Sailing to the temple and back

Last week we were on a sailing ship--a big two-masted, traditional sailing ship--and it was awesome!

School ended on Friday and the next day we embarked on our journey on three ships, the "Seute Deern" (=sweet girl in plattdeutsch (a northern dialect of German)),

the "Amphitrite" and the "Albatros" (the last two were three-masted). We were traveling with the youth (girls and boys 12-18) from our local church congregation and several of the surrounding congregations.

We pulled (and sometimes just held) ropes,

raised and lowered sails,

measured water and air temperature,

This kind of made you feel mutinous...you had to throw the 'admiral' overboard :)

and even steered (!).

Day 1--where my hair had not yet been confined to braids and my new sailing hat :)

F even steered us into the harbor at Copenhagen!

We even held church on one of the ships--and the waters were still. The crew was amazed--they had seldom seen the Baltic Sea so calm.

And, what do you know? After we were finished the wind picked up and the rain started :) (Coincidence? ;) I think not)

Here we are passing the island of Møn (Denmark). It has chalk cliffs, like in Dover (England), Calais (France) and Rügen (Germany).

We sailed to the temple in Copenhagen.

It felt like a journey to the promised land, like in the scriptures.

Moses and the Israelites walked to their promised land, but in the Book of Mormon (another book of scripture that testifies of Christ) there are reports of a few journeys--by boat--to a promised land.

While in Copenhagen,

That spiral steeple is not from the Frauenkirche, but I thought it looked really cool!

we also went to the Frauenkirche--where the original Christ statue is located, by Thorvaldsen. He also sculpted each of the 12 apostles.

Statues are all fine and good--but I also really liked the mobile that they had at the back of the church. There was even an invitation to interact and contribute,

but sadly all the beans were gone (upon which you could write something that gave you hope. courage, peace, faith, security, love, inspiration, etc.) I loved it.

One of these famous guys in front of the palace shares F's name :)

We watched the changing of the guard--and the Danes certainly seem proud of them!

Sometimes the wind didn't play nicely (i.e. come from a helpful direction) so we had to use the motor, but we still got to sail as well. The captain said, if we hadn't had a goal (in this case, Copenhagen), then we would have just sailed where the wind allowed us to sail.

Several got seasick, but luckily we were fine. We were even sleeping at the very front, in the focs'l, so we often had serious ups and downs. Sometimes the waves felt like being rocked in a cradle--and sometimes like riding a roller coaster :D

We even sailed through the night once! But the thing that we had least expected (and been least prepared for) was keeping watch around the clock.

We were divided into 3 watches and even when we set an anchor, someone (usually 2) needed to be keeping watch. Oi. 2-4am..that's an especially hard one. *yaaaawn*

However, the 4-6am watch lets you see the sunrise!

And here are some more pics just for fun!

We ate BANANA-PIG!

When we got back to our own bed around midday a week later, we then slept for 5 hours. And the bed kept swaying back and forth..the floor too. Hm. In fact, the next day at church the ground still hadn't really settled and off and on for the next few days (especially after lying down) the ground decided that acting like the sea would be more fun :) I guess, being made of ca. 70% water lets you really get in tune with that element!