You Can’t Discover New Oceans Until You Are Willing to Lose Sight of the Shore

The last Land Rover goes up

After weeks of planning, preparing, packing & praying, the time came for us to pull up anchor (so to speak- it was more like untie the mooring lines) & leave Sierra Leone.  Saturday morning was met with anticipation, as we watched the last of the Land Rovers get loaded onboard & we spent the morning enjoying the solid ground under our feet.  We left shortly after noon with a small group of our friends, who were staying behind, there on the dock to see us off.  As we pulled away from the dock, where the ship has been since February, the captain blew the ship’s horn in farewell.  The ships up & down the port answered in a fitting farewell.  Soon, we gathered speed & we lost sight of Sierra Leone.

Saying goodbye

A little history of our ship, the Africa Mercy.  Before Mercy Ships bought her, she was a train ferry in Denmark, the Dronning Ingrid.  She isn’t the most graceful ship, she looks like a floating box, & sails like one too.  Because of her flat bottom hull, she tends to roll quite a bit & snap back up to a vertical position quickly, making for a very unsettling ride at times.  One of the most entertaining things to do during the sail is to watch people walk down the hall, weaving back & forth, bumping into walls.  Its like climbing a mountain & running downhill at the same time.  Quite hilarious!  Sitting in rolling chairs, trying to do computer work, is another challenge.  I have two filing cabinets on either side of me which I have pulled out the bottom drawers of each in the hopes of corralling my wayward chair.  For the most part it works, but every once in awhile, a big swell will come & across the room we go!

A sunset at sea

Flying fish

To be fair, the sail has been pretty smooth.  My last sail, the swells would break over the bow & soak the bridge windows, 3 decks up, so we can’t complain too much.  Speaking of the bow, it’s the social hangout during the day.  When we are in port, the bow is closed due to all the lines & other hazards, but when we are sailing, all those things are gone & it’s a nice big open space for the kids to run & play & for us older kids to eat & relax.  Its also a great place to see flying fish, sunsets, dolphins & whales. 



If you look closely- that's a whale's fin



Our second full day at sea, while we were enjoying our after dinner bow time, we spotted spouts of water in the distance.  As we watched these spouts become more frequent & coming closer, we realized that the spouts were whales!  Even though we didn’t get to see much more than the occasional water spout & a fin, we were pretty psyched about it. 




One of our entertainers



The next afternoon, an announcement came on overhead stating that a large pod of dolphins were spotted off the port side.  Of course, we all dropped what we were doing & ran up to deck 7 to see.  A pod of over 100 dolphins were racing towards us, jumping & playing in the waves.  It was amazing to see!  They would come up to our ship, check it out & scoot away, all in a blink of an eye.  Soon they dropped back & the show was over.

That was until supper time.  The pod was back, & this time playing in our bow wave.  Groups of about 20 at a time would come up & swim just under our bow.  Than, with a burst of speed, leap out of the water in front of the ship, some would show off & throw a flip in.  Even though the sunset & the bow closed for the night, we were told those dolphins followed us until sunrise the next morning.



The entire pod comes to check us out



Bunkering in process



Yesterday was a first for our ship, the Africa Mercy.  We received fuel at sea (the maritime term is called “bunkering”).  It’s a common place procedure in the Navy & fleets all over the world, but we have never done something like this before.  So at dinner last night, we watched through our windows, as another ship, a large tanker ship, came along side of us, tied up to us & gave us fuel.  It was scary for a bit, watching this large ship so close to ours rise & fall with the swells, but like I said, this is something that they (the other ship) does all the time & they made it look easy.  It took all night to fuel, but by 11 this morning, they untied & went off to meet with the next ship they need to refuel.  A special thanks to everyone who prayed for a safe refueling, we were very nervous about this new to us procedure.  But all went well.

The plan is to arrive in Tema, Ghana tomorrow.  What time that will happen or if we’ll have to wait until Friday is unknown.  I’m looking forward to being on land again, but I will miss all the sea life that came to say hello to us on our sail. 

Thanks again for all the prayers & well wishes.

Blessings