2024 has almost come to an end, which tend to make us humans look back to the year we've had. I am no different, and honestly for me 2024 felt like a strange year. I got to visit new countries, revisited a few (favourite) countries, & went back to a town that I hold very close to my heart. I saw many different incredible wildlife, both in the sea and on land. I am incredibly grateful for all the opportunities I've had this year. All this travelling doesn't necessarily mean I have been doing really well mentally, I have been incredibly frustrated, which, in the last few months started to take over my mind. This year was also very eye opening on a professional level and what I seek from an employer. However, the future does look very bright, and this positive change from the last week or so, has made me look back a bit more fondly to 2024, and recognise it for what it was. An amazing year full with exploration.
I am currently writing this post from my friends home in Switzerland, being, sleepily, stared at by one of my friends two cats, (Nova). Nalu must be sleeping somewhere close by I guess. Outside, a thick layer of ice fog is covering the town, turning trees white with frost. On the ground there is still a layer of snow from last weeks snow fall. Honestly its the perfect weather to grab a cup of tea and start reminiscing about the past year. Switzerland is, unsurprisingly, one of the countries I have revisited this year. I found the time twice this year to travel to the Swiss Alps (bank account didn't always agree) and visit my friend Jolisa and her two calico cats Nova & Nalu! I travelled for a weekend back in September and now ending the year of 2024 and starting 2025 in Switzerland. But I am getting ahead of myself, before I got to Switzerland I travelled to ''a few'' other places in the world. Let's travel back in time to January 2024.
January, February, March: Around the world.
World cruise
2024 for me started strong with a nearly 3 month long journey, visiting many different new countries and places. Early January I boarded the Fred.Olsen's Borealis, as an Ocean Conservationist for ORCA and travelled half way around the world. During the cruise my colleague Nina and I, ran wildlife watches on sea days, gave lectures on cetaceans and talked to guests about all things whales and dolphins and other wildlife of our worlds oceans. We experienced many storms, had amazing wildlife encounters, disappointing days with no sightings, explored new ports & cities, sailed through a country, and got to meet new cultures. In the roughly 8 weeks I worked on the ship, I got to see or at least get a little taste of what these countries have to offer. I visited: 7 new countries and ended the cruise in an 8th new country.
The first three parts of my adventures of the world cruise are already on my blog, part 4 & 5 (maybe 6) are still work in progress. Which is one of the things on my to do list in 2025. I did end up loving the world cruise, despite various frustrations (think storms, cancelled ports, and work related). I am really thankful for the opportunity of doing this cruise, the guest were absolutely wonderful, the countries beautiful and the wildlife amazing! There were a few places I would like to revisit and explore properly, like New Zealand and Costa Rica.
Australia
I disembarked the Borealis on my birthday in Sydney, Australia! I stayed in Australia for 2 weeks, exploring Sydney and Melbourne and their surrounding areas. I first spend a week in Sydney, where I walked around the city myself, did a tour to visit the Blue Mountains and met up with distant family members, including my late grandma's sister, and distant cousins. My grandparents on my fathers side, both come from large families, and some of them emigrated to Australia decades ago.
After a week of exploring Sydney, I took a train to my next destination; Melbourne. The train took me in around 10 hours to Melbourne. If you ever find yourself in down under, I do recommend to take the train to travel, rather then fly if you don't have access to a car. It's relatively cheap, an economy ticket only costs around 80AUD. I personally loved seeing the country pass me by, whilst the train slowly made its way through the Australian country side.
In Melbourne, I explored the city, did two tours, one to Philip Island and to the Great Ocean road. Doing these tours allowed me to see a bit more from the country and to me visiting Philip Island was a highlight. I mean add penguins in the mix and I am a very happy person. Yes, there is one species of penguin, who calls Australia home, the little blue penguin also known as a fairy penguin. On Philip Island I also got to see wild wallabies, which I found absolutely adorable, seeing them hop through the tall grasses. Throughout my stay in Australia I visited a few wildlife sanctuaries to get to see some of the amazing wildlife that Australia has to offer. Both dangerous and cute! I did get to see one koala in the wild, or rather the bum of a koala high up in a tree along the great ocean road. What I will remember from this trip are all the amazing animals both in the cities and outside, beautiful cities and getting to meet distant family members. Meeting distant family also ment I got a better insight and feeling of living in Australia. Special mention for all the ''normal'' city birds in Australia! Why birds? Well we in Europe tend to see pigeons, and jackdaws everywhere in the city, which are relatively plain compared to bird species like the ibis (bin chicken), cockatoo and other amazing brightly coloured birds.
