‘Danish Day today! No wind, cloudy but no rain, around 17 degrees (can somebody put the sun on today?) It is half past nine now. Everybody had to get up at half past six to make the ship ready to leave and have breakfast. We just passed the locks (6 meters differences) and saw some sea lions outside the harbour. Yesterday was a really nice day. One group went to the 'Royal Round' tour of Britannia and we all got a round tour for more than 3 hours. It was very nice to see all the difference rooms on board and how the ship was operating when the Queen’s family was on board. They even have a rolls royce on board and therefore they specially built a garage on board.
Another group went into the city to visit the castle and enjoyed all shops and pubs. We all have sent some cards out to friends and family to tell them about life on board the ship.
Today we will motor along the way down the coast because there is no wind left. We will have a nice view of the coast and we have to keep track of the fishing traffic around us. We hope at the end of the day we can set sails. This morning we will do some evaluations. Tonight the Danish will give a presentation about the country. We have a Polish Bosun on board and after seeing all the other presentations he also will tell us some more about his country. It nice to see that everybody is very proud about his own country, that is very nice.
This afternoon we did the bucket-water game. Three watches tried to get a bucket filled with 10 litres of water from a platform on the foremast to another platform on the mainmast. It took almost half an hour for preparing but it was great fun. The engineer-girls where looking from below the deck and had good suggestions. Everybody was climbing, busy with the buckets and to get them over. Downstairs most of us got wet!
20.00 hours
Everybody is on deck now and bracing the yards and hoist the sails. Jo gave us the opportunity to wash some of our favourite clothing. A lot of people are very happy with that.The captain gave a presentation about the way back to the Netherlands and how we have to sail over the sea chart. We had a really delicious meal made by Gerry and Pat and fresh pineapple and ice-cream as dessert.
The Danish gave a presentation about their country and had the special candy with them. Liqourice and wine gums, chocolate and other flavours. We had to guess about the Danish languages (which is right, which is wrong)
We hope to be in Eemshaven by Friday afternoon or otherwise on Saturday morning for the parade of sail to Delfzjil. We have some more games to do and looking forward to some nice days of sailing. We are hoping at the right wind from the right direction, sun and dolphins.
Nellie and us are sailing fine.
P.S. There were just lots of dolphins! Wow!