A group of Dutch high school students with little sailing experience completed a five-week trip across the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday. The group said they returned home by boat instead of by airplane because of coronavirus travel restrictions.
The students, ages 14 to 17, were joined by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers. They had been taking part in an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the coronavirus outbreak forced them to greatly change the way they returned home.
The change in plans taught 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans an important life lesson.
这一计划的变动给17岁的斯洛·赫克曼斯上了人生重要的一课。
"Being flexible, because everything is changing all the time," she said. "The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important."
“要随机应变,因为万物都在不断变化,”她说。“抵达的时间一直在更改。灵活变通真的很重要。”
Instead of flying back home from Cuba as they had planned, the crew members and students gathered supplies and warm clothes. Then, they set sail for the Dutch port city of Harlingen, 7,000 kilometers away. Their boat, the Wylde Swan, arrived at Harlingen late Sunday morning. Observers gathered at a sea wall to watch the arrival.
As they arrived, the students hung up a self-made sign on the boat that read "Bucket List." It showed they had completed activities that included crossing the Atlantic Ocean, mid-ocean swimming and surviving the Bermuda Triangle. The Bermuda Triangle is an area in the Atlantic where some people claim ships and planes have mysteriously disappeared.
The students' family members were waiting for them at the port. Parents drove their cars next to the boat one by one to follow social distancing rules.
学生的家人在港口等待着。家长们挨个儿把车开到帆船边,以遵守社交距离规定。
On the ship, it was impossible to follow any kind of social distancing, Hurkmans noted.
赫克曼斯指出,在船上是不可能保持任何社交距离的。
"Here you have to be social all the time to everyone because you're sleeping with them, you're eating with them you're just doing everything with them so you can't really just relax," she said.
Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she understands the coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.
"I think that after two days she'll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home," the mother said. "There's nothing to do, she can't visit friends, so it's very boring."
Masterskip, the company that organized the boat trip, runs five educational cruises for about 150 students each year. Crossing the Atlantic is nothing new for the Wylde Swan, which has made the trip about 20 times.