Working at the anchor winch

We woke up around seven thirty still a little tired after a night in beds that are a bit smaller than we are used to.  We were briefed in how to react if one out of three possible catastrophes occur; man over board, water in the ship or fire on the ship. Now we feel capable of surviving ten days onboard LOVIS.

After a nice breakfast we had a photographer onboard taking some pictures. At 10 o’clock we took of from Greifswald. Now it really felt we were starting our journey, we had reached the point of no return. Everybody was on deck when we under a blue sky took course towards Greifswald Lagoon.  Last night we were divided into four international groups and today each group got a sail to take care of. When we reached the open water we were taught in how to manage the different sails. Once we had done that we just enjoyed the sunlight on deck and ate our sandwiches for lunch.

During the afternoon we anchored outside the small Island of Ruden to take some samples and get an introduction to the different topics we will be working with.  We worked with a CTD and a Nansen-bottle which both are instruments to measure water conditions like conductivity, oxygen-levels and temperature. We also took some samples of the seafloor and found a lot of different shells and some crustaceans.

The next challenge was to lift anchor.  That wasn’t as easy as it seems, we had to turn the mechanical winch 50 times per meter and we had 20 meters of anchor chain out. That equals a lot of turns and a lot of tired arms.

Some of us started to prepare dinner; tonight’s dish was pumpkin soup with sausages on the side. We docked in the harbour of Kröslin around seven o’clock and suddenly it felt like the night was falling upon us really quick. It was nice to go under deck and eat some hot soup. Tonight we are looking forward to a nice shower and our beds.

That was all for today,
Good night from LOVIS