We were flying over the water with the power of the sails under our feet

Gulden Leeuw Exchange@sea
Fair Winds, Fair planet, Fair Future
Brest (FR) – Langesund (NO), 2024

DAY 1

Writer: Feven

Today was the day that my adventure started: I would depart from Brest France to Langesund Norway on a 12 day long sailing voyage. I met different people from various nationalities, with whom we would create beautiful friendships.

Writers: Asger, Anastasija

I got to the ship when it was 14, i met Ewa from France and we went over to have a savoury crepe, it was really good. Then we went back to the ship where we met the crew. First we met Peter and then we were shown the boat and we met everyone else. In the night we had some name games and we learned each other’s names.

While in harbour, we had to keep gangway watch. While part of the watch did their ship safety check-up, I stayed next to the gangway to keep strangers away from climbing aboard. Met a local couple who wanted to move a fender for a nicer picture.

Writer: Lili

When I arrived in Brest, I could already see the Gulden Leeuw from far away. As I got on the vessel I was welcomed by familiar faces. I was ecstatic to be back! I was surprised to see that the ship was almost empty due to all delayed flights. We had the safety training, ate and packed out. We got to know each other and did name games. I also had the chance to visit the Thalassa, as she was also docked in Brest. The rest of the Hungarian team arrived around 11 and some Norwegians rolled in around half past 1, but that’s tomorrows story

Writer: Frede

The day I came on board I was a little scared. I did not know anyone, and a lot of the Norwegian team was late; however there where two other Norwegians here. We got to know each other a bit and we signed up for port watch. And of course, we greeted the others who arrived before 2 am.

DAY 2

Writer: Anastasija

We got an early breakfast, followed by a 4 station carrousel where we got to know both decks, bridge and The Ocean Movement. The sky was greyish and the air was moist, which later on resulted in a long rainy first watch onboard. Around 12 pm we departed and had to clean everything up. The orange watch was on deck from 12 to 16, we hoisted the main sail; some of the team had a chance to climb on the bowsprit to untighten the jibs before hoisting them. Unfortunately, some of the watch members got seasick and fewer participated in the deck works. The best reward for being outside in such nasty weather and soaking wet to underwear, was seeing some dolphins passing by and jumping out of the water. After the watch everyone was so happy to finally get inside and change to warm and dry clothes. As we were supposed to have the next watch from 4 to 8 am, everyone was quite tired and went to bed around 9 pm.

Writer: Maelle

It was our first 24 hours on board, some people experienced being on board for the first time (and also what being sea sick is like). We started to learn about how the Gulden Leeuw works and how to set sails. We also started to learn the names of everyone, which makes the voyage more friendly

Writer: mysterious

Today we left Brest. We were the first watch to try ourselves on the deck and in the bridge. It was exciting to assist with taking in the gangways and fenders and mooring lines in the end. As we were slowly leaving the port a small motorboat followed us out as we performed an abandon ship drill. We heard the alarm for the first time and mustered in the student mess. We stood in a line and handed out all life vests and we went to the rescue boats. Later in the day we explored more details of the ship in carousel rounds. We got an introduction from the Ocean Movement’s Dorine and Josien, and even tried the mantra trawl for the first time. Later we wrote our hopes and fears and formulated our own set of group rules, mainly about respect, on post-its. Today we also saw dolphins and luckily it wasn’t the last time.

DAY 3

Writer: Juliette

We were on watch on the bridge. We were lucky to see dolphins. It was amazing! Some people of our watch are still fighting the seasickness. The blue watch is getting stronger. We laugh a lot. We talk a lot. We also work a lot. It is amazing to have the chance to get to know each other in such way. The blue watch is such an amazing team. Shout out!

Writer: Balázs

Our watch team was just discussing afternoon tasks, when Ari – a kind member of the ship’s crew – appeared with an unexpected opportunity: three people could climb aloft. In the heat of the moment, I had to act fast. Three places are very few for thirteen people, so I volunteered instantly.

As the four of us approached the dauntingly high mast pointing to the sky, my heartbeat became increasingly stronger. My only experience with climbing is from children’s adventure parks, and now I was going to ascend 40 meters of a rope ladder, barely wide enough to fit my feet at some points. After the first ten meters, my feet became heavier and a burning sensation appeared in my forearms. I kept ascending, gripping the rope with all of my force and focusing on my breath. I approached the top yard with dry mouth and overheated clothes from the movement. However, when we moved to the yard my body eased, and I felt the strength returning in my muscles.

The view of the gliding sailboat under me – with ball sized people on the deck – and the scarce boats travelling on the endless ocean amazed every part me. We were flying over the water with the power of the sails under our feet. From that moment, standing on a single rope on the topgallant just felt natural. I descended intoxicated from accomplishment, many lifelong mental pictures, and a lesson I will take away from ship: the most daunting steps in my life lead me to one of my best memories.

