Öckerö gymnasium

A day of no significance

As we get closer to Bermuda you can feel the students longing for fresh water, stable ground and scoter driving.

One of the disadvantages, I will come to the second one later, with having one of the cabins in the back of the boat is that they are easily forgotten. Like today when the person supposed to wake us up failed to remember us and another student had to storm in saying lunch had already started. It wasn´t as if we had slept through breakfast and the whole morning as the 12- 4 watch eat lunch and breakfast combined at 11:20. Nevertheless, we had a bit of a hurry getting ready for our watch.

When the relief of the watch had been made, we had a variety of work to do. Some helped pack a sail that had, as it was broken, been taken down to be sent for reparation. Two people worked under the forecastle, another two with sandpapering and preparing for painting and some in the rig. Not much happened and our four hours were soon over. As the sun was shining and it was warm a lot of people got sunburned and had to spend the rest of the evening regretting their overexcitement for tanning.

The thing with the 12- 4 watch is that it feels like the day is only four hours. We wake up in the middle of the day, do our shift, and that is all sunlight we get. Afterwards we have lessons and then it´s dark. We go to sleep, or if your bold stay awake, have our night shift, and then go to sleep again. I don´t blame people for wanting to get as much out of the sunlight as possible, even if it results in burned skin.

At the end of a voyage the port presentation is like seeing the light in the end of a tunnel. It was undoubtedly my favourite lesson of the day. Bermuda seems very nice and I´m excited to drink something else but the water onboard. Can´t say I´m very fond of it. For the nature pupils it was also the last day before the chemistry report had to be handed in and when the clock made its way to twelve the big mess was more crowded than usual.

I also mentioned that there´s a second downside with living in a cabin in the back of the boat. It´s that we have openings in our wardrobes leading to tanks or spaces for storing. When they need to reach something everything in the wardrobe needs to be emptied making the small space in our cabins ever more crowded. Sometimes here and there I get, we all have things tucked away under our beds or a hatch on the foot board. The thing is that something has been leaking, making it hard for us to actually reach the door of our rooms because of all the people working on it, but bitterness is not something I feel.

The night watch was quite eventful, as we soon will reach Bermuda all the sails had to be dowsed and then furled. We didn´t have time to finish it all but most of the night was spent pulling ropes, climb the rig or flaking. This is also the last night we spend having the 12- 4 watch, it is a bit sad but I´m exited to yet again eat breakfast. I heard we have cornflakes.

Hope you are well

Isabella Ståhl

starboard

Publicerad:

Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
Björnhuvudsvägen 45
475 31 Öckerö

Telefon: 031-97 62 00
e-post: kommun@ockero.se