Baptism of " firmm spirit "

Text: Astrid Meyer
Photos: Astrid Meyer / Verena Schlick

Saturday, 16 August 2008 :

After our "firmm spirit" had passed its first "baptism by fire" and had successfully been in use for a week, we celebrated with a drink on a small scale. All of the firmm staff members and volunteers, as well as the 3 former firmm -captains, Antonio, Miguel and Juan, accompanied by their wives, gathered for an aperitif in our new port office last Saturday evening to celebrate the long-desired arrival of the new boat.

After a short historical retrospective by Katharina describing firmm's evolution from the first Zodiac, the "Beluga" with its 18 seats, to the boat "foundation firmm" with 15 seats to the "firmm 1" with 24 seats and finally to this observation boat, which was built according to our special needs and wishes, the celebrators headed to the new pontoon.

Here, the passengers can easily board without having to navigate any ladders and catwalks.
Once onboard, Katharina ceremonially baptized the youngest member of the "firmm-navy" with Andalusian Vino de Jerez, naming it "firmm spirit".



Later on, all the guests went aboard and explored the accommodations and equipment. The former captains showed a particular interest in the equipment in the captain's deck and in the engine compartment. The volunteers took pleasure in scaling the fly deck beyond the captain's cabin, where normally only Jörn and Katharina station themselves to look for the animals.

The beautiful evening ended in the light of the full moon, in front of firmm's new port office.