Singapore
After 2 weeks in Australia it was slowly time to travel back to Europe. When I say slowly, I mean fly to Singapore and stay here for a week. I wasn't alone though in Singapore, one of my closest friend travelled from Switzerland to Singapore, to help break my long flight up and of course celebrate her birthday! ''Yes, that is the same friend I am staying with now (Nalu appeared and is currently staring out of the window). ''
In Singapore we explored the city, went on a rainforest hike, and did a kayak tour through the mangroves of Pulau Ubin, an island to the north east of Singapore. The city is so big with tall high rises, which felt quite normal compared to other big cities I visited in the last few weeks. What's different though, is how incredibly clean Singapore is! A highlight within the city were the Gardens of the bay, especially in the evening during the light show! I am not really a city girl, so between city days, days spend in nature are definitely needed! And both the rainforest hike and the kayak trip in the mangroves were a highlight for me when it comes to nature. In the rainforest we followed the tree top trail, which is a 7km hiking trail, and crosses an airbridge through the tree canopy! We saw lots of long tailed macaques on this trail. (tip do not eat anything whilst in the rainforest, the monkey will steal your food from your hand). Going through the mangroves, whilst in a kayak, is an excellent way of exploration. We did a tour and followed a guide through the winding arms of the mangrove, and had a small stop at a small local place to refresh with a coconut. We were almost at the end of our kayak tour when Jolisa spotted an otter close to shore! This week in Singapore was definitely well spend, in good company and the food was on another level! And as a cherry on the cake we celebrated a birthday in the Jewel, a shopping centre next to the airport with a massive indoor waterfall and garden.
April, May, June: North Sea & Scotland
It was nearly the end of March, when I returned to the Netherlands. This left me with little over two weeks of being at home to get settled back in non travel life, before my third North Sea ferry season started onboard the DFDS King Seaways. This year working on the ferry felt the same but different at the same time. This was partially due to the change in rotation length. In both 2022 and 2023 seasons the rotation was as follows; roughly two weeks on and two weeks off. This year the rotation got changed to four weeks on and four weeks off. Which I found quite taxing, I don't mind working on my own and running the wildlife centre and the deck watches by myself. The length of the rotations, turned this once fun job, where I had lots of energy on little sleep, into something more demanding, the same amount of sleep and work hours but twice the amount of days in a row. This definitely took the fun part away. I must say though that this position still leaves me with a rewarding feeling, as so many people are surprised to see whales and dolphins in the North Sea. The conversations and the look on peoples faces when they see a whale or dolphin in the wild for the first time, is brilliant, and remains an important reason to keep doing this job.
Scottish isles
Ever since seeing the Shetland detective series and reading the books by Ann Cleeves, I have wanted to visit the Shetlands. In May of this year I actually got the chance through ORCA. I was offered an Expedition cruise with Noble Caledonia along the Scottish Isles. I did this cruise between two rotations on the ferry. This ment I had to travel to Scotland, a country I hadn't been back to since leaving in January 2018, after living in Oban for a year. As luck would have it, I had to embarked the cruise in Oban. Oban still holds the nr.1 spot of being my favourite town I have been able to call home. Naturally I arrived in Oban a day earlier than necessary, and walked around town on a beautiful warm may day. I met up with my supervisor from my internship, and it felt great to be back.
The next day I embarked the Ocean Nova (Ship not cat) and met the expedition team and was ready to set sail on this short 2 week cruise. I loved being back on expedition, exploring new places and driving on zodiacs. We visited the Treshnish isles, got to go to St. Kilda, which is, sometimes, considered to be a difficult island to land on. St. Kilda is also home to the Saoy sheep, a special species of sheep which can only be found on St. Kilda. We then went to the Orkney islands and of course to Shetland.
