A Saturday at sea ...

I think I quite easily take this time at sea for granted and then you have moments like we had yesterday afternoon. Let me take a step back.

What do you do on a Saturday at sea on board the Africa Mercy?

In the last 6 months i think you would have normally found me in my office trying to catch up on work missed while teaching... but yesterday I had the most relaxing day i have had in a while. I decided to take a book out onto Deck 7 and read in the Sun. It was a glorious day. At about 2 o'clock the over head page when say there were Dolphins on the bow - something that has become 'normal' the last 10 days. This time it was a pod of about 30 dolphins by far our biggest sighting this sail. They stayed around for about 20minutes before swimming a way.

About an hour later the page goes again: "This is a drill, MAN OVERBOARD! All crew on look out for 'Boxy the Sailor' last seen on the aft port side 3 minutes ago." Throughout the sail the Captain conducts drills which we have to practice. So the ship stops and turns around, a 20 min process. We hope Boxy is a good swimmer! 25 minutes the bits of Boxy were spotted and the crew congratulated on a successful drill. Not sure i can swim for 25 minutes so am not going to plan to fall over board anytime soon.

No sooner had i settled down with my book, when the over head page goes again: "Whales on the starboard side. 3 killer whales spotted, 1 male 2 female." So up we get and run (walk fast, no running on board) to the starboard side to see this amazing sight. A family pod of Killer Whales. I would have thought seen that we were so far south, off the coast of Ghana the water would have been too warm for them, but no there they were. They didn't stop for us to have a long look, just carried on their way. (the picture is one of the females, they didn't play along and pose for a good photo.)

After the long lazy afternoon i managed to finish my book and retreat to the air conditioning of the ship and enjoy a evening playing cards with friends. A Saturday at sea on board the M/V Africa Mercy.