Writer: Martin

It is the first time we are fully out on sea. We got to see the big square sails being lowered, and it was really cool to see the sails onboard. The waves were a bit harsh and people were sick all over. I was still getting used to sleeping onboard in the dorm rooms because it was really moist in the dorms the first few days. And i got to be on helm for the first time.

DAY 4

Writer: Niki

Today our watch was from 4-8 and 16-20. I was feeling really tired on our first watch of the day, I was also annoyed because I wanted to do navigational things. However, on our next watch I was watch leader so I finally got the chance to do it. I really enjoyed that watch and leading everyone on our team. That was the first watch where I genuinely enjoyed every second of it.

Writer: Lizzy

On our fourth day we had a really nice watch from 8 pm to 12 am. I started on the bridge as a lookout but soon I got the opportunity to put a harness on and climb on the monkey deck to do some works with the main staysail. It was an absolutely beautiful scenery: the sunset, the waves and the endless sea before our eyes. The rest of the watch went by fast; we had a lot of fun. And of course, at midnight some snacks were waiting for us in the student mess, this time some delicious banana bread.

Writer: Szonja

I cannot actually recall how the day began for me, but I know that I had a shift from 12 to 16, during which I volunteered to be watch leader. I went to the bridge, where Peter was the officer on watch; at first I was a bit scared of him. He explained to me how to fill in the logbook and taught me a lot about wind directions and drawing in coordinates, which I messed up the first time. We had a great time, a wind around 3-4 Beaufort, and even the sun shone for some time. I ended up being a watch leader for more than five hours because there was a meeting, but I had to stay up in the bridge. After being done my back hurt like hell but I had rally great time and learned a lot of new things.

DAY 5

Writer: Storm

Today our watch was 08-12, where we worked with The Ocean Movement to collect and analyse microplastics in the ocean. After our watch we had Sailorship lessons with the captain, learning how to make a voyage plan for our life. In the evening, our mentor unveiled The Murder Game, where we secretly try to kill each other with a random object until there’s only one person standing. By our very next watch, two of us had already “died”.

Writer: Laura

Today we were on the midnight to 4am watch. We were definitely tired by the end but it was so satisfying when we got to see the stars in the sky, and the red full moon! We were going past some land and there was some kind of celebration so we also got to see many fireworks – we celebrated getting to go to sleep. We also learnt about different knots and in what situation to use them, like a stopper knot or one to tie two ropes of different thicknesses together.

DAY 6

Writer: Pierre

Today I was on galley team, I’ve been woken up from a good dream at 7h30 am (thanks to the night watch team we gained 1h of sleep).

The morning was just cleaning dirty dishes from the breakfast and cook lunch. After that I joined Ron with Feven and had to imagine the French expedition of Bougainville to French Polynesia. Then I enjoyed the sun on the deck. I helped to put on the deck the manta trawl with The Ocean Movement, and then we had some lessons about the sails and the lines. After that it was already dinner time; we ate the Norwegian dishes, it was sheep with cabbage, it tasted goods and seemed to be a good winter meal, but it would taste better with some Dijon mustard. Now it’s HAPPY HOUR, we had to clean the floor of the food storage, it was really fast. So after that we were just chilling out on the sundeck while talking and watching the sunset and playing card games.

Writer: Panna

In my opinion, day six was the most challenging of all. We have been sailing for five days, and although I really enjoy sailing, I kinda missed the stable land under my feet. Our first watch started at midnight. The team was split into two groups, so we did not have to do a full four hour watch. I was in the second half from 2 to 4. We did some work on the deck and then Ari taught us some knots which I was surprisingly good at. After the watch we went back to sleep a little more until lunch.

After lunch we had a really long watch, at least I felt like it. But it seemed like the weather wanted to cheer up us a little because finally the sun arrived and we could take off all the two hundred layers that we had on. Me and one of my friends were lucky enough to go out on the front net to free the jibs from the gaskets. At the time we were sailing on the North Sea, which was really wavy so it was quite challenging but also it made the work more fun. Later, the Captain did some Sailorship for us and explained how the sails work. It was great to get to understand more about sailing. Then Cody taught us some safe line-handling. To sum up, it was a busy and tiring day, but we also learned many new things and got a lot of new experiences.

Writer: Torje

Started the day when I was woken up for watch, and we got told to take down the jibs. We took them down, and then we had to go out on the bowsprit to pack them. There were a lot of swells, so being out on the bowsprit was like riding an insane rollercoaster!

After the watch we ate lunch and I went to sleep. During the second watch of the day, I was watch leader. While being up on the bridge, Cody asked Vicho if he could hold his hat. Cody then jumped up on the monkey deck, and left me standing there with Vicho. Vicho told me that he had to go to the galley, and asked if I could give the hat back to Cody when he got back. I took the hat, and Vicho told me that I was dead. The kill turned out to be a plot involving three people just to kill me. It is sad being dead.

