The New Year on the Johnny

Ship: Johnny
Date: 1st January 2025
Position: Caribbean Sea
Nautical Position: 12°35.3’N 070°59.7’W
Etmal: 168 nm
Total Distance: 3732 nm

We started into 2025, which still sounds unbelievable for most of us, with a countdown, watching the fireworks on Aruba (an island we were just sailing by) from afar, a little party on the stern deck and… having watch.

I apologize for the quality; sadly, it was a little too dark to get good pictures.

Jana, Frieda, and me, the Port B watch, got the 00:00 to 04:00 watch on the first day of the new year. It was nice because we had to be awake anyway, our sleep schedule is 04:00 to 11:30 by now, so it was alright, but also a bit sad because we couldn’t celebrate all that well with the others.

Thanks to the time difference between home and here, we had two New Years to celebrate: The one at home, which we celebrated at 20:00 and the other one according to Johnny time. During the evening, we did a quiz, watched a little greeting video from our former medic Jakob and followed the typical German tradition Dinner for One.

Our medic Christian held a nice speech: “Ich wünsche allen eine sehr gute Gesundheit, damit ich auch nicht so viel arbeiten muss. Auch sollt ihr alle an eure armen Angehörigen daheim denken, die eine ganze Menge trinken müssen, um genauso schön zu schaukeln wie wir.”

After watch, we all went into our cabins to sleep until 11:30, when we ate lunch and had our second watch of the day from 12:00 to 16:00.

During this watch, Frieda’s safety vest accidentally got triggered. We suspect it was because the vest didn’t dry properly, which led to the little salt ball in the vest dissolving. That salt ball is actually meant to dissolve when you fall into the water, as it triggers the vest.

Luckily, the watch before us had already made a DIY sun sail out of a hammock, so while we all brought sunscreen, water and a cap to watch, at least the person steering wouldn’t get a sunburn. While steering was mostly in the shadow, the port lookout wasn’t so lucky. There was always a discussion about which side we had to go to because not many people wanted to sit for 30 minutes at 30 degrees Celsius in the bright Caribbean sun.

Maybe apart from Jacob, who was enjoying a little sunbath and only put on sunscreen after we warned him about sunburns. While we were cooking in the sun, Hannes, who would have been in our watch if not for galley duty, cut up bananas and apples for the smoothies they wanted to make for teatime.

Ways to spend the afternoon

There are many ways you can spend your free time. Below, I’ll present some examples I found on my walk around the Johnny:

Some motivated people got together to do some sport, while others used the time to relax and laze around in hammocks.

Nothing is better than having watch on a nice afternoon, while all the others are lazing around on the deck, braiding hair (one of Nele’s favorite activities), writing journals like Juno, or simply relaxing.

Exhausted from all the work, our medic had to take a little nap in the sail-bunk, how this very comfortable place is called.

Many wild Johnnies with books or e-readers were spotted, completely entranced with their stories.

Another thing I saw was the gorgeous sunset above the sea, a sight not so rare on our journey.

A Little Survey

What are your top 3 ways to spend your time on the ship?

Place 1 = 10 points
Place 2 = 5 points
Place 3 = 1 point

!The survey includes the teachers’ answers!

  • Listening to music: 84
  • Reading: 69
  • Sleeping: 62
  • Chilling on deck (in hammocks/the jib net): 43
  • Watching dolphins: 21
  • Sun/stargazing: 16
  • Steering: 20
  • Deep talk (during sunset): 55
  • Sport: 26
  • Eating: 25
  • School: 10
  • Writing journals: 5
  • Going to the toilet (with our toilet books*): 6
  • Lazing and talking: 1
  • Cuddling: 1
  • Galley duty: 0

*For context: One of the girls’ toilets has a little shelf where we’ve started to collect books we don’t need anymore, creating a little toilet library. This doesn’t exactly help shorten the time we have to wait in front of the door. Another thing we have there is a little notebook where we can leave notes and share gossip.

Whole Johnny Ranking:

  1. Place: Listening to music
  2. Place: Reading
  3. Place: Sleeping

All together, it was a really nice first day of the year, even though it was a lot different than what we are used to. I hope my little survey gave you an even better idea of how life on the Johnny looks.

Greetings:

Jana: An Mama, ich hab‘ heute auf meiner Wache die ganze Zeit „New Year’s Day‘‘ gesungen und an Dich gedacht, hab‘ Dich ganz doll lieb und Dich natürlich auch Papa, auch wenn ich mehr daran gedacht hab‘, dass es Dich wahrscheinlich in den Wahnsinn getrieben hätte.
An Puki: Ich hoffe, Du hattest ein schönes Silvester 🌚❤️

Carlotta: Hallo an meine Family und natürlich an Gaggi und den Rest der Schweine Bande 🙂
Silvester war sehr schön, auch wenn ich von 20-24 Uhr Wache hatte und die ganzen Spiele und Dinner for One verpasst habe… Heute war auch ein sehr schöner Tag und ich habe mir heute Bilder von zuhause angeguckt und ganz viel an euch gedacht❤️
Ich hab euch alle ganz ganz doll lieb😘😘😘😘

Leonie: Hi ihr alle, ich hoffe, dass ihr alle einen guten Start ins neue Jahr gehabt habt und auch schön gefeiert habt. Ich hab‘ euch lieb und vermisse euch.
Katharina, ich vermisse Dich sehr und Du hast mir Silvester gefehlt. Ich habe Dich lieb ❤️.
Mama, Papa und Alia, passt bitte gut auf Fiene auf und knuddelt sie von mir.
Finn und Birte, ich hoffe, dass ihr wieder gesund geworden seid und Mika und Andi bleibt auch bitte gesund. 😁
Ich freue mich, wenn ich wieder mit euch reden kann.

Fynn: Hallo ihr Lieben daheim, ich vermisse euch sehr und habe an Silvester an euch denken müssen und beim Schnorcheln habe ich super coole Fische und Korallen gesehen und ich bin gut ins neue Jahr gestartet und freue mich sehr auf die Costa Rica Zeit und euch wieder anzurufen und ich hoffe, Tom und Lotta geht es auch gut und ihr hattet alle Spaß in Ägypten! Bis bald, eure Fynn❤️

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