How crossing the Atlantic feels like a short weekend trip

The Atlantic Ocean, a gate to the Caribbean, and we are sailing through it. Here, you really get to know yourself and your limits. Limits like going to your night watch and trying not to fall asleep because of the countless nights you stayed up too long in the messroom, while you need to pull the right line for the main top mast stay sail. In these moments, you question every time when you said to yourself “just five more minutes and then I’m going to bed,” as you stayed up in the messroom for way too long. Right then your bed is the only thing you want, and as soon as you get into it after the watch, you immediately fall asleep. The next morning is a slow start but the moment you walk on deck you get greeted by the beauty of the Atlantic Ocean and immediately get some energy back in your body.

The things like seeing the Atlantic Ocean, which were totally new and exciting for you a few weeks ago, have become normal. However, there are still many highlights during the trip which let the Atlantic crossing feel much shorter. Highlights such as the pool I have built with a few others on the bow during my boatswain internship. It is made from old wood pallets we picked up in Tenerife. We have named it “Doris Poolyboy”, which is a combination of two things. The first part comes from a towel that has a crab knitted on it with the name Doris. This towel is located right in front of the pool, so she functions like a guardian for the pool. The second part is from a polishing liquid from the brand “Polyboy”, which is a remarkable paste that we use for example for our compass to turn every unpleasant looking piece of copper into a beautiful shimmering surface, which blinds you as soon as you look at it.

The pool got an opening ceremony where everyone got invited to. The captain held a speech to open it and the moment the pool was open everyone took a plunge. In the end we were 30 students in the pool and almost no water remained inside. It was very crowded, but an awesome start because the pool didn’t break apart. You could watch the ocean from the pool and see whales or turtles.

Some days were so crowded with whales and turtles, that we counted about 30 turtles and around 5 whale schools with about 10 animals. At one point you could see flying fish leaping out of the water and flying for many meters to flee from the bigger fish that hunted them. In this moment we immediately threw out the fishing lines and were full of enthusiasm when the first fish took the hook. At this point, we didn’t know that we would catch two more and break the record for most caught fish in the first day of fishing. By now we are at 20 fishes caught and we plan on continuing with our streak. The caught fishes only vary from tuna to mahimahi, but it is an awesome experience to be able to catch your own food for around 40 people. A challenge is always to bring the fishing line to the place we are allowed to put the fish on board, since we don’t want to disturb the school lessons with our action.

Most of the time it isn’t that difficult to stay focused on the lessons, since there’s always fresh air on deck and you are in the best classroom you could imagine. It is a beautiful atmosphere with a light breeze while you hear the waves bumping lightly into the side of the Thor. Sometimes there is a wave which is just big enough to coat the deck in a centimetre of water. This is no problem since you don´t wear any shoes and the water lets you cool down from the warm temperature. This is such an awesome atmosphere, that you could do school and astronavigation lessons forever if you had listened to yourself and had gone to sleep earlier. In this moment you remind yourself of the fact that you get to learn how to use the sextant from Detlef, who has done this already on board the Tigris-expedition, and enjoy your astronavigation lessons again. Once you are finished with school, you go into the messroom, exhausted. And now you know how this will end 🙂

I hope you got an idea of how our adventure has turned out so far!