Sailing

The ship was ready to leave Sierra Leone, the only thing left to do was the last drill before sailing and lifting the gangway! We all expected the drill so when the alarm sounded we were ready for it. The first alarm goes, this is for the emergency teams to get together, for me it's to get my bag ready and put trainers on. The second alarm goes, you hear the Captain speaking "this is a drill, this is a drill, this is a drill...". It's time to face the sun, I climb the steps to deck 7 where my muster station is. Lifejackets are handed out, I get one, go towards muster station H where my friends are. Fortunately they already had gone to the only shady area of our muster but it doesn't take long and I feel the heat! Our names are called out from the check list. The drill goes well and it doesn't take long, which was good as it's toooo hot with the lifejackets on.

I go down to my cabin and get ready to go back to deck 7 to see Sierra Leone off. When I get back to deck 7 the gangway is getting ready to be lifted up to the top of deck 8 (were it gets stored while we sail). We saw that we were moving off the dock very slowly but we were moving!!!! The people on the dock started shouting goodbye, thank you.... It was a strange feeling seeing Sierra Leone disappear in the distance. It was sad to see it go as it's a beautiful place and the people are so nice, but also there was a feeling of new beginnings as we go to a new country.
As we get into the Atlantic Ocean we praise God for the calm waters. It was very smooth out on the ocean but inside the ship we still rocked from side to side -  this is due to the way the ship was built, it was not built for the ocean but for the sea and rivers. The first few days were not bad, the only time was at night as I kept thinking I was going to fall off the top bunk bed! Lets say I did not get much sleep that night! During the day some of the crew who had sailed before gave me some good advice; put some cushions on the side! This was very good advice as I slept soundly the other nights. We change direction on day 3 - we rocked more on the ship, walking got very funny as we tried to keep on a straight path. Cleaning toilets and corridors was hard work when the ship rocked that much, but we managed it!
While we were sailing we had to stop to get fuel on the ship. Our ship met another ship and bunkered to another ship. There was a lot of prayer and work involved as this was never done before in this ship. Even with the tanker turning up late and the fuelling had to be done at night everything went well!! We had our fuel and we could carry on with our journey to Ghana. I never thought I would be on a ship getting fuel in the middle of the ocean!!! All new experiences which I will remember for life!
One of the joys of sailing is that we were allowed to go onto the bow of the ship (which is at the front). Here we saw many dolphins, which would swim along with us for a while. We also got to see whales, turtles, jelly fish and flying fish. Every time a whale or dolphin was in view the captain would announce it over the loudspeaker so everyone got a chance to see them!! Some of the pictures taken were amazing!
Anyway after 5 days of sailing we arrived in Tema, Ghana. We were welcomed by the small advance group; they had been here for 2 months to get things ready for the ship to arrive. It was a welcome sight to see land, I would never had thought I would be so grateful to see it! That evening we were allowed to go off ship but only to the dock as the visas had not been done yet. Walking on the dock it felt great to be walking on land! :-)