The Beginning of the End
20.03.2017 - 06.03.2017
So. We were really on our way back now. Instead of counting months, we were counting weeks. I remember standing in the kitchen with a friend, counting. Only seven weeks to go. More than my summer holidays, yet so short compared to the months before. (08-04: Ha, you thought seven weeks was short? Try seven days).
Getting used to the new crew took a moment, and we experimented with several days of school or watch, instead of one. I definitely prefer one, but we settled on two. Different winds brought the cold, and long pants were pulled out from under matrasses and far corners. The sea turned a darker blue. The “I have 2 minutes till watch but were the hell is my sailing suit”-stress got going again. The ship moved differently, with us sailing close-hauled. That jib sheet you used to tighten by yourself, now needed at least three people and all their strength. Gybes became tacks. In other words: the chill times were over. Now we could prove what we’d learnt in the last four months.
Once, during a calm night watch, we could see Miami’s skyline on the horizon. All those people over there, living their busy lives, with beliefs and friends and lovers, problems we will never know of. And they’ll never know that one night, around midnight, a few students marveled at their city, a small ship on the everlasting ocean.
I asked Jet to teach a few others and me about the sextant. The whole group had started on it during the crossing, with the promise of continuing and practicing in the Caribbean, but it had never happened. And I wasn’t about to sail for six months without being taught. So we sat on the poop deck, and were told the idea. The next day we met at 11.30, and started looking, keeping the sun on the horizon. A shout came, the stopwatch started, and that person went inside to the gps clock. Yup, got it. The time gave us how many degrees west we were. Now for north. That took some more calculations, but we got there. Now, that makes math interesting - *hint hint* to math teachers. Just like how physics makes much more sense on a ship. The whole reason we float, how we move. Go Bernoulli’s law. Did you know sails are very similar to airplane wings? Fascinating.
When I woke up on the 2nd of March, we’d arrived on Bermuda. Funny place, it is. All the pastel houses bear white roofs, the water is turquoiser than in the Caribbean, at least where we’ve been. Everything made a weird, fake impression. We were given two hours to call our parents from St George’s little square. Then back to school. We had proper free time the next day, and everyone went to Hamilton. Kika and I wanted to see more of the island, so we took the first bus to a beach. From the bus stop into bushes, then out into Horseshoe Bay. Wow. White sand, clear water, our footprints were the only ones. We walked along the shore, to a little cove in the west. It started to rain, so we sheltered in a little cave, eating fake oreo’s and talking. Once it’d stopped we went through a stone arch, clambering up the rock formations. We found another cove, with a window in the stone wall, a natural bridge and a ledge above it all. Down below the sea smashed against the rocks, sending salty water spraying upwards, and through the window once in a while. When you looked down you could see large blue and green fish, calmly swimming in the fierce water. After taking plenty of pictures, Kika drew as I meditated at the edge of the ledge.
After a few hours we made our way back to the bus stop. Why not try to hitchhike, if we had to wait anyway. We wrote “Hamilton” on a piece of paper in large letters, and stuck up our thumb, arm outstretched. One after the next drove by, till a friendly guy stopped, rolled down his window and asked, “Are you from the Regina Maris?” He turned out to be a crew member of the Spirit of Bermuda, a schooner that takes students for a couple of weeks. Once in Hamilton, he dropped us in front of an Irish pub, where we had dinner. Bermuda is pretty expensive, but it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. We caught the bus just on time, but it was full, so we waited with the others. I believe we were the only ones to spend the day outside the city.
Our next days were spent on school and stores. On the 5th we went to two abandoned fortresses, exploring dark passages and climbing on roofs. The first one looked perfect for a big party, with it’s large courtyard and stage-ish place. The second one held a complete kitchen, with an old-fashioned dishwasher. Down in the passages we’d turn off our torches to scare the others. This was a totally different side of the fake-looking Bermuda, where the people have an accent that’s somewhere between American and British, with an interesting way of pronouncing the “o”. “Home” sounds more like something between “hum” and “hem”.
We left the following evening, after yet another day of school. There should have been a lecture by a professor about why the economics differ to that of, say, Cuba, but we’d arrived on the island too late and the appointment couldn’t be moved. Oh well. The new doctor, Olga, boarded, and brought the perfect gift from last year’s sassers: a bar of chocolate for each and every one of us. Since Tenerife, chocolate had become scarce. It was either too expensive, or, mostly, non-existent. Those who had bought a lot bore power. €6-€10 for a bar doesn’t deserve a blink. The trade of food is a real thing, aboard the Regina Maris. When everyone had happily received their bar, the course changed from 10° to 80°: time to go back.
