My journey on Oceans of Hope is coming to an end soon and I am happy that crew 8 has been able to contribute to bringing the boat onwards, even with our obvious limitations, I am truly amazed about what we have achieved together. Without much sailing experience, we have had to learn quickly and help each other. Despite bruises, seasickness, fatigue and frustration at times, we have kept going, we are still coming to shore in Cairns with our heads held high, proud of what we have accomplished.

We have been through a lot in terms of the hardship of sailing and the past three weeks have gone by so quickly. But recently we have been able to enjoy life a bit, by spending some time in Hamilton Island which was a beautiful place where we enjoyed some down time together, sharing a few laughs. Also, we anchored for lunch at a remote bay, where we jumped into the sea to cool off, which was a lot of fun I must admit. And we also jumped on the dinghy and went to a beach on this small island, which was pretty cool to lie in the water and listen to the waves.

For me personally this has been quite the journey. I started off fully charged for the leg, which was good as it meant I did quite well during the harsher part of the trip, but after a while I noticed that my legs weren’t fully cooperating with me anymore, so I started falling over a lot, giving me painful bruises. Luckily nothing too serious and I am starting to feel much stronger again as we have had calmer weather up north and my body has been able to recover somewhat.

By the looks of it, this is only the beginning of my sailing days.

Thank you Crew 8 and to all the fantastic permanent crewmembers, especially Bertram.

Report from Bosun Bertram:
A year has gone by on Oceans of Hope, and with all the previous crewmembers of the circumnavigation in mind, we celebrated the best we could during our stay on Hamilton Island. Words can hardly describe the journey we have been on since leaving Copenhagen a year ago, now on the east coast of Australia on the other side of the globe. Just recently we have been anchoring off a number islands with such awe-inspiring beauty, confirming the beauty of our voyage.

We are motoring at 7 knots through mirror waters with absolutely no wind – a peaceful way to end our leg from Sydney to Cairns, where we are estimated to arrive tomorrow morning.

Local time onboard is 17:30 and our current location is 18,12.71S , 146,25.6E

A personal thanks from me after a year of reports and blogs - what a year!
Best regards,
Bertram