Chemical miracles

Date: 23.10.2025
Position: Brittany
Nautical Position: 49•48,7 N 005•13,4 W
Etmal: 163 nm
Course: South-West
Average Speed: 6,8 kn

Hey and welcome to our 5th day on board the Roald. Today is a very exciting day. It started with us spotting a beautiful chemical reaction of plankton — it seemed like the water around our ship was glowing deep blue.

Rough day

Not as beautiful was the sea we woke up to. It was very rough, with 5- to 6-meter waves and wind of up to 50 knots.

Luckily, not everything was worse in the morning — we were actually sailing! This was because the wind no longer came directly from the front, so we could hoist five of our sails.

Dolphin alert

Another nice highlight of the day was the group of dolphins we saw during our watch.

It’s also incredible how fast the weather can change out here at sea. For example, in the morning after the 0–4 watch, the sea was completely calm and six hours later, we had those 5-meter waves.

The rest of the day was pretty boring because nearly all of us were very seasick and you couldn’t even sit in the lounge because of the rough sea conditions. So we all just went to bed, hoping for the conditions to clear up before our next watch.

While sleeping, we dreamed of the warm beaches of Spain and the good weather we hope for in the coming days.

Will it happen? We hope so… maybe tomorrow.