Date: 30. September 2021
Authors: Clara N. and Laure
Position: North Sea
Geographical Position: 54°01.4‘N , 008°03.1‘E
Etmal: 55 NM (total distance: 109.6NM)

The day started with good news. Captain Ben said that we could go to shore. After we quickly tidied up our cabins, we could go. Connor, the bosuns mate, brought us with the speed boat to shore. We stormed the local supermarket, because some of us still needed some stuff. After the time we had on shore, Ben decided we could go on with the journey to the North Sea. It was our first time being on sea.

The doctor, Ffyon, asked before we went into the North Sea if some of us wanted to take some drugs against seasickness. The moment we got through the lock the height of the waves increased.

That was the moment when the day started to get worse and worse. In the beginning we were full of enthusiasm and everybody was really positive about the ship swinging back and forth. After two hours the first ones got seasick. The problem with taking drugs against seasickness while your’e seasick is that often you vomit them out before they start working. So even the doctor couldn’t help. But even with seasickness you have to be on watch, so the fore watch started as planned.

The whole time you need to have one helmsman and two lookouts: one on the port side and one on the starboard side. The night watches were very hard for some of the watchkeepers. In the evening most students were sitting outside trying to fight against the seasickness with fresh air, looking on the horizon, and of course helping each other. It’s unbelievable how the level of care increased. In these situations you just help your shipmates whether you know them well or not. And even if you’re not completely fine, as long as you’re able to help or at least to be there for people, you try.

To finish, here‘s a poem by Laure and how she feels about our first night at sea:

Everybody is so sick
and the waves are really big
But we trust our ship
that it’ll never flip
our ship takes it really well
at least until now nobody fell
it is really rough outside
we’re happy Simon’s our guide