Date: 31.12.2022
Author: Leni
Position: Caribbean Sea
Nautical Position: 12° 23.6 N. 064° 16.4 W
Total Distance: 5935 NM
Ship: Pelican of London

At the moment, we are still on our way to Curaçao in the Caribbean Sea. There we will hopefully get the missing part of our toilet pump system, so that we can finally reach Panama and start our fantastic land programme in Costa Rica. Maybe we will get a new PA system, so we can make announcements again and don‘t always have to ring the bell for lunch and dinner. I also would appreciate music during deep cleans, because that is always a push for everyone’s motivation.

What day is today?

Life on Pelican goes on like always: The daily routine, some broken stuff, for example almost every toilet on the ship and the everyday morning waiting in front of the Dog Kennels after waking up, when you really have to pee.

Me personally, I completely forgot that today we have New Year’s Eve, because you really lose your feeling of time on such a ship.

Most of us even don’t know what day of the week we have (except on Sundays because of Nutella at breakfast). So it was kind of a shock when the fact that today 2022 will end, was spoken out during the ships company meeting.

A New Year

The last day of 2022, it really feels incredible. We have been living on the boat for three months now and with Costa Rica the point of return comes closer and closer.

Today was a day of reflection and also a day of a few tears. Some of us got sad because we almost have done half of the journey. We got through really rough seastates with this crew on this wonderful ship and it became, in some way, our home and family.

Being here isn’t just a holiday trip, it’s now kind of normal, it’s part of our lives, part our our history and part of our identity. I’m so thankful that I am part of this fantastic voyage and that I can make all these stunning experiences.

I’m sure it will be hard to leave the ship one day in the future and go back to our old lives. Others were sad because they really missed their families and the New Year‘s rituals from their homes. So we sat together on the decks and platforms of the masts, reading in our diaries, talking, thinking and cuddling.

A special evening programe

Even though there was a lot of thinking and reflecting and also sometimes crying going on Pelican, all the tears were wiped away in the evening because at 10 p.m. our New Year’s Party with disco lights and music started.

The motto was white, a huge challenge on a tall ship with a washing machine, that loves to give your laundry a new rusty look.

Other dirt hazards are for example the black tarred shrouds and working in the galley with tomatoes while the ship is rolling.

Finally, all of us got at least one white shirt, even if we had to borrow it from someone else. At quarter to ten, the evening watch got released by the teachers, which was really nice of them, thank you so much.

Happy New Year

At the beginning everyone was really tired and there was no party feeling on the well deck. As always the mood got much brighter after some snacks were put onto the table and at half past eleven the deck was filled with dancing and laughing people.

Most of them pushed themselves with at least two cups of coffee or a coke… Two minutes before midnight someone shouted: „It’s just two minutes to 2023“.

At this moment, funnily, Axel came down from the bridge, telling us that New Year started in exactly 58 seconds (exact time on the plotter).

Maybe we should all check our watches. After the countdown to 2023 reached zero, there was a big hugging session on the deck before we drunk some very delicious drinks mixed by our teacher-barkeepers.

We also sung a nice traditional Scottish New Year’s song and those who brought instruments onto the ship played them while the rest was singing. Even if we can‘t shoot rockets from our ship, we finally shot a “Pelican Rocket“ a tradition established by Benno.

After one more hour of dancing, eating, drinking, deep talking and a great performance of our Pelican band (Benno, Britta, Simon), full of voice cracks, the party found it‘s end at 1 a.m..

We Stand Together

We worked together to clean everything and to quickly get into our cabins and bunks.

Unfortunately, the Green Mile felt even more humid and hot and stinky than normally, so a few people were awake until 03:00 or 04:00. Sunday will be a hard day for all of us because we have Happy Hour, dog watches, etc. coming up…

The girls of cabin nine were allowed to sleep onto the deck because half of the cabin got a virus infection and we don’t want it to spread. They really look unwell and we strongly missed them during the party.

Hopefully, they will be healthy when we reach Curaçao. At the moment, it looks like the virus is spreading, because more and more people feel sick. Anyways, we shouldn’t lose hope, we have a great medic here on board and we are a good team which is used to work together, so we will manage this difficulty too.

We make the best out of everything. When the toilets are blocked, we share two toilets and have nice talks while waiting in front of them. If we don’t have water, we all smell terrible together and if our mates are sick, we take care of them and support each other.

Greetings:

Leni: Ich grüße meine Familie, Amaia und die Philos. Ich hoffe, dass es euch gut geht und wünsche euch ein frohes neues Jahr.
Hanna: Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Papa! Ich wünsche euch ein frohes neues Jahr und hoffe, dass alle wieder gesund sind. Hab‘ euch lieb!
Ellen: Frohes neues Jahr an meine ganze Familie, hab‘ euch ganz dolle lieb!