09/09/2008 - Tenacious

I learnt a lot yesterday and today. I climbed up the mast which I found very exciting! I felt exhilarated when I made the unsteady climb up the mast to the platform on the top. After I climbed up the mast, Mark a friend of mine joined me. A little while later, we all climbed down, and all the people cheered and clapped as all of us landed safely on the deck. I got patted on the back, yelled at and hugged by almost everybody in the vicinity.

A short while later, we all had a lunch of pasta which I had two helpings of. After lunch, we all had to climb down off the gang plank to have the Voyage photograph taken. I stood between Mariam and Cedric with my head held high, waiting for the camera to flash. After the voyage photo, we moved into our separate watches to have a watch photo. That was even better because I had most of my friends around including: Cedric, Philip and Mariam. Finally the flash came and we were all allowed back on board to decide what to do next.

Me, John, Russel and Dai all went to Bruges to try and explore more of our surroundings. It was a long, interesting walk down to the main centre which was crowded with people. Once we reached the main centre, we made our way to a café to have a cold drink as it was a very hot day. I spent 2 hours talking and laughing with Mark and Andrew, back on Tenacious following a delicious meal we went to the bar for a last 2 hours of chatting. After a short while, Dai started singing Welsh songs with a guitarist playing the backing chords. It was funny. At 11, I slipped into bed and tried to sleep. Suddenly, Dai was snoring!

Today I woke up at 7:23 am shaken by Mac but I had already opened my eyes. I had a lovely breakfast of porridge and bacon, eggs and mushrooms. Then came happy hour, where we all have to clean the ship and do other odd jobs as needed. Finally, after a large lunch of beef hash and potatoes plus vegetables and beans, we were already leaving Bruges. We left at 9:00 and we were at sea at 11:45. Now, here I am, after a glorious hour of helming the ship, in the middle of the English Channel!

Motoring toward Deal from Bruges on Friday evening watch, we saw a beautiful sunset on the starboard side at the same time that an almost-full moon rose on the port side. We saw a light with six flashes in rapid succession followed by one longer flash and worked hard to remember which kind of hazard that was warning us of, which Big-John-Second-Mate's lecture on buoys, etc., had educated us about quite thoroughly earlier that day.

(East-side hazard, John?)

Update By: TNS Voyage Crew