Adios Tenerife

After 6 weeks of enjoying Tenerife and catching up on paperwork from our 10 months in Benin, we're now back at sea and heading for Togo. We got away from Santa Cruz at around 14:00 yesterday amidst a heavy swell and rather cloudy, wet weather. Our sail so far? Bouncy to say the least so there are a lot of bleary eyes and queezy stomaches around the ship today. Am I looking forward to Togo? To be honest there is always a mixture of excitement of going to a new Port and trepidation of what it will be like. There is always so much work to do to get the crew settled in and to get relationships built up with local officials that it can seem VERY overwhelming - without God's Grace, wisdom and strength I know it would not be possible to keep on doing this role:-)

Here's a picture of Nathaniel and me waving goodbye to our friends as we sailed out yesterday.

Christmas Show

Whilst on the sail the Academy did their Christmas Show 'Bethlehem Express'. It was one of the most entertaining and professional kids shows we have ever seen and a credit to the teachers and students who worked so hard to put it all together in just over 1 week!! Here are a few pics of the fun:-)

Tenerife

We're finally in Tenerife. Strange how quickly you get used to being at sea and the ship moving all the time. Now we are tied up safely we still haven't put things back on shelves incase the ship rolls and they fall off!
Anyway it's great to be here and the kids are loving being able to go to the park and run around. They went into their first toy shop for almost 11 months yesterday - talk about excitement!

All at Sea

still no kraken - but lots of rolling about on the blue stuff today. Another full day of sea-life with a turtle, dolphins and 'big fish' which could have been whales or Orcas (the Chief Mate didn't want to commit himself). Getting quite excited about the prospect of Tenerife now, but still lots of paperwork to get sorted. Its hard to stay motivated though when the ship is swaying about, the sun is shining on my back and the sea is crying out for me to just sit and stare at it.
Spent a good part of yesterday getting our computer files set up for Togo so all our letter templates etc are now in place and ready to be used. Good job we did as today I have about 80 letters to sign for crew re-joining the vessel in Tenerife:-(

I Spy with my little eye....

Well after a couple of days at sea so far we've seen dolphins, whales (just), flying fish and a water 'spout' sort of mini tornado thing - which was a first for me!

Now if only we can find that Kraken .......................

New Mercy Ships Website

The new Mercy Ships Web site has been launched. At present only the USA version is rolled out so if you go to the general web page www.mercyships.org and click on the USA flag you'll see all the new stuff. One new feature is that all crew have their own page! So go to http://www.mercyships.org/page/outreach/view/crewmates/Rob and you'll see me. It's just a standard script at present but will be updated as and when I have time to submit something more personal about the clan:-)

All at sea

Well after 10 months of BENIN we are back at sea and heading for Tenerife. After a final week full of red tape, paperwork, missed deadlines and false promises we somehow managed (God's goodness) to get everything we needed in place to sail. So yesterday at approc 11:00 we sailed out of the harbour and waved goodbye to a handfull of people on the dock. It wasn't the most memorable departure, but for me at least it was one that I've looked forward to the most. Benin is a great country with lots of nice people who really appreciated the help that Mercy Ships offered - but for the Purser it was very, very hard work. Here are some pics of the ward being cleaned, lifting vehicles onboard, and other stuff.

10,000th dental patient!!

Ward Cleaning

UP

UP

AND AWAY..

No more of this for a while....