Before we can start …

Our journey officially began on Sunday morning, but before we could set our sails, loads and loads of work had to be done. Some parts of the ship had to be repaired, it had to be cleaned in detail, donations had to be sorted and stored and the documents of every crew member had to be collected. Furthermore, all the books we wanted to have in our small library aboard had to be sorted and moved into the library, all the food had to be stored and a couple of other little things had to be done as well. And who did all this work? Some of it we did by ourselves, but we also had a lot of help from the Ex-KUSis, people from the Thor Heyerdahl Club, and many other volunteers. We all worked together as a team.

For us students, the wharf began on Thursday, but in order to get there, the KUS-Project had organized a bus driving from southern Germany to Kiel the day before. You could hop on it at different locations. It brought us and our luggage directly to the hostel we stayed in. Our luggage – which seemed to me like a lot – was limited to a trekking backpack, a small backpack, a 100-liter kitbag and a bicycle which we are going to need for a tour in Cuba. All of this was also transported to Kiel on this day: One part in the bus, another one in a trailer. On our first actual day of the wharf, we cycled from the hostel to the pier where we saw the Thor Heyerdahl for the first time. It was a magical moment. But we didn’t have much time to enjoy the moment, because, you’ve guessed it, there was work that had to be done.

Some of us sorted the donations we are going to transport to Cuba (they are in an economic crisis) and Union Island (their infrastructure is mostly destroyed by a hurricane), some took the bicycles apart – which could also be called donation sorting, because we are going to leave the bikes in Cuba, as well. Besides this some of us helped on the ship itself and others sorted out documents. Also, two of us prepared a speech for our farewell ceremony and two of us already wrote a blog post in German. I for myself helped in the office with the documents.  At first, I was completely overwhelmed with all the information but then I slowly got into the workflow. I had to put all the documents the KUSis and the crew had brought with them in the right order, sort some things out into another organizer and fulfill and check some lists. It was quite relaxing to do.

It was a lot of work, but most of us enjoyed being and working together. In order to get back to the hostel in the evening we had to take the bus; our bikes, as I said before, had been taken apart. After we had eaten dinner there, we practiced all together the songs we wanted to perform during the farewell ceremony. Overall, it was a really nice day.

On the next day, the work continued, again we helped the experienced crew to do all the things that had to be done. For example, we stuffed the now sorted donations in the lowest parts of the ship. There were many of them and it felt like playing Tetris. On this day the people who worked on the ship (and not in the office or somewhere else) even did a short turn to test if the repaired main engine worked by now. It didn’t do as it should, so the next day we tested it again and this time more of us could take part in it. It was an intense feeling to stand there on deck, feel the wind on our skin and know that we were going to leave in a few days.

On Friday we also got a truck full of food. Mostly vegetables, fruit and meat came with it and are now stored in our freezer and the fridge. Don’t imagine a fridge like the one you have at home – aboard we have such big ones we can walk inside of them! Even though there isn’t much room left for walking as it is stuffed with food now. We have got one room for freezing and one for cooling and then there´s also the dry storage for dry food such as flour, noodles, sugar and so on. Besides, a lot of things (not only food but also donations) are stored in our cabins in the space under the bunk. Below the lower bunks there is a doubled floor, where you can stuff things in the smallest corners left in the lowest points of the ship.

We wanted to move in on Saturday, but before we could do so, we had to deep clean the ship. We used nearly a whole day and all our combined work force to scrub, mob, wipe, and tidy up every room of it. It really took some time and energy but then the Thor Heyerdahl was finally ready for us to move in. In the morning we had transported our luggage to the pier and in the afternoon one after another we could put it in our cabins. This night was our first night on board. Many of us slept very well, which was good because the next day we finally started our journey.