From the 15th to the 20th of October 2023, I had the pleasure of taking part in SeaLab- an initiative started by Gabrielle Copini of Firda to bring together students from all different study programmes to explore our Wadden Sea! The Wadden Sea is a unique ecosystem, practically ‘in our backyard’ as students in Leeuwarden. Did you know it’s also a UNESCO Marine World Heritage Site?

The 5th edition of SeaLab consisted of a week focused on personal development, teamwork, nature, research and sailing! As a group of 24 students and 6 coaches, we spent the week on a three-masted clipper called the “Grote Beer”. It was truly an enriching and beautiful experience, here I take you along on my journey! 

Before we headed to the boat, we met the team in person on 3 different afternoons. The first one was an introduction, whereby we immediately really got to know each other trying to get out of escape rooms. During the second meet-up those who wanted had the chance to try some fresh seafood. The last meeting was an introduction to sailing, on the Grote Wielen, although those boats were quite a lot smaller than the boat we were going to spend a week on! 

Sunday evening

We all met in Harlingen and settled into our cosy rooms. All around you could hear “What’s your name again, are we in the same room, oh nice, I’m so excited, what about you?”. We visited a very old boat and were told the story of Willem Barentsz. We each picked out 3 ‘chores’ that we would fulfil that week, my first one being the wake up call the next morning at 7am! After a cosy evening of getting to know each other better over some card games, we headed to sleep, full of excitement for the first day of sailing in the morning.

Monday 

Our wake-up call set the tone of the day with some loud and fun songs. We were split up into two teams, differentiated by our different colour hoodies. Team Red started sailing, it was a super calm day on the ocean and we made our way to Texel. There were many moments without cell service, which was actually so refreshing as it allowed us to fully enjoy and relax in the moment. Once we made it to Texel we enjoyed a delicious dinner by Chef Klaas and some of the students before we played some sports activities on the island. 

Tuesday

After starting the day with a crazy cold dip in the ocean, Tuesday was research day on Texel! We visited the museum and marine rescue centre Ecomare, then we made our way to the beach where we collected water to find out how much plastic it contained.
Did you also know you can hold a jellyfish without getting stung? After some fun games and time off at the beach, we visited the nature reserve ‘De Slufter’, where we took in some amazing views and learned about plants, old fishing methods, and even caught some tiny shrimp and fish ourselves! (They were released back into the water of course.) 

We sailed to an in-between stop before heading to Terschelling and were in awe of the beautiful sunset on the water. We also worked on turning our research from the day into an engaging presentation, to share with our peers what we had discovered. This later sparked very meaningful conversations, which I’m very grateful for.

Wednesday 

If the sunset yesterday was beautiful, the sunrise on our way to Terschelling this morning was jaw-dropping! Almost everyone scrambled to the deck to try to capture the amazing colours of the sky. We explored some of Terschelling, found the ‘Brandaris’ (oldest working lighthouse in The Netherlands!) and took a little hike to a stunning viewpoint. In the evening we had a cosy “pub” quiz and campfire in a forest clearing, which I helped organise with a few other students. The energy was great, and we ended the evening with some karaoke and dancing!

Thursday

This morning there was the option to participate in the tough but fun sport of rowing, on the open ocean, with more than enough wind to blow you away! That was a true test of teamwork and perseverance. Later, another group went to the Maritime Academy, where we got to test out a real ship simulator! There was a choice of 3 activities on this day: we could visit a care home and spend time with some of the elderly residents, we could visit the ‘Jutfabriek’ and find out how plastic gets recycled, or we could get our hands dirty and help a local forest ranger remove grass from the dunes so more native plants could settle there. In the afternoon we had one of my personal highlights of the week, we went surfing! Although the water was quite freezing and the waves were not the calmest, the adrenaline gave me the drive to try again and again to stand up on the board, which worked once or twice! We warmed up with some hot chocolate at the beach before we headed back to the boat. That evening we heard that there would be a big storm in the upcoming days, so we made the decision to sail back to Harlingen in the evening already. Let me tell you, sailing at night with a lot of rain and wind was an experience that I won’t forget very soon! Sailing is truly a great way to work on teamwork, because you all need to pull the ropes in harmony. It’s tough but so rewarding!

Friday

On Friday it was unfortunately time to clean up, take our last pictures on the boat together with the Polaroid on board, and prepare what we would say in our treasure chest ‘pitches’. Basically, the whole week we were encouraged to keep a few things in a little treasure chest, and on the last day we each held a short pitch describing what made an impact on us and how we made an impact on our surroundings or on others. 

Before we held our pitches to each other, we could choose between joining in a guided meditation that one student organised, or go outside in Harlingen and ‘chase the storm’.

There were also compliment booklets that anyone could write in throughout the day, and these were read aloud every evening on board. It was incredibly wholesome. The group was so kind and we became very close during this week. This made the time for our pitches quite emotional. As our time on board slowly came to a close and people left the boat one by one, I reflected on how grateful I was for this special experience, the incredible people that I had met and the mesmerising nature that brought us together. As one of our crew members shared, we are all connected in the same way that the sailing ropes connect the ship.