A call for help

Today was one of those days where everything seemed the same as any other day at sea.

I wake up at 7am to eat breakfast, brush my teeth and get dressed for the watch. Me and the rest of the group start our watch at 8 and work until 12. It was a regular workday with hard work and good sailing. Little did we know that our captain had planned for us to go to anchor for a couple of nights. This was great news; it meant more sleep for us and more time to catch up on schoolwork because no one had to have night-watch. Our director of studies even confessed that there is going to be a barbeque party tomorrow and that we are going to watch a movie projected on the sails, this is surely a good day.

Some people still had to work at nighttime still. Their job was to check if our anchor was getting loose or if anything else bad is happening to the boat. One of those people was me and my friend. We sat in the wheelhouse listening to music when a boat called out “mayday” on channel 16 on the radio. We and our watch leader listened for details on what was going on, we found out that a 48-foot vessel was sinking not too far from us. We carefully listened when the US coast guard responded quickly and issued us the coordinates to the sinking vessel. Unfortunately, the boat was far out of our range for us to get there in time and all we could do was wait. The minutes passed and the radio calls sounded like something out of a movie. I'll admit it, we were frightened.

Fortunately, after an hour, US coast guard announced that the crew from the vessel was in safe care and on their way to the hospital. So, we could go to bed with our minds at ease.

“This sure was an eventful day.”

-Oliver, Midship