This trip lacked in whale sightings, only saw a couple of common dolphins and 1 minke whale. However, what this trip lacked in cetaceans, the sea birds made well up for it. Puffins, Gannets, kittiwakes, guilimots and razorbills galore! Sea birds absolutely everywhere by the thousands. Scotland is very important for the global population of many seabirds. It is believed that around 1 million seabirds nest along the Scottish coast and islands! What an impressive sight, to see them all on the cliffs of the islands nesting and flying over head. With this amount of seabirds, it's quite difficult to remain ''dry'', I have been hit my multiple droppings, all worth it though! Another fun experience on Shetland was a hike on the southern end of mainland, where we had to cross the airport landing strip. And we had to hurry along as there was an incoming plane. The trip ended with a landing on Fair Isle, the island where the knitting pattern Fair Isle comes from. It's a small island between Shetland and Orkney, mostly covered in, unsurprisingly sheep. There are currently only 48 people who live on Fair Isle. After two Scottish weeks, it was time to return to the North Sea for another four week rotation on the ferry. Honestly, I loved my trip to Scotland, despite hardly seeing any cetaceans, it's just a reminder that we guides are dealing with nature and not a zoo, and nothing is as unpredictable as nature! Doing a cruise in a four week off period, might not have been the best choice, especially when the next rotation on the ferry in in June, aka mid-summer, in other words long evenings and early mornings! Sleep? what is sleep exactly? In this time I averaged probably less then 6 hours of sleep per night. I think it is time for a holiday.
July, August and September: North Sea and England
Which is exactly what I did with two friends from uni, we took the ferry, (work?!) to England and spend 4 days in Seahouses. We took Princess Seaways, the sister ship of King seaways which is the ship I worked on. Travelling on Princess was great as this year was the first time ORCA was on Princess, and this was the perfect excuse to catch up with Eilidh, with whom I had rotated last year onboard king.
Our days in Seahouses were spend by doing some hikes along the coast, visited both Alnwick and Bambrugh castle, and visited the Farne Islands to see a colony of Grey Seals and Puffins. It was nice to be on holiday again and relax a bit more. It was definitely needed after these last few months of working, hardly resting or sleeping. It was nice to be away with friends, who I hadn't really been talking with for some time. The down side of travelling, I struggle sometimes to keep up with some friendships. The rest of these months were relatively uneventful, mostly covered with working on the ferry, where I did get to do some filming for social media content for DFDS and ORCA. It was in this time period on the ferry though, that it started to dawn on me, that this could very well be my final season on the ferry with ORCA. Working for a charity is greatly rewarding, and you do feel you are contributing to a better world. Unfortunately the pay isn't the best, and this year, the salary was worse then the previous years. Of course, one doesn't go into conservation for the money, however, with the current rate I can't, financially, afford to keep doing this job. This feeling left me very uncertain on what to do, as I love the job, but financially I can't keep doing this as my full time job. It's impossible to safe up money for a place of my own. This led me to start investing in myself, in order to improve my prospects of finding another job. As to me, it seemed evident that this is something I should focus on. This lead me into doing and completing my STCW course. This is something I am proud of to have done. I had started looking for other jobs and what lots of them required were certain qualifications and certificates. One of which was the STCW is a safety course for seafarers, where you learn the basics of firefighting, first aid and survival at sea. Strange that I hadn't needed one before, even though I would have considered myself to be a seafarer.
Switzerland
All these new thoughts and decisions before me, ment I needed some time away again as my mind started to feel overwhelmed. So I went to a place so beautiful it calms my mind and relaxes me; Switzerland. Luckily this is of course where my friend Jolisa lives. I packed my bag and left to visit her in the beautiful Swiss Alps and went on a lovely hike in the mountains. We ended up doing probably the best hike yet in Switzerland. We aimed for a late summer-esque kinda hike, you know the sort, lovely sunshine and dry mountain paths to easily walk over. It ended up being more of a wintry hike in summer gear. As there had been an early snow dump a few days before, so we ended up on the mountain Niederhorn, hiking in the snow. It was a snowy 12km hike down a mountain, with the most gorgeous views! The sun was shining and started melting the snow, which lead to slippery and muddy paths. We carefully slided our way down the mountain. I think that the snow actually made the hike and scenery more beautiful! Being in nature with friends, helps to clear the mind, and see things in a different perspective.