DAY 7

Writer: Mate

Day seven was the day we arrived to Esbjerg. Our watch was on galley duty so after I had breakfast, we went down to the kitchen to help Vicho with the dishes. We cooked the lunch and arrived at the port during early afternoon. I checked my phone as soon as I had network just because I was waiting for my results of my final exams. So I just found out in Esbjerg that I am accepted for uni! After dinner we headed out to town where I ended up showing off my cool dance moves to the Danish community of Esbjerg.

Writer: Lykke

We arrived in Esbjerg! This was a big day for me because I am from Denmark. It was nice to show all the people who had never been to Denmark before around and teach them a couple of Danish phrases. We cleaned the ship to make it ready for some of the Danish visitors.

DAY 8.

Writer: Eva

Today was our first and only full day on shore. We started our day by going to the small island of Fanoe just next to Esbjerg to collect trash on the beach with The Ocean Movement and visit this charming island. Unfortunately, it started raining cats and dogs. We all sought shelter under a small roof and sang songs about the rain while waiting for it to stop.

When the rain finally stopped, we all split up into four teams to collect trash on the beach. During this endeavour we faced three challenges: finding the most amount of trash of one kind, having the heaviest bag of trash, and presenting your findings in the most creative way. On the beach, we saw a lot trash, most of it hidden behind and under rocks. we thought it was going to be clean because it looked fairly clean at first glance and it was apparently cleaned often, but we were mistaken. We also saw seal that flopped around like caterpillars, and small crabs.

After 25 minutes of cleaning, we compared our results and the winners got prizes (Danish sweets). Pirre and I found 102 cigarette butts and another team had more than 3 kilos of trash.

After cleaning the beach, we all split up to explore town.

DAY 9

Writers: Dorien

Today we left Esbjerg at 8 in the morning, when we had galley day. This was a little sad because I had also been in the galley the day before, for the Dutch national dinner. Luckily, I was able to escape the galley for a minute so I could see the departure. It was really nice to sail past Fano, the island where I had a great time the day before.

As researcher for the Ocean Movement, I was also happy the weather and speed were good for trawling for plastics with the manta trawl. We found a lot (a new record of 57 pieces in 30 minutes!) After lunch the Danish people took over the galley to make their dinner (pork belly with parsley gravy and apple cake for dessert). That meant that I could go upstairs and chill with fun people and a book, which has not happened very often during this very active holiday.

We had a mentor meeting after, during which we discussed the programme for the next day and the overall vibe on board. Because the vibe is really good at the moment, that topic luckily was no problem! After the meeting a lot of food was gone, and because I do not eat meat, I had some leftovers from lunch at the sunny aft deck with some people. A really good vibe! We had an evening shift again in which I was lookout and learned a lot about navigation, communication with other ships and the stars. After that I had a well-deserved sleep.

DAY 10

Writer: Ingrid

This day has been one of the best for me, I think the whole watch agrees. We were lucky enough to have the 12-4, so we could sleep in, which was much needed. The weather was amazing and the wind was perfect for sailing. I must admit that the night watches have been making me doubt if sailing is fun, but this one watch in itself made every single night watch worth it.

For the day watch i was the deck leader, which was challenging but very fun. We had some hectic and stressful moments, especially when we were stretching out the inner jib. The sheet was eased too much and the force of the wind made the block hit the railing and break. I wasn’t in charge of calling this, but i still felt a bit guilty as I was watch leader. I think this was a great lesson that shit happens, and that it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a bad thing, but a good opportunity to learn. After that I was in charge of going out on the bowsprit to pack the sail, it really put my leadership skills into practice and I felt very accomplished when we managed to pack a flapping sail in 32 mph of wind and teach how to do it at the same time. The debrief with Peter afterwards was really good and we talked through the whole situation. It really made me feel like we had become a great team that can rely on each other. We concluded that no one is to blame and that shit happens. The most important thing was that no one got hurt. The block was fixed very fast. All in all, I think the whole watch learned a lot today, and that we grew a lot closer as a team.

Writer: Tiril

Today we started the day with a 4 to 8 watch. I think we were all really tired. There wasn’t much to do on the watch so we got to have a break with some tea and food. After that we all went to sleep and slept for a long time. Later we had a really nice watch from 16 to 20. This is also the last day on sea, so we enjoyed it a lot while on the bridge.

DAY 11

Writer: Camilla

We started the day at 4 in the morning, climbing the masts for the first time. It was so beautiful to see the ship from the top like that in sunrise. I have never tried anything like it. Even though it was a little scary at first, I would recommend it to everyone. After a little nap, we came to a little island and went swimming for the first time.

In the evening we had a talent show, with a lot of amazing talents, and finished the evening with a dance party on the deck.