A Swedish Training Bark Visits

The navy destroyer left us after a few days, and then a 50m Swedish training vessel docked in our marina. They were offering tours of their ship (above deck) so we took the boys over to have a look around. The vessel name is Gunilla and is from the island of Öckerö on the west coast of Sweden, you can read more about the ship and its program here.  It is a training vessel and had students on board that had left Santa Domingo 11 days before.  In Sweden, after you have mandatory school (until age 16), you go to gymnasium(gymnasieskola) for 3 years.  All of the 44 students on

 

Gunilla Approaching her Dock

board were 2nd year gymnasium students so they were about 18 years old.  The boat has 11 crew members, but the students have to help with all aspects of the ship; navigation, cooking, cleaning, line handling, sail handling, etc. . The boat is staying in Charleston for 6 days then they are off to Bermuda, the Azores and finally to Belgium where the first year students will get on and the second year students fly home.  We were led on a tour of the ship by one of the students, Samuel. All of the students speak English well and were very friendly and polite. We felt privileged to be allowed on board. 

Out With the Freighters in With the Destroyer

Normally we have car freighters and cruise ships coming and going at the docks next to us.  It's pretty cool to watch them and see how the tugs push them around and up to the docks. They're too big to maneuver in those close quarters without (usually) two tug boats to help guide them into the right position.  They are just so incredibly massive and they come so close that it looks like they're going to crash into the docks.  I definitely would not want to be that close to one if I was in my boat. Their props are very deep and they cause a lot of suction behind them. They also could run a little sailboat over without even knowing they hit anything.

Car Freighter Heading up the River

One Year Older.....Cole turns 11 !

...and gets a surfboard for his birthday (March 2). We took the boys to the gulf side of Florida to visit their grandparents and to give the board a better tryout; it's still a little cold in the water in Charleston. There wasn't much surf going on the first day, but what he needed was to learn to balance and stand on the board, and that he did! Next time we'll get all this action on film!  Cole has always had a knack for picking up sports that require balancing (scooter, biking, skateboard), so it was no surprise to us that he took to surfing so easily. 

Coming out for a break