New Year´s Eve

Same feeling, different place, different people.

8 am. My day started waking up in my hammock on Turtle Island and looking through palm leaves at a blue sky. Realizing that this had been the last night in 2024 brought a smile to my face. Suddenly I also realized this had been the first night in nearly three months that I hadn’t slept at home on the Thor – what a strange feeling.

Realization itself seemed to be the goal for the day.

The second ‘Solo’ was waiting for us. Three hours spending time just by ourselves and alone with our thoughts. We also got a letter which we had written to ourselves before our journey had started. So the Solo was a timeslot for us to look back at the year 2024. What an exciting, adventurous and emotional year it had been for all of us: the turn to choose the students, the long time waiting for the confirmation letter and all the stuff we had to do before the voyage started – buying and packing all the equipment, writing our papers and also preparing emotionally for the future. Now, we were also looking forward to the year 2025 and continued writing the letter to ourselves which we will get back at the end of the project.

After the Solo the mood in our group was as quiet as never before. Everyone was still in their own world – all the moments we had already experienced passed by in our heads, the good and the bad ones. It took some time but, in the end, we had fun together again. Until 4 pm we had free time, which is very rare on the Thor, so we all enjoyed it. There were dinghies going to an island where we could swim, see the reef or just chill out. After our free time we had to prepare for New Year’s Eve. Once we had sorted all the jobs out, every person had something to do. Some made decorations, others prepared the drinks and there were people preparing the music for our party. In a very short time, we had all the work done.

At 6 pm we all moved to the quarter deck for a toast to our families and friends in Germany because in their time zone the year 2025 was already starting. It was a crazy feeling to know exactly what your family on the other side of the Atlantic was doing at that specific moment. Afterwards the music started, and we danced and sang a lot. Especially during dinner, we also talked about our New Year’s Eve’s traditions at home. In order to share and follow one of them we then watched “Dinner for one” together. We also watched the video about us and Christmas at sea which had been shown in the news in Germany some days before.

After more dancing and singing it was finally almost 00:00 and we went to the quarter deck again. All of us got 12 raisins to resemble the Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes when a new year starts, one with each gong, for luck in every month of the next year. We toasted again and everywhere you looked you saw people hugging each other and wishing a happy new year.

The New Year brought many to reflect on where we were: as far away from home as never before. Homesickness decided to visit some of us that night, which made the night even more emotional. Despite missing those we had left behind the night was awesome and we all had fun and at the end of the night we even sighted some dolphins. They were right next to us and were the end of a completely different but amazing New Year´s Eve.