Sailing: Volendam & Westerdam

Paul has a strange inflamed patch on the back of his leg, so he went to the infirmary. He had an ultrasound scan to rule out a deep vein thrombosis and was given a steroid cream for thrombophlebitis. Paul will keep an eye on it over the next couple of days.

After that, we headed to the crew office to see if they could figure things out because he has had a email advising him we are both booked to stay on the Westerdam from 8th June to 6th July (Seattle to Seattle via Canada). His original contact was from Seattle to Anchorage, where he would get off. I had been told I couldn't sail because of the Jones Law (a person sailing on a foreign flagged ship leaving a USA port cannot re-enter a USA port without first going to a foreign port. In this case, the ship would not be going to Canada before Anchorage). Paul had already booked me a flight back to the Netherlands, so he needs to clear things up before cancelling my ticket. The Crew Officer was as baffled as Paul and is going to make enquiries.

Paul and I decided to head into town to look for a suitcase for me and then take a walk to a lake. We didn't get a suitcase but managed to burn 9km in total, walking through town to the lake and back again.

The lake wasn't as pretty as we expected, but we walked around the lake anyway and saw pigeons, ducks, and seagulls. A pigeon was taking a nice bath at the water's edge, and 3 ducks in the water also had a good wash. A duck had a brood af chicks with her - fluffy dots - who followed her into the water.

We had no intention of going to a supermarket, but we passed one on back to the ship, and I decided to look for a bra. In the end, we walked out with a bra, a massive bag of cheese puffs, and small marshmallows for our hot chocolate on board. Security personnel's eyes 👀 just about popped out of their sockets when they clocked the huge packet of crisps. I think we pre-walked our calories off and can now put them back on again.😆Read more