I could have never imagined the quantity of mixed feelings and emotions that we lived on the 21st of October. Receiving our families aboard was amazing. It was fun and conforting introducing fellow sassers, teachers, crew… Introducing our new lives. Before crossing to IJmuiden, there was a rope stuck in Regina Maris’s helice. Everyone, sassers, families, friends, lived intensily the process of solving the problem!
When it was finally done and everything was ready to leave, it finally came to me. We are actually leaving. Thoughts started to come up in my mind. Fears came up, among with happiness, will to go and travel the world… Everything came up.
Distracted by the movement of the boat and everything that was happening, I ended up forgetting all of this for a few hours and just enjoyed my family’s presence.
Travelling to IJmuiden was fun. Good weather, nice and calm sea.
When arriving, three hours later, I went to my room to get something. I was there for a few moments and when came back up we had stopped already. There were so so many people! Friends, families, old sassers… We went outside the boat. The last few hours were up. We could feel and see everyone saying goodbye, hugging goodbye.
“The coffee machine broke on our way to IJmuiden. We will leave when the new one arrives.” – Sam said.
My immediate thought was “Nice! I can be with them for a little bit longer!”.
It were the most strange couple of hours I have ever experienced. I couldn’t identify emotions. I guess I was just feeling everything, at the same time.
The coffee machine arrived. That was it. It was time to hug and say goodbye. I did it, we all did. We all hugged goodbye and came aboard. We had just stepped into our most recent home. For as long as I could see them, I kept waving goodbye. “How am I going to live without these people for six months?”, “What if I don’t know what to do? Who do I go to?” – it was a pretty scary moment not seeing them anymore. I just wanted to tell them how I felt, and to hug them again.
Well, we got to sea and my main focus was the waves, the ocean. Seasickness arrived. Along with many other sassers I just layed down, rested, felt the wind and the fresh air in my face.
It were again moments of mixed emotions. I felt disconfort and I felt sick but when I opened my eyes and realized that I was actually living in a boat, I felt simply happy.
Watches started on the 21st. I’m on the 10 to 1 watch. It was actually amazing to look at the stars and feel the ocean at night.An old sasser asked me earlier this day “Are you ready for the journey of your life?”. And now, I think I can answer that. Yes, I’m absolutely ready!!
Emilia