School and other crazy stuff

Date: 20.11.2023
Geographical Position: 3914.1N 01029.4W
Etmal: 199nm
Total: 1186
Ship: Regina Maris

Today was a crazy day for the students of the Regina Maris. Exactly one month ago, we started the greatest adventure of our lives. We’re not at the beginning of our journey, yet we’re not in the middle either. We like to say it’s the end of the beginning.

The phase in which it’s weird to drink together out of one cup, use tickling attacks as torture, or get thrown into freezing cold water without your permission [Yes, that did happen, my trust is broken ;)] we passed a long time ago. But there are still situations you would never expect to happen, or at least not so soon.

Here are some examples:

• Going to sleep at 8 pm
• Wearing eight jackets, six pants, and four pairs of socks and still being cold during night watch
• Having a great time at night watch at 4 am
• Having an average of five hours of sleep per night and being fine with that
• Not drinking coffee but three glasses of chocolate milk per person
• Getting milk restrictions because of that
• Wanting to eat fruit and vegetables so badly, there are real fights about the last apple
• Cleaning under your mattress so well there is not even a little grain of dust left
• Not showering for two weeks
• Splitting your clothes into very dirty and unwearable and just dirty and wearable
• Feeling powerful and strong while steering or just emptying a vomiting-bucket
• Getting a team that quick and looking forward to the same things
• Looking forward to school one day

But this is what happened today: It was our first day of school today and in a very weird way, we were looking forward to it. Just the thought of having school after four weeks was refreshing. Every watch was split up into two parts. Alpha 2, Bravo 2, and Charlie 2 had school from 9 am to 1 pm, and Group 1 had from 3 pm to 7 pm. We only have one or two subjects per day, but it’s more intense than in a normal school.

Today it was German class. The first thing we talked about was some (boring but necessary) organization stuff. After that, we had a discussion about traveling and our journey. I think everyone learned something new and was inspired by the opinions of the others. The following free learning phase we used for doing our weekly reflection, school work from home, or in my case, this daily report. 🙂 By the way, today was also very cool because we finally passed Lisbon and the first people wore shorts and t-shirts on board.

I think I can talk for everyone when I say this was an interesting but also challenging day for us. But all in all, we will have a good time doing watches and school at the same time and are looking forward to it.