: 17°00,75N , 061°46,34W
Etmal: 0 NM (total distance: 5871NM)

Since we arrived two days ago, everybody is hyped of going on shore after three weeks only blue water and sky around ourselves. Yesterday we could walk around for two hours after the long atlantic crossing but today we can finally go to the beach and really enjoy our free time here in Antigua.
The most people are looking forward to buy some food or fresh drinks but I was a bit annoyed of seeing water several weeks and couldn´t jump into it, so now you know what I’m doing first 🙂

Until yesterday I couldn’t believe that we are on a Carribbean island but I think at least today or tomorrow we can all realize that we are so far away from home and in a completely different culture and nature.

That you won’t get too jealous, a negative thing here is, that there are plenty of moskitos and other annoying insects, who want to bite me. And what do you think happenend yesterday? – Of course I’ve got bitten and the sting got really big and itched, so that’s why I’m really looking forward to the wonderful coming months here.

In addition today we got (christmas-) post but in my case it was a little dumb to open my post because I read the letters of my family which should be for christmas eve so the 24th of december and not today the 12th of december. But anyway I really enjoyed reading them like everyone else did. In general every time we get post from our families or friends everyone gets so happy and hopes for many letters, pictures or other nice stuff. That really shows how much we miss you out there.

After shore leave

One day full of fun, stress, but all in all a really nice experience on a Carribbean island!

The 10 hours – shore leave began at around 10 o’clock and suddenly after some walking, going to the beach and eating nice food the day was over. We ate some pizza in the evening and because of paying seperately we hadn’t so much time to get to the Pelican in time so we really stressed us and only arrived ten minutes too late.

At this moment we were worried because normally when somebody is too late you can’t participate at the next shore leave and to only see a Carribbean island and not to got on it would be big shit. Anyway the teachers didn’t talk to us about it because they maybe didn’t look on their watch or another reason but I’m happy about it.

So next shore leave will be great again. Another thing that was stressy as well are the conflict of interests so person a and b want to go to the beach, person c and d want to go shopping and walking around and person e wants to do something completely different. Now you have to make a compromise.

But this stuff isn’t that bad and now to the best things of the day.

Everyone loved the free time and did the things that they wanted to. I for example went after the supermarket directly to the pigeon beach and chilled there some hours with almost everyone of Ocean College because many people went swimming and this beach was the nearest.
The beach was so wonderful. White sand, palm trees, beach bars and warm but refreshing seawater. It’s like in a film 🙂

The city was really nice as well. Everywhere were restaurants, bars, shops and fruit stands and the spirit was great. The locals were talking to us about their lifes and we informed them about our journey.