Sleepy faces appear out on deck in the morning. How did everyone sleep on their first day on board? The cocoon of our bunkies, with the thick and dark blue curtains closing them off, certainly make for many good sleepers, ready to explore what the first day has in store for us. 

Captain Hans has a pretty good idea about this. The three bells ring and all voyage crew gathers on deck. Time for rigging familiarizations! The group is divided in smaller teams and the crew takes everyone to the various decks and masts to start making sense of the spaghetti of ropes. What are sheets, buntlines and halyards? Every tiny part on board has its own job to do and it’s up to us to start to get to know lady Europa better every day. Interest is spiked and we slowly see who will be the avid sailors on the trip.

Hard work asks for hard play and so a swim stop is announced. With a water temperature of 26,5 degrees Celsius everyone is eager to jump in. A nice way to cool off for a bit in the warm temperatures of Fiji.

It is nice to see how everyone starts to get to know each other. Slowly but surely, we get from easy conversations to the topic why they joined Europa. Every reason is different, everyone has their own story to tell.

While the familiarizations are well on their way, we make our way to our first destination, Bounty Island. It can’t get any more idyllic and the island certainly lives up to her name. Serenity Island Resort is based on the island and was so kind to welcome us to her shores. 

Tendering everyone to shore, we had to be careful of the reefs encircling the island, certainly a different way of using Grey and Blacky than we are used to in Antarctica.

Upon the island we are welcomed by a happy bunch of crew from the island, singing, clapping and dancing and definitely smiling, feeling like we just experienced a White Lotus season 1 episode. After a tropical welcome drink, we start our visit with a coconut demonstration. What can you do with a coconut? In about an hour we learn how to open a coconut, grate a coconut, weave a basket of the coconut leaves and making body oil of the grated coconut. Our arms and legs have never been softer ;)  

The rest of the afternoon was filled with snorkeling around the reef, where a few of us got to see 2 reef sharks, others enjoyed the good view of the ship in the near distance or took a stroll around the island.

With the sun slowly starting to set, the best place to enjoy the sunset was to have a walk around the island to get the full experience. Sand turned to gold and the waving palm trees made the image of Bounty Island complete. Upon returning back to the resort, the bonfire was lit and the cava ceremony started. After, while we all enjoyed our dinner on the shores of Bounty, someone mentioned, “this pineapple is too good to eat, I don’t want this taste to stop”. 

It summarized our feelings well and as the day drew to a close and the zodiacs brought us back to the ship under a night full of stars, I realized that this journey was not just about the places we’d visit, but the connections we get with each other, with the local communities ashore and the stories we create.