Trade Winds & Body Balance

4 February 2016

Update by Alice:
“Earlier I wrote about our life on board, but much more happens on and below deck. Captain Maarten gives classes about meteorology by drawing different weather situations on deck with chalk. An interesting explanation about the wind directions, high and low pressure areas in the Northern and Southern hemisphere and the trade winds and currents. 
Earlier crew member Jan Willem gave a lecture about astronavigation and managed to make the difficult calculations make sense. We are now practicing with the sextant. Our cook Fennardie creates the most delicious meals but also has many other qualities. Since a few days she teaches Body Balance (a combination of yoga, tai-chi and pilates) with help from a video. Four ladies and one brave man make a bit more room in the saloon by removing a few chairs and a book case and start doing the exercises that are even more challenging on a moving ship. Imagine yourself with one foot on the floor, the other leg up in the air and your arms wide. Others are working behind their laptop while a voice from the video asks if we “feel the groove?” 
Bob, one of the trainees, plays the clarinet on deck every day. The ‘backing tracks’ come from a small speaker connected to his tablet. In Mindelo he arranged jazz music during the BBQ. 
Yesterday we watched the DVD ‘From Coast to Coast’ about the adventure of a friend of trainees John and Alya, who hang glided from Zimbabwe to Namibia. 
On deck the situation has been the same for a few days now. It has been sunny, 30 degrees with a breeze from the northeast, a dark blue ocean and the ship is gently swaying in the waves. People are sitting on deck reading a book, talking and steering towards Barbados… it’s a luxury cruise! 
And we are not the only ones at sea: we see many flying fish (sometimes they end up on deck) and today we saw bo’sun birds (Red-billed tropicbird).”