Day 55 - Diving with Seals in Rostock

Hey everyone!

Today was a really great (diving) day!

So, we woke up early: 2 hours before the planned departure time - and still managed to get stressed :).

Well, we left about 10 minutes late, directly into traffic... But luckily it wasn't too bad, as it only lasted about 10 minutes. After getting lost at the huge harbor, we actually arrived a bit early at the diving school. Feeling slightly guilty because we didn't have our equipment with us, we knocked on the door. It was a brown wooden door with a sign saying "we're currently on a trip". We didn't expect anyone to be there and pushed down the door handle. The door actually opened! Inside the small diving center sat a man on the couch with his dog wrapped in a blanket. We were allowed to come in and he immediately knew that we were there for the seal diving. When asked what time it was, he underestimated by an hour and said "oh, we still have soooo much time... Get your equipment and take the wagon that's outside."

We went and joked about the slightly absentminded guy :).

Back with everything we needed, we chatted for a bit - man, he talked a lot, really a lot! Then we prepared our diving gear and changed clothes. We took the boat to the seal research station, where we were warmly welcomed. After a couple of briefings, we were ready to go!

First, we were allowed to dive freely for 30 minutes, although we didn't see much of the seals. Occasionally, one would swim by, but due to poor visibility (1-2 meters at most), we usually only saw them once they were already gone. Then came the seal training. That was really suuuuuper!!! We dived to the jetty where the training took place and watched everything from below. Suddenly, the seals weren't shy at all anymore, they dived down to us and came really close! They brought their snouts to our hands, cameras, lamps, and were even cuddling with us! After 45 minutes, it was time to resurface. No one was happy that the time was already up - it was truly a lot of fun!

After returning to the diving school, we returned our equipment to the camper and chatted for a bit longer. Around 5 p.m., we said goodbye, had a little snack in the motorhome (pasta with a great sauce that we got from Kevin's mom), and found a camping spot. There was one 50 minutes away, where we could even do laundry! So, off we went!

We were received like never before! Soooo friendly, funny, and warm-hearted. We were really impressed...! After that, we picked a nice spot and started doing laundry. We also checked the pictures - 1 or 2 of them turned out really well! We'll upload them tomorrow afternoon/evening, the internet reception here is really bad...

It's now 11 p.m. and we're fully motivated to enjoy the rest of the evening :)).

Tomorrow, we'll drive a bit further: we still have a great diving spot in sight! Whether we'll drive there tomorrow or settle somewhere along the way, you'll find out then ;).

See you tomorrow!