08-11-2016            AMSTERDAM

After the first week at work I feel quite alive. Getting up early every morning, getting to work and finishing at roughly 5 o’clock in the afternoon is quite nice; especially when playing board games and watching movies with you newly made friends afterwards. We are not sailing yet, but I am really enjoying my time here so far. I am, hoever, really looking forward to going out of shipyard and going sailing: towards the warmer weather!!!

It is November now and so far we have had some very cold days during shipyard here in Amsterdam. Climbing up in the rigging and having to hold on to ice cold steel bars and wires is no fun at all. Luckily there are also some jobs to be done inside, and we switch around a bit between working inside and outside. So far, work has been a lot of cleaning since I joined near the end of shipyard, and we are slowly preparing to leave. However, there are also many other fun jobs and tasks to do.

I am learning a lot during this period of shipyard. From inspecting and repairing lifeboats, to attaching stunsail booms to yards and making splices, servings and seizings, its all there. I didn’t expect that there would be so many things about the ship that I didn’t know, but luckily the people here are very eager to teach me everything about it.

First Week