Sailing Trip June 9-14th

One week after Euro Tour, I went on another trip organised by Rotary, a sailing trip for all of the exchange students in my district here in Denmark. The people on this trip were the same people we were on Euro Tour with; there were a few less though because some from Euro Tour were not on the sailing trip.

 

The trip was 6 days long. Each day we sailed on the ship to the next destination, then during the nights we docked in different harbours. The trip took us from Randers(#1), out into the ocean that is between Denmark and Sweden, called the Kattegat. We stopped at various ports/towns along the way as you can see numbered in this map. We went right to the top of Denmark, to a town called Skagen(#4), then back down to finish in Aalborg (#6).

There was only room for 25 of us on the boat at once, so every night 12 people had to sleep on land either in a hotel or with a host family, then those people would spend the next day on land also. The boat was an old style sailing ship, some days we used the sails, but other days it was easier to use the motors. We were divided into 3 different groups, then were each allocated tasks according to a timetable. At one time, one group would be on deck, being look-outs, working the ropes and sails, one group would be below deck, cleaning or preparing food, and the other group would have free time; then we would swap.

  

    

On the very first day, the water was quite rough. The ship was rising and falling high over the swell, which made it difficult to walk straight. At some points, when the front of the ship fell back down to the water after going over a wave, water would spray up over the deck. There were a lot of people that were sea sick, there were probably only 5 people that weren't. On the days when the sea wasn't as rough we got the opportunity to climb up the masts.

The weather at the beginning of the week was great. The sun was shining and it was fairly warm. We spent most of our free time laying up on the deck in the sun. One of the days with good weather, we were ahead of schedule, so after a little bit of convincing the crew, we anchored the boat in the middle of the ocean, jumped off the edge and went for a swim! The water felt like ice on our skin, so we weren't in there for that long.

  

 

I was lucky enough to have the night and day off land in Skagen. We took a little old bus (that was actually made in the 1930s) to Skagen, where we saw the biggest sand dunes in Denmark, ate lunch & an ice cream, walked along the beach, saw the Skagen lighthouse, saw the most Northern point of Denmark and got to relax in the backyard of a Rotarian's house drinking tea and eating biscuits.

  

I also spent the final day on land, in Aalborg. We visited a Danish graffiti museum, had lunch together and then went to wait for the others and the boat to arrive at the harbour. Everyone's host families came to Aalborg for the final presentation evening, where they showed pictures from the trip, presented us with badges and awarded the 'oldies' (exchange students about to finish their exchange) with certificates to congratulate them on completing their exchange year. Alison was also awarded a special award for being an 'outstanding exchange student'.

  

After a bit of a teary goodbye, because for most it was the last time we would see each other before the oldies return back to their home countries in the next few weeks, we all went home with our host families.