Traditions on board of Pelican

Schiff: Pelican of London
Datum: 13.01.2024
Nautische Position: 17°58,3‘N 058°53,9‘W
Etmal: 122 nm
Total: 4844 nm

Today we had our first Spanish lesson; the rest of the day was normal, and in the evening, Friedrich gave a pathway presentation.

Traditions

Some of the traditions on board were already mentioned on the respective days.
But I wanted to give an overview of the traditions we had in the last three months.

The dead horse

The dead horse is a tradition that originated in earlier times. Originally, it was the 30th day on a ship when the crew didn’t want to wait any longer for their pay.Traditionally, on this day, you refuse to work and hang a symbolic horse from the course yard, which was crafted by the watches earlier. Even though we couldn’t participate in this tradition, it looks like it would be a lot of fun.

Christmas

The ship has been decorated, the tree has been built, and we’re ready to celebrate. On board of Pelican, we have the tradition of celebrating German Christmas Eve and British Christmas Day. Christmas Eve is on the 24th, and Christmas Day is on the 25th.

On Christmas Eve, Santa comes to give us our Secret Santa presents, but if you want to get them, you have to write a confession to him. This confession will be read in the presence of everybody else. You then get your present and unpack it with your friends. On Christmas Day, we celebrate like the British. We had a lot of yummy, heavy food for lunch and dinner, and in the evening, we watched a movie. It was a really great day.

New Year’s

Normally, you would celebrate New Year’s with fireworks, some games, good food, family, and maybe a few drinks. Not this year on Pelican. We didn’t have a big event on New Year’s. If you wanted to go to bed before, you could and were woken at 23:00. In the Messroom, we then wait for Midnight and play some games and eat some snacks.

When the new year is near, the oldest person on board rings out the old year, and the youngest will ring in the new year. It doesn’t last long though; congratulate everybody for the new year and then you go to bed again

Midatlantic Ball

The Midatlantic Ball is an Ocean College tradition as well. I know you already had a detailed report about this one, so I’ll just give you a brief description. The Midatlantic Ball is basically a party in the evening in the middle of the Atlantic. It starts sometime after dinner and lasts until about 22:00. For this event, you try to look quite good; most of the girls wore dresses, and the boys wore shirts.

Music can’t be forgotten, so we listened to music the whole evening and at some point, the galley brought out some snacks. It was a really beautiful evening.

Neptune‘s Welcome and Fish name ceremony

This was today’s event.
Sometime in the afternoon, Tamsin made an announcement that we had a visitor on board, and we should change into the right attire: swimwear, a shirt, and crocs. All gathered on the Welldeck; we could see who our visitor was. It was Neptune with two of his helpers. We found out that we all need to have fish names so that he doesn’t sink our ship in his waters.

The procedure: we were called to the front, where we had to kneel before Neptune. We had to take a sip of chili water with a lot of sugar in it, and then we got a splash of leftovers onto our necks by his helpers. After that, Neptune gave us our fish name. (Mine, for example is Paper fish; Tamsin later said it’s because every time she sees me, I’m reading.)

Now, having our new names, we know we’re safe for the rest of our journey. We opened the fire hydrant, got the firehose, and washed all of the leftovers from our bodies as well as possible before going into our cabins to have a shower. After cleaning, we got cookies. Overall, it was an interesting, funny, gross but cool experience and a great day

Haircut reveal

Karo: No buzz cut today, but she now has short hair.

Why did you decide to get a new haircut?

It‘s extremely practical, and my long hair was really annoying.

How do you like it?

I like it very much.

What would you like to tell the people at home?

I‘m sorry … Mama, now you have to learn how to cut short hair (it‘s not a Buzzcut) Johan, now you are the one with the longest hair!

P.S.: Liebe Grüße an alle Zuhause, wir haben die Atlantiküberquerung fast geschafft und ich wollte einfach sagen, dass ich in den letzten Tagen viel an euch denke. Es ist ein bisschen anstrengend, vor allem die Watch von 04:00h bis 08:00h, aber ich schaff das schon, ist ja nur noch diese Nacht. Ich vermisse euch unglaublich und danke nochmal, dass ich das hier machen kann. Ich hab euch alle unglaublich lieb!!❤️❤️ ~ Anna L.

Viele Grüße an euch alle, ich wollte einfach mal Bescheid geben, dass es mir gut geht.
Die Atlantiküberquerung war genauso schön wie auch anstrengend, aber ich bin unglaublich froh hier zu sein. Ich hoffe, euch geht es allen auch gut! Hab‘ euch lieb ❤️ ~ Lou