From Morocco to Cap Verde - By Lau

Morocco:

Morocco was an adventure. In my last post we had just arrived - that’s some time ago now. When we were finally allowed ashore we all rushed away, it was a long time coming because we had been at sea for 3 weeks. After that long in the blue dessert a cup of coffee a sandwich and a freshwater-showers seemed heaven sent. The first evening we ate the whole crew together in a nice restaurant and NEPTUN took care of the bill which of course was a popular decision. Now it was time to explore, we visited Marrakesh, Rabat, Casablanca, Tangier, and Fez. Each one were on their own time, we had a schedule for who needed to be watch on the ship but besides that our time was our own.

That time was spend seeing the busy streets in Marrakesh or going to the mountains visiting small towns, towns who were hit by an earthquake not long before. Driving through those cliffs and valleys was the fist time that I’ve personally seen so much beauty and pain in one scenery. We all had different adventures and experiences of the country, but something we all had in common was the admiration of the local kindness towards strangers, especially in areas with less tourism. Many times locals paid for our food or went far out of their way to help in any way they could, something we all respected and appreciated a lot.

Departure:

Leaving Morocco turned out to be just as difficult as it was getting there, weather was against us we couldn’t get the diesel we needed and on top of that we got raided by the police who brought a drug dog, which really looked like any stray dog from the street. The “raid” was a wired experience, we were woken up in the evening by around 10 policemen whereas two of the ten searched the whole ship in the record time of 5 minutes. The day after Anders had to pay a fine for the raid, and that’s apparently not possible to do on a Sunday so we had to wait one more day to do that… We spent and additional unexpected day ashore where we among other things cleaned the deck because their K9 elite drug sniffer dog had left some not so fine looking poop…

After this we went to anchor just outside the harbor, we had to adjust the standing rigging to support our masts and that took 2 more days than we had expected but after that we were ready FINALLY to leave! We heaved up the anchor, and after sailing for almost two minutes the engine died and we dropped the anchor again.
The anchor we have here is not connected to some fancy motor that does all the work. It works with man power only, and a lot of it! 15 minutes went by and then the engine was running again and we were ready to leave. That second time heaving up the anchor took a long time, and almost the whole crew, because everyone was tired from the time before. Since then we’ve been listening to music to get pumped and make the hard work into fun hard work.

Now finally on the way, anchors up and engine working and everyone in high spirits we sailed towards Gran Canaria. That voyage was the first easy going one we’ve had so far, and you could feel it! Everyone were on deck enjoying the sun singing, reading, playing cards or just talking to each other.

We had a day were there was no wind so we heaved to and went for a swim in the deep blue warm endless Atlantic ocean, it was a first time experience for most of us which started, for some, with some nervousness and consideration. It didn’t take long tho for everyone to be playing around, diving deep and jumping from the ship, for me that could easily be one of the best days of my life.

Canary Islands

Towards the Canaries we also had a Sunday at sea. We made punch, dressed up, listened to music, and I gave a little salsa class so we were ready to dance a when we arrived.

We had 7 days on the way to the Canaries were we went surfing, dancing (something that looked like salsa), drinking and almost the whole crew took their diving license and we saw an angel shark which was cool. The time was mostly spend hanging out on cafes talking about our time at sea or chilling on the beach or just hanging out on the ship.

Cap Verde

We are now on our way to Cap Verde to go to the long waited shipyard where well work for 3 weeks to make the ship better safer and faster. We are actually starting already, Aske is welding, Julia is making the setup for a square sail which is gonna be super cool, especially because its not a real sail - it’s a piece of tarp, a big piece. A rusty beauty with tarp sails, she is gonna look spectacular.

Yesterday we put the yard (metal rod) up, which was a big operation that we were all proud of. We have been working a lot lately to prepare NEPTUN, and get the most out of the shipyard time we have on Cap Verde, work that was interrupted by eight or ten big orca’s sea turtles and a shark, all interruptions that were more than welcome.

The next adventure is just around the corner and we are all excited, maybe especially because we have no clue whats coming.