Date: 2. October 2019
Author: Sarah
Position: La Isla Graciosa, Canary Islands
Geographical Position: 
Etmal:

La Isla Graciosa – what an island! We had the chance to discover it today and I want to use this daily report to give you insight into a more or less normal day on board of the Pelican of London. I’ll write from my perspective as a student and tell you what we experienced today.

7:00 am: Breakfast

It’s always interesting to see how the mood of people differs depending on what they had for breakfast … or not. And I can tell you our breakfast is always excellent. (I think this is a good opportunity to thank our cook Abbie and the galley team of that day.)

So, motivated as always, we started our day…

8:30 am: Emergency exercise

Of course, we don’t hope for an emergency but we always have to be prepared for the worst case. Therefore we have to exercise an emergency, just like today. As soon as we heard the alarm, we all went upstairs to the poopdeck and made a count off in our watches to check if everyone was there. After putting on emergency suits and life jackets, we trained how to get into the life rafts quickly. You can imagine that there’s always a little bit of fun when 32 students and 3 teachers, dressed up as an army of red minions come together on such a small and crowded place like our welldeck. 🙂

10:00 am – 16:00 pm: Discovering the island Graciosa

Finally, after all that stress it was time for something more relaxing. And what is more relaxing than a day at the beach?! But there was a difference to the other islands we have been to so far.. there was no marina we could use. So how should we get to the beautiful volcano island we were seeing the whole morning from our ship? Of course captain Ben came up with a clever solution. The small Dingi that is on board brought us as close as 5 meter to an amazing beach and we simply swam to the land. Some of us were more prepared to go for a swim than others, which led to some very funny situations and a lot of wet clothes.

After about 4 hours of enjoying the sunshine and crystal clear water, we all went for a walk to a tiny town which included a cute little bakery. We all had a snack there and after another hour of relaxation we were picked up again and brought back to our swimming home by Dingi.

The rest of the day

The rest of the day we just had fun on board and- believe it or not- even relaxing and having a beautiful day at one of the most amazing islands I’ve ever seen can be hard. So everyone was very tired and we all went to bed quiet early…

All in all, I can say that this was a fantastic day, like one you can only experience on one of the most amazing sailing ship/ school one can have: The Pelican of London. Our home for the next 5 months. And I can tell you we are all looking forward to more unforgettable days like this!

P.s: Im Übrigen sind wir der Meinung, dass wir in der Mitte des Atlantiks baden gehen sollten!