Disembarking...

My time on the ship has come to an end. This afternoon I will disembark the M/V Anastasis for the last time. It’s a sad time, however, I am so thankful for the last ten days I have had onboard. I have loved every minute of it. I guess the hardest thing for me is the fact that in the future I will never be able to show friends and family where I grew up. It’s hard to explain to non-Mercy Shippers what it was like to grow up on a ship and knowing I will never be able to show loved ones my home (for 14 years), is hard. However, I know I will always have the memories of life onboard.

I will remember what it was like to sail, to walk the decks of the ship, to muster for a drill, to eat out on deck, to watch the shooting stars from the bow, to eat in a dining room with so many people, to hang out in the Med Lounge with friends, to walk down the narrow hallways, to sit on the anchor on Aft Deck, to buy snacks at the snack bar, to have sleepovers in the pre-school, to play sticks/sardines/four square outside, to go to devos after lunch, to eat mystery meat, to have lock-ins in the Blue Room, to attend two high school proms one in France and one in Sierra Leone, to laugh during fun nights, to perform with Ships Kids, to listen to pages all day long, to live so close to friends and of course so much more…

I will never forget the M/V Anastasis. She will remain my childhood home. And her service will be remembered by many.

exciting moments on the final sailing day...

First exciting moment…
I made an awesome discovery while I was up on the bridge. I found a compass observation log book. The front of the book has names written on it…names of captains that were onboard when I was here as a child. And the first log entry was from 1983! Wow, a lot of history has been written on the Anastasis.



Second exciting moment…
Two hours of my time on the bridge were while we were sailing…the second two hours I was up there was when we were drifting (because our berth at the port was still occupied). Anyway, while drifting, we drifted across the Prime Meridian of the World, otherwise known as longitude “Zero”. Mind you, for those staying in Tema, it’s not that exciting as the city of Tema is on both sides of the Meridian, and you can walk across the imaginary line any time you want to. But for me it was fun to be on the bridge as we first crossed it.



Another moment...
Not so exciting...but I was by inspired by friends to take the following picture. Me, standing at the bow of the ship. Enjoy.

morning on the bridge...

Yesterday (Friday June 2nd) was definitely one of the most fun mornings I have had during the sail! I was allowed to go up to the bridge to see what was going on up there. Of course I’ve been to the bridge many times before, as a kid; being able to steer the ship, look on the radar etc. And of course we took many school pictures up there!

I ended up staying on the bridge all morning and thoroughly enjoyed it. It may look like I was actually doing something useful up there…but I really was just playing around. I felt like I was a kid again! The bridge really is a cool place. It was very busy, people coming and going, phone calls going back and forth between the bridge and engine room, the captain speaking to the crew about sail updates, looking out for canoes and bigger ships in the area etc. It was fun to be a part of it for a few hours.

We ended up drifting on Friday from 10am till 5pm...and then started the final bit of our sail...sailing into the port of Tema. The sail came to an end yesterday as we arrived in the Tema port at around 8pm. I am so glad I was able to be here for the final sail.

stars, dolphins & the sun rise...

Last night we had the most amazing time on the bow watching the stars once again. Since it was the last night of the sail there were quite a few people up there. I’m not much of an astronomer so fortunately someone could show me what’s what. We saw the Southern Cross, Big dipper, Scorpion, Jupiter…and some other random things (that I’ve forgotten the names of)!

The coolest thing was that while we were lying down on hatch 1, staring at the sky, we heard people on the bow cheering. Curious to know what was going on, we got up and quickly walked up to the bow. To my surprise we were able to see dolphins swimming alongside the bow of the ship! It was amazing to see them so well at night. The dolphins stayed with us for awhile and then one by one broke away and swam off into the night.

Just after midnight I headed to bed…to wake up only 5 ½ hours later…to watch the sun rise. What a way to start the day!

PS: we're drifting once again...we are 1 1/2 hour sail from Tema...however, there is still a ship docked at our berth...and they're not leaving till 6pm tonight...the sail continues...

bunkering...

The fuel barge came alongside the Ana on Thursday at about 10am. We took on about 400 tons of fuel...the ship before us took 3000+ tons! I guess they're going to a far away place. It took us about 5-6 hours to re-fuel, after which we went on our way again. It was fun to sail again.

more pictures...

drifting and dolphins...

As of 5pm last night until 830 am this morning the Anastasis was drifting in the Atlantic Ocean. We are waiting to bunker- however one ship was ahead of us and needed 3000+ tons of fuel! So we had to wait. There's a great sense of freedom in simply floating around! We just started the engines again and as I am writing the bunker barge is coming along side of us.

I saw more dolphins yesterday...on Tues there were just a few of them but right by the bow. Yesterday there were at least 100 of them...but off in a distance. It was still fun to see them jumping and doing belly flops! I did my best to get them on camera. (you might have to look very closely at some of the pictures).

starry skies...

Yesterday night was amazing! After finishing a movie at 1030pm me and two others went out to the bow. It was very dark when we got out there so we had to let our eyes adjust a bit. Fortunately it was a clear sky. We were literally looking at thousands of stars. Suddenly I saw a bright flash dash through the sky...my first shooting star for the night. It was incredible. We then laid down on Hatch 1 and gazed at the stars. It brought back memories of sleeping out on deck and spending hours watching the stars, satellites etc. After two hours of sky watching I felt saturated and headed to bed, falling asleep to the gentle rocking motion of the Ana!