Cabin Life – quite a challenge

Date: 20.10.2026

I can hear somebody saying my name, whispering with a quiet but clear voice and trying to wake me up without waking up my neighbours in the bunks below and next to me. I open my eyes, there is a picture of me and my friends on a hike hanging right above me. Suddenly, I remember where I am.

Ever since I live on the Thor everything has changed: my daily life, my friends, my sleep schedule and especially my environment. Living with almost 50 other people on a ship means not having much space and sharing a lot with the people around you, for example your room. At home I have an entire room for myself with my desk, my bed and my bike hanging on the wall and lots of other things. Here, on the Thor Heyerdahl, I share a cabin with three other people, have my own small bunk and two boxes for my personal belongings. It’s limited space, but it has to be enough for the next half year.

Going to bed with friends right next to you is great! Laughing together and chatting late at night about news and rumours and sharing your experiences and your day with them helps you relax, calm down and revise the things that have happened throughout the day. Also, it helps to have someone close to you for more challenging things like waking up in the middle of the night to go to your watch.

Our bunks are the only private area so we all made them cozy and pretty and hung up pictures of our families and friends. Even though we try to keep everything clean, our rooms become quite untidy very quickly, because we put our stuff all over our bunks whenever we have to change or put something away.
Since we all live so close together it is very important to keep everything as clean and organised as possible, to prevent infections from spreading and ensuring a high degree of safety. That’s why we have a big cleaning day every Saturday. We clean our cabins from dust, tidy our rooms and bunks and make it look clean and welcoming again. Of course, we try our best to keep it that way for the whole week so we don`t have to do as much on the next Saturday.

Even though the cabins and bunks are our only private space, most of our time is spent somewhere else, for example in the galley cooking for all the others, cleaning and keeping the ship in a good condition, sailing the Thor or just chilling with newly made friends