Hello my name is Janne. I’m 16 years old and I come from Kiel which is in Germany. And I would like to tell you something about our day. Today we did free diving. I like it because when you are in the water and everything is quiet it is a moment where you can forget about everything else. But I think it is also a little bit frightening because you know that you are only a little piece in a very huge ocean. As a result I think that this was a very good experience for everybody who did it. In the afternoon we went to Elba Island. There we swam and we were on the beach. And with an ice cream or a drink in the hand we moved into the shadow. There we continued our discussion from last evening about the environment. But today we represented our own opinion and not the opinion of the BRIC, USA, EU, AOSIS, NGO’s, Business Alliance or the G77. It was a very fascinating and interesting discussion. And there were a lot of new aspects to talk about. One of them was that we thought about the population of the world and that the population is growing very, very fast. And when the population grows more and more energy will be needed. We talk about this and many other things which are important for the future of the world and for the future of our climate and environment. At the end we composed a few more paragraphs for our resolution. After another swim we returned to the ship. In my opinion it was a very great day because we combined a lot of fun and also interesting work. I hope I will have a lot of more beautiful days here on board of the ship. Pictured: Janneke (with Amy) at the environmental discussion.

Ciao! My name is Amy Wipfler, I live in the Californian Silicon Valley, and have recently turned eighteen. After a morning of pastries and strong coffee, we started the day with a rigorous cleaning, which I believe will be one of many more. Having completed our chores, we held a series of meetings, both indoor and outdoors, as we continued to approach Elba Island. As we discussed issues related to diversity, I felt that we began to create closer connections, as previously we had only dealt with superficial facts such as favourite foods and our desired super hero. Because we were finally thinking about and discussing with each other the major problems surrounding discrimination, we were able to actually connect to each others backgrounds and situations at a deeper level. The next activity that defined my day involved a swimming adventure. Many of the other members of the group had been itching for the last thirty-six hours to jump from the very tip of the bow into the Adriatic Sea. However, none of these eager adventurers were able to perform this feat during this swimming session. You may think that this would be the end of all swimming for the day, as did I, and I had noticed music coming from the mid-ship deck, so I went investigate. It turned out that approximately a dozen of the ship’s crew were doing an aerobics workout to music. As I was a fan of the songs being played by the aerobics instructor, and I had little else to do, I convinced Clara to join the other crew members with me for the workout. It was extremely enjoyable, and since we had entered the workout halfway, the instructor offered to extend it for another half-hour. I found at the end of the half-hour, was that the captain had offered to allow all of our group who had performed aerobics to be able to jump off the tip of the bow. Only three of us had joined for the second half, me, Clara, and Antonio. I figured that I may never again have the chance to jump fifty feet safely from a ship ever again, and so I decided to go for it. What an exhilarating feeling! I had never before realized how easy it is for your body to change its form as you drop fifty feet with gravity tugging, and so the landing in the water was much less than perfect. While the back of my knees may sting for the next day or two, I wouldn’t have exchanged that feeling for anything. We then feasted on pasta and chicken for dinner, and it seems that the crew have a surprise for us this evening (I think I know what it might be, but no comments now). All in all a very full and fun day, sure to be followed by many others. Signing off! Amy