From September 7 to 27 2021, Bark Europa sailed from Scheveningen in the Netherlands to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. This is a bit of what my life onboard was like.
During the 02:00 to 08:00 watch, we took down the skysails, cleaned the deckhouse and I steered for a bit. We had a talk about the MOB drill we’ll do later today and set the breakfast together. I then searched for some charts in the library and continued my fore topgallant halyard splice. We did a deckwash on the sloop deck and took down the courses and Desmond at the very end of our watch.
After lunch, we did a MOB drill, which went pretty well. During the afternoon, I worked on my halyard, cut the right length and started serving it. I wanted to finish it before dinner but I ended up taking a bit more time and I’m not satisfied about the end so I might redo it later.
We had just finished dinner when we spotted a styrofoam box floating on our starboard side. We tried to get closer to it and catch it with a boat hook but the box continued to drift further away from us. I suggested going in for a swim to get it and hardly had to convince anyone. I put on a harness, got rid of my shoes and jumped in the ocean all dressed. That moment was so special. The water was warm (even though nobody believed me about that), the sensation of finally swimming again was great and the sunset added wonderful colors to the waves. I grabbed the box, held it over my head and heard people cheering on the boat. Before my crewmates pulled me back towards the ship, I had a few seconds to turn around and look at her; god she’s magnificent! We did the handover while I was dripping water on deck. Can I do it again?
Photo by Regitze Andersen
