Our friend, the big blue deep sea.

Date: 03.03.2024
Geographical Position: 27°41.9′ N 074°54.3′ W
Etmal: 120 nm
Total: 8108 nm
Ship: Regina Maris

My relationship to the water

Before this journey, when I told people about this voyage, they often wondered what my connection to sailing was. Even though I live in Hamburg, I never sailed before. Never felt connected to sailing, nor knew anything about it, but the idea of sailing felt breathtaking and freeing to me.

I thought that sailing must be a beautiful thing to experience, which I can now confirm. That’s not the reason I wanted to go to Ocean College though, but one reason was my love for the water.

I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with the ocean or particularly in love with it, but as soon as there is any opportunity to go swimming, no matter if it’s a pool, a dirty pond, some lake or the ocean, I can’t resist it. I don’t care about the temperature, about the color of the water or about the depth, I never hesitated and always would be the first one to jump in.

Having no towel or bikini couldn’t hold me back. I just took off my clothes and went underwear. I can’t tell you why, but swimming was just always something very special to me. Because I haven’t had the opportunity to go swimming that often, I thought this would be a way to experience it more often.

Before this journey started, I wondered if swimming was going to become less special to me or how my relationship to the water and the sea would change.

Changes

One thing I can say for sure: swimming hasn’t lost its magic.

It is still as special as before if not even more. No matter how many countless times we were able to jump in while laying at anchor, it always felt as if it was the first time and as special as if it was the last.

I think you can compare the way my relationship to the ocean changed, to the way your relationship can change to a person that you spend a lot of time with. Sometimes very active (swimming, sailing, looking out on the water) and often also very passive (just generally living on a sailboat).

It feels a little like a partner in crime who you share so many experiences and adventures with. It’s not that I just realized the ocean can be a fantastic place, it’s rather that I connect so many more core memories with it now.

Before Ocean College, the ocean felt like this unpredictable powerful thing, which I loved but couldn’t trust. Sometimes I would catch myself feeling unsafe. Starting to be scared of what could be in the water with me. Now I still have that feeling occasionally, but curiosity overpowers fear.

I trust the ocean so much more now, especially because I got to know its manners a lot better in the past few months. Still, the sea is something so powerful and unknown, that I feel a lot of respect for. I think, as my dad always says, fear is bad but a little respect never harms anyone.

Talking to my friends, they shared with me that the ocean feels a lot bigger, deeper and more vivid now. And that this journey made them realize in what way the ocean can be the origin for so many things, especially animals and plants.

So, in conclusion, I can say that my relationship to the sea improved a lot and I’m still as obsessed with swimming as I was before.

About today

Because today is Onno’s birthday (happy birthday Onno!), our day started with pancakes for breakfast. It continued a little less exciting with our weekly deep clean and ended similar to how it started with self-made ice cream from Rainer.

During the day, we changed day and night watches and we were constantly in the company of big waves and a lot of swell, therefore our ship was shaking quite a lot the whole time.

Greetings:

Isabel: Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, meine kleine Fe. Hab‘ dich ganz doll lieb!

Ella: Mami, Papi, Johann und Ida, ich genieße noch sehr die letzten Wochen aber freue mich schon riesig auf euch und auf zu Hause.