From the mist, she dawned. An evening eerie and grey, her contours sharpened slowly as she approached us in little wind and her sails were doused one by one before she dropped anchor. Douarnenez, two years ago, when I first laid eyes on Tres Hombres. Since then I have spent about as much time aboard as on land.

I had initially booked one leg, which turned into two months sailing. The next year, to my slight surprise, I got to work as deckhand sailing along the coast of Europe again. Two months later – to my astonishment – I found myself bringing her to the Caribbean and back.

And now, not entirely anticipated either, I am on board yet again, as bosun this time. For the third time running Tres Hombres sailed for Copenhagen out of Getaria with a cargo hold full of nature wine – and me. West Europe’s seas haven’t changed much. Choppy, compared to the ocean. A few more wind farms, oil rigs and loads of traffic you’re trying to avoid. The ship for all her dynamics and crew changes is a familiar and safe place for me. Our Captain put it beautifully today: on board this ship people find patience and confidence. It’s what she does. As always, in the first few weeks after stepping on I become less agitated, more balanced and ironically more grounded.

A lot is different from two years ago, though. What I loved about becoming a deckhand was that whenever I saw something I felt was needed to be doing; coiling a rope or initiating to clean something, I could just decide to do it since after all, that was what I was hired for. I didn’t need to ask someone first. I drew the nav room roof full of schedules in chalk to teach about navigation signals and apparent wind and I kept up morale in chilly nights by reading to my watch from the fantastic “The 13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear.”

Now it’s like I’m in a huge playground with too many structures to choose between. Every little part on board needs attention and caretaking. Ropes, spars, sails, rigging, planks, metalwork, water, the dinghy… They all require treatment and all the work is interesting (except tarring endless measurements of manilla). It was a little overwhelming and yet I feel like this new role is the natural next step in my development as a sailor on Tres Hombres.

I would say there is a good chance of me sailing from Getaria to Copenhagen again. Who knows in what role – there’s a few left to try. As I have kept stepping on, I have found that so far there isn’t less, but only more to discover. And soon it is time for my third offloading party!

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