Arriving to Corsica

Today we arrived to Corsica and Ajaccio after three days of stormy seas and seasicknesses. It was nice to finally reach port and the weather was lovely, which was highly apprechiated after leaving a very rainy Barcelona.

The trip from Barcelona to Ajaccio seemed promising, but things quickly escalated when we hit a storm the second night. At first the ship started to tilt and suddenly hell broke loose. We were standing in water up to our shoulders and it was nearly impossible to get down the sails. Our watchleaders struggled for nearly an hour in the rig, trying to slacking the sails. When everything was at it`s worst an alarm went off in the students' corridor. It was a problem with a siphon causing it to close. The students flew out of their beds in panic, not knowing what was going on other than the ship having almost 40 degrees starboard list. By the time things settled down, our shift ended and we could finally go to sleep after four hours of blood, sweat and tears. When we woke up, things where almost back to normal. The day that followed was very peaceful compared to the previous night. All we did was putting things back in their places. Despite this i believe everybody felt a huge relief when we reached the port in Ajaccio one day later.

The town of Ajaccio was very picturesque and calm compared to the noisy Barcelona. Unfortunately my watch were on duty the first day so we couldn't leave the boat and exploring the town would have to wait for another day. Though we were surprised by another swedish ship which arrived only a few minutes after us: HMS Falken. The ship belongs to the marine and like T/S Gunilla serves as a training ship. The corsicans must believe that all we do in Sweden is sail. Now I must go and get some sleep before my next shift.

Good bye, or as they say on Corsica; Au revoir !

Leon Lek, Babord