I guess I can start with leaving Liberia last November. After spending six months helping thousands of people in Liberia, the Africa Mercy sailed out of Monrovia's freeport on November 30th and headed to the Canary Islands. It took us about 5 and a half days to get to Las Palmas, but the sail was pretty calm - especially compared to the Bay of Biscay last May.
For the month before we sailed, people were working to get things safe and secure for the sail. After 6 months of just sitting, it is hard to remember sometimes that we are actually a ship that sails and things tend to pile up a bit. For sailing, you need to have everything laying on the floor or attached to the walls - which is difficult when they are trying to keep people from putting holes in the walls. It was also hard because we had to find a way to put things on the floor but still have space to keep teaching. School continued through the sail, which was exciting and hard at the same time. The first couple days were hard as my body adjusted to the rocking motion of the boat. Sometimes that meant sitting through most of the lesson :) I discovered last May that the motion sickness pills actually make me feel worse, so I am on my own with motion sickness. Luckily I have not had too much trouble. Some people hear the world sailing and head to their cabin until the trip is over.
We arrived at Gran Canaria in the morning and sailed around to the north end of the island until lunch. When we finally got to the harbor, we waited for the pilot for an hour and then sailed in. By the time we got to the berth they had open for us, most of the crew were either standing on Deck 7 or 8 watching and excited that we had made it and ready to get off the ship after almost a week. Then, the ship began to turn around - some people had thought the berth looked a little small, but we figured maybe, somehow, we had to back in like parallel parking a car. -- Nope. It turns out that the berth that they had given us was 150 meters long and the AFM is 152 meters. Ooops. So, with most of us wondering what in the world was going on, we sailed back to just outside the port. Luckily, God is in control and has a plan for everything. Although we had to wait another couple hours, the berth that they found for us later made it easier to get on and off the ship and was 3 kilometers closer to the center of town. For that weekend, we were about a 15 minute walk from the shops and about 20-30 minutes from a beach. It was a little cold for swimming, but just to walk along the beach was wonderful. It was a nice break between sailing and dry dock and a chance just to relax and catch out breath.
