Maarten, Marcy Judd returned home for just a few moments -- and even then she did not have a chance to resting or relaxing.

For Marcy has just completed a stint on the tall ship Astrid .

The Astrid is one of the last of a distinguished breed -- the brigantine -- and is used by the Astrid Trust, a charity set up in England to teach teenagers the techniques required to sail a tall ship.

The Astrid stopped in Bermuda for a few days before starting out on Wednesday on the arduous three-week crossing from Bermuda to England, and since Marcy will be making that trip as well, she is on duty even though she is on her home turf.

Marcy's time has been a valuable experience, and during her month-long voyage, she was even promoted to captain of her watch.

"The day has been divided into four watches,'' she said, "And for the last ten days (of the voyage) I was promoted to watch leader. I basically had to run the ship during that time period, but we were under the guidance of the crew.'' "The first thing that I had to do was to help clean the ship, but the crew tried to let us off as much as possible (for sightseeing). While we were in port, we had to do 24-hour watches, but they were rotated.'' Marcy found herself doing various jobs, like cooking, in addition to her four-hour watches while she was at sea, so life was hardly dull.

"To cure the boredom, you had to find things to do. I read a lot. I needed to get into sailing at first. From the beginning of the voyage about 75 percent of us trainees were seasick! I was sick for about two days, but I gradually got used to life on the open sea.'' One thing that Marcy soon came to appreciate was being able to take a "shower'' -- although she was only allowed one every three days! "Showers were a luxury!'' she says. "It was hot off and on, and then once you got in, you only had time to get damp, and then you had to turn the water off. You couldn't spend time luxuriating. It was, get wet, soap up, and get wet again. A shower is the thing that I looked forward to most when I got home.'' The complement of trainees is usually an internationally diverse group, but Marcy's was less diverse than most.

"It wasn't an international group when you look at the groups that usually sail with the Astrid ,'' she said. "In addition to me, we had one Swiss, one Dane, a Malaysian, and the rest were British.'' However, Bermuda lived up to its reputation as being another world to most of the folk on board the ship, for as Marcy says, the "Caribbean presumption'' that most people had went right out the window as soon as they saw the Island.

"Everyone thought that Bermuda was totally different,''she said, "They kept saying that Bermuda wasn't like the Caribbean, and they were amazed how much the Island had a real city-like atmosphere about it. Compared to what I saw in the Caribbean, we have definitely got it made here.'' Even the mighty Atlantic didn't live up to its often ferocious reputation.

"The voyage here was so smooth, it was like glass. We spent a majority of the time under motor power.'' But Marcy wouldn't change her experience for anything: "It was an amazing challenge. If one can do this and be able to say that you did it, you can do anything. After this any challenge seems easy. I learned that I had to depend on others and become a team. In the beginning we were all strangers, but we have ended up as friends.''