Date: 07. March 2020
Author: Laura
Geographical position: North Atlantic
Position: 32°54.8 N 61°15.0W
Etmal: 147 nm

Expectations

I always had that picture of the North Atlantic: Stormy, dark and freezing cold, seasick all the time and not doing anything else than watchkeeping and sleeping.

Not the nicest image when you get waken up at 03:30 in the morning, laying in your warm cozy bed, dreaming about our warm comfortable homes.

And yes, I got woken up by Mara at 03:30am with the words: “I would put on my warmest clothes and wear welly boots, because it is raining all the time and a big wave came over the wheelhouse and hit us, so we’re all wet now”. I think the motivation for this watch was not thaaat big.

Start of the Watch

Up in the mess, where our watch met, Simon told us that we needed to go out through the hatch. Normally, we would go up over the well deck but today it was too dangerous.

In the upper Alleyway we already saw what Mara told us about: The floor was completely under water, because of the wave that came in.

On watch we started the handover, so that White B could go to bed as soon as possible, as they were all completely wet and tired.

We were told to keep a really good lookout for Squals, so we could try to avoid them. After two minutes standing outside, I was already wet. The windspeed was nearly 35 knots, which did not make the freezing any better.

But we had our methods of motivating ourselves and keeping us as warm as possible. For example singing songs of our childhood, standing in a group like penguins and warming each other or just do little rounds on the bridge, which maybe was the most helpful method of keeping ourselves warm.

It is back!

Anyway, after one hour of watch, Frida was on the helm and I heard her saying: “Max, could you take over for a second, our course is 070”. I think we all knew what that meant.

Seasickness is back again!

In the beginning we were all really happy that the seasickness did not hit us this time, but now I was feeling a bit seasick as well.

After Frida I was the next hanging over the side and of course Johanna followed right after me. Somehow we managed to still have fun and like that the watch went by faster than I thought. I mean, we were still throwing up but as I just said we had our methods…

North Atlantic without sun?

Even though the sunrise was happening already, it was not that much lighter than before and also still raining.

After my watch I was happy to go to bed again. And to be honest- I did not think that there could be sun on the North Atlantic.

But the images in my mind turned out to be wrong and in the evening the sun came out and we had a beautiful sunset.

So to all those parents who are sitting at home and are worrying about us: The North Atlantic may not be as bad as you might think and as well the storm today might also be the last one until the Azores.

Now I am going out on deck and it’s still cold and quite wavy, but the sun is shining and it’s actually pretty nice outside!

P.S. Liebe Grüße an euch alle zuhause! Ich vermisse euch so sehr, aber wir sehen uns schon in fast einem Monat wieder!