Special Stories from the North Sea and the English Channel

Sailing the North Sea and the English Channel was a very nice time for me. Because of that I´ll tell you some of my favourite days and situations.

The first day on the North Sea was the 15th of October. The waves were coming from behind, so the boat was rolling forward and backwards. We weren´t standing on our feet safely. My arms and legs still hurt a bit from running against the walls all the time, while learning to walk in a straight line again, but after all, we had a good time. Almost everyone was seasick, but some of us who weren´t seasick had the fun of their life. I was one of them. It was great fun helping the others with bringing them tea and spreading good mood. After three days almost no one was seasick anymore and the bad feeling in most stomachs went away.

One of the very first special moments was when our watchleader told us that we passed the German border, because then I realized: There is no way back. I´ll sail the Atlantic. I´m a KUSi. And I will be it for the rest of my life. It was like a happy separation from home for half a year.

The English Channel was a very nice experience, too. On Thursday the 17th of October at 4 pm we crossed the meridian, and it was announced with a loud honk of the typhon, the horn of our ship. We realized that we were now going to be on the west side of the earth for more than half a year. The next day, I was woken up for my watch at 4:30 am and the person who was waking me up said that if I got out, I would see England and France at the same time. I got up and went to my watch. Up there I was lookout so I had a lot of time to look for other boats and have some time in silence. Once my watchleader came to me and told me of a big wall of fog we were going to sail in and that I would have to be very concentrated. And then we sailed into the wall of fog. Suddenly we could only see for about 50 meters. Only our masts, lights and lines were visible. I felt cut off from the rest of the world. After we had left the fog behind, I felt relieved because the sight was clear again.

In our morning watch two days later, on the 19th of October, we wanted to reach the mooring tons in the port of Falmouth, so we had to wake everybody up for Signal K. Signal K is the signal “Long, Short, Long” and it tells us that everybody has to get on deck. After a short briefing the different watches got to their positions. Our watch had to set out the rescue boat and do some jobs of the watch. A few others as well as me watched the coastline of Cornwall and had a breathtaking few of the sunrise. We also saw beautiful houses with big gardens and imagined the life of the person inside.

After lunch we had to pack our things, then we put on a life jacket and climbed into the rescue boat which got us from the Thor to the dock. At the beginning of the trip ashore many people got “land sick”. It´s like seasickness, but not that strong. First, we searched for the post office to change our euros into pounds. The course of change was bad. For twenty euros we got nearly fifteen pounds. The city of Falmouth is really beautiful with its colorful houses with garlands between them. In a souvenir shop I bought a postcard with the harbour of Falmouth and I put it into my diary so that I can remember the time in Great Britain. We saw a sweet little ice cream shop and of course we had to stop by to eat an ice cream. It offered special flavours and I chose a mix of mango, peach and melon. Following we wanted to walk around in Falmouth and found two very nice vintage stores. We left with more trousers and some funny buttons that we bought. With the rest of the money, we bought fish and chips and ate it together at the quay. At the end of our trip, we took some time to shower in the sanitary houses of the harbor. We really enjoyed it because on board we are only allowed to take a shower every third day for a minute in order to save water.

In the evening, we had to deep clean the ship. Every watch has its own station where they have to clean, either on deck, the messroom, the cargohold or the sanitary rooms. That week, my watch was on deck, cleaning the compass and scrubbing the deck with a broom and water. In addition, we had to tidy up and clean our own cabins which were not as clean as we had thought. After all, now they are. After dinner we sat in the messroom for our first cinema evening, and we decided to watch Avatar.   

Right now, we are already on the Atlantic, but I still like to remember the time on the North Sea and in the English Channel.