Date: 7th of January 2021
Author: Malina
Position: Jaco Beach, Costa Rica

¿Donde vives? ¿¡En el barco de vela “Pelican of London“!?

In our Spanish-lessons today, that was one of the  question we learned. I do not really know why, but it felt a little bit wrong to give my hometown Solingen as answer. Yes, I am from Solingen, but at the moment I am not living there. During the last three months the Pelican became my home. The place I feel safe and can be as I am, the place I mean when I say, that I left something at home, when we are ashore, the place where I wash my laundry, change my bedding and my toothbrush, need to cut my nails and know every single corner. (Especially because we have to clean them every week during the happy hour.)

So yes, the Pelican is my home in this half year. A home with 40-some other people from nearly all over the world. With all crew members we had so far, we come from 42 different citys or villages (or islands) in six different countries.

But at the moment we are not at home. It is a great holiday vibe here in the surf camp. No watch, no galley duty, no happy hour and a lot less rules. Since we arrived here I haven’t worn socks or proper shoes.

For me holiday also means different food. Thats why im very happy that we get traditional costa rican food here. Because of the tides our surfing lesson was from 08:00 to 10:00 in the morning. We only had a little snack before it and than after it a big breakfast. We ate scrumbled eggs, rice with beans, plantains and ananas. As well we had oatmeal. It tasted a lot like rice pudding for me. A homelike taste, because on the Pelican one of my favorite desserts is rice pudding.

And I think from one part of the dinner there was a big leftover today. The coleslaw. Many of us do not want to eat it anymore because when we ate it on the Pelican the first times, everyone was seasick. So the taste of coleslaw reminds us of puking.

But all in all I really enjoy the food here also because we have so many fresh and local fruits.

As well I saw today a lot of different animals. In our surfing lessons a few skates swam around us. We saw a big iguana on the street. Here in the camp are a lot of ants. They carry small pieces of leafs to their anthill. In the evenig many geckos sat under the rooftop. As well we have a lot of mosquitos here. That is not so nice.

But one thing is very different for me than in normal holidays. Normally I spent during holidays less time on my smartphone than in the everyday life. But here we all use our smartphone alot, because we have free wifi here. It is nice that we have here the possibility to communicate again so much with family and friends but I also look again forward to the time without Internet again.

In the evening we sang a few shanties together. That was a lot of fun. And now I lie with my sleeping bag in a hammock, look at the stars and will sleep there tonight.

Now, at the next morning, I can say that it was really nice. It was nice cool and I could feel a light breeze. In the morning I woke up and the first thing I saw was the ocean. Yes this is holiday for me!