Date: 29. November 2021
Author: Lotte
Position: 15°3.7N, 053°54.5W
Average speed: 4.4 Knots
Etmal: 110NM (total: 5161NM)

Here are a few of my favourite stories that arguably describe life onboard this ship better than I can during a phone call.

1. “How´s your head?”

You always know that you haven’t done a good job steering when you hear this phrase. It means: „Into which direction are we heading?“ Lately some of the answers have not been very satisfactory to the crew and some of us have managed to become immortalized on the map. Because when someone is so far off course that a zickzack is visible on the map, we get a waypoint named after us. A lot of us have left marks like this but only a few have managed to leave two or get a small note along with it.
But now I can tell you not so proudly, that the waypoints „Lotte 1“ and „Lotte 2“ are very well visible on our computer. As well as

„Ann, some excuse about swimming“ and
„Ann, so bad, she broke the GPS“ and
„Judys (our Doctor) first Go“.

In total we have seventeen of those marks all over the Atlantic but to our defence: The one and only time the crew had to steer, during our mid Atlantic ball, they used the autopilot called Mike and even set a waypoint “Mike, amazing job”.

2. Blind passengers

It all started when Laure noticed that we don’t have a single chair on board, well word is that the captain has one in his office, but I don’t remember seeing one so it doesn’t count. Then when we were ashore in Portugal she saw a free pile of furniture and fell in love at first sight. She took the chair with her and named him Henry but because our hoovers have the same name we decided to call him Henry the 8th. At first the crew was quite sceptical and wanted to leave Henry behind in the next harbour, but Henry convinced them with his charm and practicability. Because we only have two tables outside it is quite hard squeeze in all of us and sometimes you really want to listen to a conversation but there is simple no room. Now that we have Henry you can just sit comfortably on either end of the picnic table and talk as long as you want with whoever you want. Lisbon was quite generous and had a lot of things to give away and now I also have a green crate that Maria found and because I have the most bottom shelf, I put all of my things in it so that they don’t lie around on the floor.

3. German names

The crew has quite a hard time with our names. Especially Knut’s name gives them headaches. Everyone pronounces it differently, but my favourite versions are Neeeaaaawt or Knutie (der Cutie) and forever legendary will be the exclamation “Nut! You come with me” when Simon wanted him to join him during cabin rounds.
One time, when Jule was aloft and someone from the crew wanted to tell her something, they had to try each variation of the Name (Juwle, Juli,…) until she realized that they were trying to say her name and looked down.
Even in the crew everyone pronounces it differently and that’s why Elie, who is from the US, calls me „Lawte“ and most of the English crew calls me Lotte like normal but make the e sound like i, so it ends up in „Lotti“. Somehow this has caught on and Ann and some other people always shout Lotttiiiii when they are looking for me.

Grüße von Clara N.: Lieber Papa, alles Gute zum Geburtstag. Ich wollte diese Nachricht eigentlich illegal auf dem Lookout schreiben, aber Simon hat mich erwischt. An Deinem Geburstag hatten wir einen klasse Sonnenaufgang. Ich drücke Dich.