Heading North 02-07-2020
The Tecla crew is surrounded by a beautiful sapphire-blue ocean, the delicious scent of tonight’s curry is drifting towards us. The Watch is supping their home made hot chocolate in the afternoon sun. We had just had our first successful fire-drill which we of course hopefully won’t need to practise for real. The wind will be picking up and change from North to South, so we will be fully sailing soon (hopefully). The only thing left to hope for is that our “bochelmeeuw” Geert (a fulmar) will be joined by a whale or a dolphin!
Three days ago things were rather different on board. We had just left the lock of Den Helder at 09:00h and went right to reach the North Sea. The conditions were very windy and the sea was choppy. Because of wind and shallow water, we were sailing along a heavy ground sea. Waves were crashing on the sandbanks of the Razendebol. The first people were already starting to feel seasick as we were motor sailing on the mizzen and forestaysail. Sam said “Hold On!” a wave crashed on deck, the people standing in the portside gangway were reeled into the deckhouse and he water flushed up into their boots. Every single one of us, even Jet who was steering, was immediately soaked! from head to toe! As the water streamed back into the sea we laughed a little shakingly at each other “Well we have had our shower!”
Luckily the weather has gotten a lot better and the days are getting even longer as we are sailing North to Iceland!
Having a whale of a time! 04-07-2020
We are having a really good time on board. The atmosphere is nice, everybody seems to feel at home and jobs are done without asking. Our school at sea youngsters from 4 different years seem to come from one group sometimes. The jokes are good and the friendly banter is always there. The help in the kitchen is also amazing. Tonight we made pumpkin soup with special bread, bread with garlic and herbs and cheese bread done by Amelia, Luka and Jeroen. It tasted amazing! We had meatballs from our special delivery from Jelle who brought us meat from “Waddenvarken”. Biological raised and fed pigs and cows. This time we had the minced meat from a 10 year old cow, which was really amazing. Thank you Jelle for supplying us last minute!
And to make the day even more special, in the evening we spotted our first whales! We were sailing along with just 5 or 6 knots, a gentle breeze and a somewhat annoying swell that was rocking is a little too much sometimes, when a load yell came out, WHALES to PORTSIDE!! All those who were in their bunks already, quickly jumped out, put on a warm jumper and warm shoes to come outside and have a look. To port there were several spouts visible, some in a long distance others just showing up next to the ship. It seemed to be feeding time for what we think were Minke Whales. We could not get a lot closer as the wind came from where the whales were, but we had a good show for some time with the setting sun coloring the sky and the misty water of their spouts clearly visible. It was cold and only 1,5 hours left before the wake up call for the Dog Watch so some of us went to bed after 15 minutes outside.
We are passing all these amazing places, but no chance to stop… We saw the Shetland Islands last night as we passed in between Fair Isle and the Orkneys. We saw the lighthouse of both the Shetlands as well as the Orkneys and saw the sun go down and rise next to the island Foula. Hopefully we can visit these amazing places on our way back from Iceland to Ullapool in September.
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