October, November & December: Home and Norway
The ferry season for me ended in early October (you can read all about this year north sea season in our blog post from my colleagues, Alex, Eilidh, Emily and Me). The end of the season lead, me to share my thoughts and uncertainties with ORCA, about financially not being able to do another season, unless something could change. This resulted in a; we are sorry to see you go but we understand your reasoning. I then continued on the investing in myself route, by doing a powerboat level 2 course, which means I am now able to drive zodiacs! And oh boy did I love driving the zodiacs!
Norway
In November I embarked on my final cruise of 2024 with ORCA, I boarded Fred.Olsens' Balmoral in Newcastle and went to Norway. Going to Norway in the winter has always been on my to do list, I mean huskies, whales feasting on herring, add in some snow and the northern lights, to me this sounds like an ideal adventurous holiday! Although, technically, now I am working in winter Norway, not on a holiday. Winter in Norway can be amazing, but also awful. My experience is a blend of the two. From hurricane force winds, forcing us to stay in Alta Fjord for an additional day going round in circles, to beautiful calm fjords covered in snow, making the world look like winter wonderland. Two of our ports of call got cancelled due to the weather, Tromsø and Narvik. We did get to visit Alta and Ålesund.
In Alta I did the one thing that I really wanted to do; whale watching! There wasn't much daylight, think sunrise around 9 in the morning and sunset around 11:30 in the morning. However this is enough to go out in the fjords to spot some whales! It took some time before we spotted anything, when suddenly on the horizon, party poppers appeared! One blow after the other, giving us the idea that there must be over 40 whales in the fjords, and some were come our way! The humpback whales passed us very close by, swimming in a group of around 20 together. This left me simply in awe and with tears in my eyes! We also saw a very distant lone orca swimming in the fjord but he simply vanished. A day later whilst stuck in the fjord system due to a hurricane, I did get to see 2 more orca passing the Balmoral. In the end these were the only sightings from this cruise, 10 days and hardly anything, only in the north where the herring spawn in this time of year. Will this have been my final cruise with ORCA? Time will tell, I only know that I can't keep doing this full time, and that ORCA has shared with all Ocean Conservationist, that next year, cruises will be allocated more frequently to newer OC's rather then longer standing, experienced OC's. This is a decision they made, which let me know that the decision I made a few months ago to start looking for a new job is the right one. I now have most of the certifications needed in this field and the rest of the year was mostly spend by sending one application after the other in search of a new job. This left me blocked from writing for this blog, as I felt so uncertain of my future and where I will be? How long will it take to find something new? Will a new job be enough to start saving money to maybe at some point find my own place to live?
Now I am here again in Switzerland about to celebrate new years eve with Jolisa and her two cats Nova and Nalu. And excitingly in the week before I left for Switzerland, I got some very good news indeed! A very exciting opportunity came up, keep an eye out on my social media for an exciting update hopefully soon! This does leave me so excited for the new year, plus having 2 trips booked with my parents, one to Edinburgh and a proper holiday to Norway in November. Let 2025 begin!
Thank you for reading this, very personal, blog with my summary of 2024. I wish you all a happy new year! Hopefully 2025 will be filled with happiness, and don't forget to enjoy every day! You can have bad days, but always stay positive. That is definitely the lesson I learned this year. If something doesn't work the way you think it should, don't be afraid to change for a better future. Find something that always puts a smile on you face, it can be anything. For me its always seeing cetaceans! No matter how tired I am or how grumpy I feel, the moment one of these animals breaks the sea surface, I immediately have a massive smile on my face! Thank you to all my friends, family and colleagues who have supported me this year! And now its time to get back to cuddling with two cute cats, and spent some quality time with a good friend!
Best wishes,
Mathilde
2024 in highlights
New countries visited: Bermuda, United states of America, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico, French Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore. I revisited Engeland, Scotland and Norway. I did finally get to go to the Orkney and the Shetland Islands, which had been on my list of places to visit for a long time.
All the cetacean sightings this year!
Favourite Book : How to speak whale by Tom Mustill! Favourite fantasy book: the liveship traders trilogy by Robin Hobb. Loved reading this trilogy whilst on the world cruise! Favourite songs released in 2024: The ghost in me - Epica An Ocean of strange islands - Nightwish
The emptiness machine - Linkin Park
Comments