Roofs as white as snow

…that must be Bermuda. It’s 04:30 a.m., Anton stands at my berth and wakes me up for my watch. When I get on deck, I can already see the lights of Bermuda very clearly in spite of the darkness and we are heading straight for it. It is also starting to get brighter, and the first shadows of houses are slowly forming from the lights on the horizon. Once it is light and we can already see the characteristically white roofs of the houses there is a signal K and everyone comes to deck, because now it is time to get everything ready to dock. Shortly before the harbour entrance of St. George’s a pilot boat moves towards us, it slowly approaches and the pilot climbs from his boat over to the Thor. Now it is up to him to guide us through the narrow harbour entrance along the rocks that lie in the water on either side.

After all the ropes are over and we are safely at our berth, there is a very tasty breakfast to celebrate and strengthen, as always with fruit salad and today even with Nutella. In the afternoon we have time to explore the city a bit. My group and I look at the town hall, in front of which there are 2 cannons and which of course like any other house here also has a white roof. For all of us it’s nice to have land under our feet again after more than a week at sea and to be able to enjoy the beautiful scenery and the city of St. George’s here in Bermuda.

But for many, the highlight was not the city, but the exchange with the crew of another tall ship called Roald Amundsen: We had the honour to be allowed to go on board, were very nicely guided over the ship and had the chance to look at everything we wanted, even at the anchor chains. We found out that many of the traditions that we have on the Thor also exist on other ships such as the Roald Amundsen, but we also discovered differences in the construction of the two ships as well as in the life on board. In the evening, we decorated everything beautifully on the Thor, built up a delicious buffet and of course hung up all the artworks created by students and crew during the voyage because after long weeks of planning our Artnight was finally taking place. The evening began with a festive buffet, followed by many different cultural contributions, such as a slideshow from the photo project, poems and music. We ended the evening with a joint work of art, and everyone was invited to contribute.

You might think that these were the 3 days of activities in Bermuda, but we experienced all this in one day. And for most of us, including me, it did feel like we have been here for 3 days, because the arrival in the morning is already a long time ago.