Date: 15 October 2019
Author: Elena
Position: Garonne/ Puerto Gurutzeaundi (Spanish-French-boarder)
Geographical Position: 44° 21 N 001°40W
Etmal: 192 miles

My day started when someone from the blue watch woke me up at around 7.20 am. We were all quite busy being seasick last night, so I decided to skip breakfast and instead get ready for my watch from 8 am to 12 pm right away. Dressed in my weather gear and harness (which is compulsory to wear at all time during your watch), I arrived on deck.

It was just before sunrise, the sky was in a light baby blue with only some clouds and somehow this atmosphere made me forget the many times I had to throw up, the headache and dizziness I felt the hours before. Now it was good to have salty wind around my nose and to see the ocean and sky in these morning hours.

Dolphins

“Dolphins on starboard side!”, I heard someone calling. And indeed, there were four dolphins not even 10 metres away, swimming next to the ship as if they wanted to accompany us. “Dolphins on port side as well!”, you could hear a few moments later. There were already more people from the other watches gathered around to see them. “Do dolphins get seasick as well?”, I wondered.

Seasickness

Although the day was mainly sunny and not that cold, waves and wind were really rough. Almost everybody, including the permanent crew and teachers were or are still seasick. People were either lying in their beds sleeping, or sitting around deck, drinking tea and eating bread to have something to throw up one moment later… just to feel a little better for the following 10 minutes. Because of that, captain Ben decided to change the course and we started heading closer towards land again, so we could have some shelter from the waves that would give us time to recover.

At midnight we reached our position to anchor in front Puerto Gurutzeaundi right on the French-Spanish-boarder to get some rest.