We got back this summer from a great break/vacation/family time in the States and Germany the day that teachers began working again. Stepping right back into work was hard but enjoyable as we were home again. We also arrived back to hear more about the plans that Mercy Ships had been making to move about 150 staff off ship while the ship was in dry dock. This would include all staff not directly related to the technical side of the ship and families. The advance team working in South Africa had found an abandoned education college that seemed perfect - dorms for living in, an admin building, a gym, dining room, and an area for the school.
School started on 2 August which gave us about 2 weeks before we were packing and securing for the sail to South Africa. The actual day of sailing seemed to sneak up on us as we were so busy with the start of school, securing and packing to move off the ship once we reached South Africa. The weekend before we sailed, I think most departments were running around trying to get all the last minute things tied down and packed up.
The sail itself was beautiful - about 17 days of mostly lovely weather and smooth-ish seas. There had been lots of fear and many prayer sent to the heavens about the weather as the sail around the Cape of Good Hope is famously bad and rocky, but outside of two rocky days before we even reached the Cape, we had great weather. The officer in charge of the course showed us later on a map how lucky we had been -- well, how God protected us. On a map, you could see the orange-red colors where the weather was worse around the Cape and coast towards Durban. As the little icon of our ship moved down the map, the red-orange seemed to move away from us and continued to do so all the way to Durban. As if a giant hand was pushing the weather away and protecting us. There was red-orange in behnd us and in front of us, but not where we were. In fact, we had to slow down so that we did not arrive in Durban too early. For about the last week of the sail, you could look off the port side and see South Africa in the distance - almost made you want to jump into our little zodiac rescue boat and pull into port somewhere.
Marcel says that we can now say we have sailed most of the Atlantic coast - north to south as we sailed down with the Africa Mercy from Blythe/Newcastle area. Not sure how a sailor would feel about that statement, but it is a pretty amazing thought. I can also claim to be a 'shellback' now as I have crossed the Equator at sea - did not have any of the crazy celebrations that can happen on ships as we crossed at about 2.00 in the morning, but fun to think about none the less. Not things I would have thought I could say five years ago.
Some pictures from the sail:
