Far Side of the World

Sorry its been a while yet again before another entry. Life has been going very well for me. The lectures are challenging, the traveling is exciting and sailing experiences are to the max! About a week ago we left Ibiza Island for mainland Españia. We were headed for a town called Malaga. The first day of sailing was great. Sunny weather, yet still quite windy. It was nice to have the ship move below me once again! Oh how I love the feeling of the deck rolling beneath my feet!! This sail started to a "great" start with the fire alarm going off in the morning. This would have been all fine and good excpt lets say it caught me at a bad time and I had to frantically search for a pair of pants before mustering on deck. :S The fire wasnt a big deal, thankfully, and was only a few sparks in the engin room. As far as wild life goes, we saw a fair amount. On the first full day of sailing we saw a few dolphins. Different ones than we usually see. These ones were almost black with dark grey undertones, rather than the typical grey ones. So that was neat. In the afternoon we saw some seagulls sitting on the water--a strange sight. So we busted out the binoculars to take a closer look. And low and behold there was something floating in the water. We guessed that something had died and disided to go check it out. But when we got close to the floating thing we found that it was a sea turtle!!! It must have been either old or sick though because it didnt move very fast when we came along side. Which is unfortunate for it, but we were blessed through its infermity because we got to get right up close to it! haha After my watch I climbed up into the rigging on the bowsprit with Sandra, one of the students, and I brought my camera with me this time so I could try to capture the amazing experience of being on the bowsprit (without drowning my camera). Then we clipped in and slipped under the netting and just swung above the waves in our harnesses!!! (I didnt have my camera on when we did this) And it was sooooo much fun! The ship was moving a lot and youd swing back and forth and plung up and down with the swells!!! Wow! *sighs* This is true living! And a tip if any of you do this: the most comfortable possition when doing this (because of the harness) is swinging upside down!!! And it gives you quite the rush when the ship plunges down a swell!!! haha Oh life is good!!! Day two: The second day of sailing also went well. I slept on the deck in the night under the stars (which are far, far better in the middle of the sea) that night because I had to get up at 2am anyways for watch. I slept from the end of my watch to midday and was pleased to find the ship was still rolling when I woke up. By the time my watch started it was a force 5 out side (basically means fairly rough seas with lots of white caps). I was excited since the highest forse we´ve had so far has been forse 4 on our first sail (which I thought was intence, by the way). Well my life just got better because the waves kept increasing in intencity! I asked my watch leader if I and one of the other girls could go to the galley and make the watch some cookies, he agreed and thats where we found ourselves for the next 2 hours tumbling about like a pair of wet socks in a drier. I havent experienced such motion ever and it was sooooo much fun!!! Although it was a huge task not to burn ones self while baking! Anyways our culinary adventure ended with a splash when my plate of cookies slid all the way across the counter and promptly drowned in the sink of dish water!! That was fairly fusterating, but we didnt care, we put the soaked cookies in the oven again and tried to dry them out. When we emerged from the galley of doom (hehe) we found ourselves being thrown across the wheel house in a high forse 6 near gail!!! The swells were incredible!!! Honestly the swells were so huge that we had to put a safety line on the deck to clip onto because it wasnt safe to walk across the deck without it. The swells were gaining hight till they got to be about 4 or so meters high! They were so high that it was hard to see the top of them from in the wheel house!!! I was in heaven!! haha When my watch was done we headed down to the saloon and I grabbed my sleeping bag from my room before the weather got to the point that I wouldnt want to go into my cabin. It was so funny watching people try to stumble their way across the saloon. Often they would go flying across the room! And another fun thing to do is to see how far you can lean without falling over! Which can be quite far actually. Then the fire alarm went off again!! A good word to discribe what happened next would be kaos! See, when the fire alarm sounds we are supposed to grab a lifejacket and then head out the forhatch to muster on deck. Which works fine, when you´re not in a freakin storm! There was a lot of miscomunication (and the intercom system didnt work for some freak reason) and we were told to go out the forhatch.... .... . ... . ..not at all a safe thing to do. When I was pushed out the door a HUGE wave crashed on me (yet I managed to shield my camera)! Then we struggled across the deck trying to reach some place where we wouldnt be thrown into the sea. Thankfully the crew told us to head below to muster and we did so! Phew! As it turns out there actually was a fire this time in the engin room--with flames and everything! But the crew managed to get it out very fast. Man, weve been having trouble with fires lately. And Ive sure had bad luck with them too! haha From being so asleep I put my lifejacket on upside down and didnt know it (even when I was told) to not wearing pants to being drenched by storm waves! haha That night no one slept well. Most of us bunked out on the saloon coutches that run the length of the room. I found that sleeping in a slippery sleeping bag in a storm dosent work too well and eventually gave into sleeping on the floor because i fell off the couch every five minutes (I have the bruises to proove it). We radioed into a closer port for refuge from the storm because it was going to take us about three more days to get to Malaga at the rate we were moving (rather than 1 day). We got in early that morning.

So that was my past sailing experience. And I have just grown more in love with sailing than ever!! I look forward to going to Malega over the weekend.

We are in a port called Almeria, Spain. It is four hours drive (by car) from Malaga. When I woke up the first morning here I looked out the window and guess what I saw? I saw a castle. Quite the thing to see out your window in the morning!! After putting the ship back in order (there were dishes all over the place and the fridge was a complete mess and my room....gosh... we couldnt get the door open because our stuff flew all over the place) we got two days off!!! Me and some buddies went to the castle but found that it was closed on mondays. But did that deture us from our quest? Not at all. haha We walked a few blocks out of the city and foud a hill to scale with part of the connecting wall of the castle on it. It was an intence place. The weather was still very windy and the wall ruins were ontop of a desolate hill overlooking the town. After admiring it and walking around the walls, Brit managed to scramble ontop of the wall. Well we walked around trying to find a more girl friendly way to get onto the wall and we found a room off the wall with those slits that people would shoot aarows through...and yup! I squirmed my way though! After much pushing and prodding we got all the girls through the slits and the guys climbed their way up the wall. There was a stair case inside the room that lead onto the wall which we made our way slowly across. There are turrets every 6 or so meters with stairways leading up. We explaored all the turrets and the last one was very impressive because it was overhanging a cliff facing the castle. Of course there were no fences, no signs, no people, no nothing......becausee I dont think we were actually supposed to have been there. haha But what an experience!! Getting out again I desided to climb down from the wall rather than going throuugh the hole because I thought it would be quicker and easier....well it was sure freakin quicker! By the point where I was hanging off the side off the wall I realized that it was about twice as far as I thought it was and I fell all the way down! Thankfully there were people below to catch me/break my fall. But I came out with many scrapes and bruises and a bloody elbow. I guess thats what I get for being impulsive. *shrugs* haha

On our second day off we went to the castle--which we got into free by the way. ;) hehe It was really, really neat!!! It was a huge castle with gardens and excavations and rooms and...it was just beautiful! Part of it was Christian and most of it was Moorish (who took over the castle). It was very intact and had breath taking veiws from the parepets. Afterwards we hit up the local markato and bought freash baggets and goat cheese! Mmmm!! A lovely, lovely day!!!

Out reach is starting to come together now. We are still looking for a place to stay, things to get involved with, contacts, fund raising and trying to get visas for a few of the team members. We are all having roles where we will take some sort o leadership in with the out reach. Mine are worship and putting together some sort of media journal and/or web site for our out reach. I look forward to see how this will all work.

I really like this port! Its lovely here! We sail over the weekend for Malaga. Hope that you are all doing well. I miss you all. Please remember me in your prayers. Love you all!!