Monday, 1 June 2026: The butter is soft, really soft. I suppose it’s the same in Blankenberge now. We sailed out of the harbour there early on Friday morning a week ago, with the tide ebbing and the wind on our stern. Yesterday morning at 6 o’clock, after nine days at sea, we arrived here in La Rochelle. The unusual May heatwave on land kept bringing us periods of calm at sea. We often drifted for hours and could barely hold our course. The strong tide in the English Channel sometimes pushed us westwards, which helped us. But then we lost the ground we had gained. Off Dover, we tacked for hours against a breeze that had temporarily picked up from the west. Not to make way westward, but to avoid being driven too far east.
If we have to wait for the wind a lot, the jumper will be finished sooner.
One evening, dark storm clouds gathered over Brittany in the south. We rushed to put on our rain gear, but after just a few drops, the clouds moved on. At the same time, a storm over Cornwall in the north unleashed a barrage of lightning – too far away to hear the thunder. Over the sea, it remained quiet. Then, on a windless day, a man-overboard drill. In the end, Captain Arthur was the first to jump into the water, followed by half the crew. I decided not to, as I’d just had my bucket shower with seawater on the foredeck. Water temperature: 16 degrees. On windless nights, it remained surprisingly mild on deck. And when I was baking bread – we always do that at night – I really worked up a sweat kneading the dough.
Once we’d finally left the English Channel behind us, we headed south-east in the Bay of Biscay, straight towards La Rochelle. At least ‘straight’ was marked on the screen in the navigation room. We kept sailing – or rather drifting – in fits and starts in the calm. In between, however, we also made 8 knots, and the ship rolled in the swell coming in from the Atlantic: that’s when I finally got that sailing feeling.
Given the extremely light weather, I was unpleasantly surprised that my right hearing aid had stopped working. The damp sea air doesn’t agree with electronic devices. I then packed everything together with some rice into an airtight bag. Here in La Rochelle, the rice had absorbed so much moisture from the device that it’s working again. But I won’t be using it at sea anymore.
A pleasant surprise on my first visit ashore: along the harbour promenade, global warming since the Industrial Revolution has been depicted in colours: blue for the cool years, red for the warm years, and dark red for the hot years. With information boards in French and English. Impressive. I’d love to see something like this in Switzerland too. On the Bundesterasse, for example. The political debate over the permits for the strip chart alone would bring climate change back into the public eye.
Incredible marine biodiversity
Wednesday, 3 June 2026: Yesterday afternoon I took half a day off from work on board to visit the marine aquarium right here at the harbour. The recommended visit time is an hour and a half. I was in there for nearly four hours. I often stayed for a long time in the areas where you can sit and look out at the large tanks. Even after 20 minutes, you’re still discovering new species of fish. An incredible variety of shapes – hulls, heads, fins, tails, eyes – and colours. Then there are mussels, corals, sea anemones, sea cucumbers, crabs, and so on and so forth… And yet this is only a fraction of the roughly 10 per cent of marine life that we already know about. Scientists expect millions more species to be discovered and described, particularly with regard to their role in marine ecosystems.
What is missing, however, from the aquarium – which is, after all, also a research centre – is any mention of the threats posed by global warming and ocean acidification. Around half of all marine species are at risk of extinction. And burning just one litre of petrol renders 30 cubic metres of water uninhabitable for the fish that can be admired here in all their splendour.
The deadly trio of warming, lack of oxygen and ocean acidification also affects a landlocked country like Switzerland. For example: the biomass of dying organisms is broken down by bacteria in the sea. This process produces, amongst other things, sulphur dioxide. These molecules act as condensation nuclei, causing droplets to form from the water aerosols produced during evaporation: fog and clouds, and thus also precipitation. How this chain of physical, biological and chemical processes, combined with climate change, will alter precipitation in Switzerland: a question mark! The fact that we are increasingly losing the snow we need for skiing in winter would, after all, be bearable. But what does this mean for agriculture and, consequently, our food supply?
Years ago, there was a referendum in Basel on funding an oceanarium at the zoo. It was rejected. After my visit to the aquarium here in La Rochelle, I regret that. An institution that shows people the rich life that exists in the oceans and what we are in the process of destroying with greenhouse gases would be a political demand that we must include in a new maritime strategy.
Cocoa out and wine in
Thursday, 24 June: The reverse beep-beep-beep of the tractor, hoisting the pallets out of the large lorry with its forklift arm, seemed never-ending. No matter how eagerly we took the boxes off the pallets and slid them down an improvised chute into the ship, there were always more. At lunchtime we split up: whilst some had a bite to eat, the others carried on working. The weather was only partly on our side: time and again, gusts of drizzle swept in from the sea across the harbour. Now the hold is filled to the brim and the ship sits around 35 centimetres lower in the water. 20,000 bottles – that’s as many as we can fit.
Captain Arthur’s return journey to England is secured.
First, we had to completely empty the hold, stow the cocoa for the Fréres de la Côte partner project, move the spare ropes elsewhere, and hoist Captain Arthur’s motorbike onto the pontoon, as he is heading back to England from here – a change of captain.
The departure for Copenhagen is scheduled for Sunday. Let’s see what the wind does.