A typical watch at sea, and hello Lisbon!

The day began at 3.30 in the morning, when starboard watch woke us up by singing “twinkle twinkle little star”, it was a nice way to wake up. Most of us are kind of in a bad mood every night because we have to wake up so early. It’s kind of funny to to see all of us being completely dead in the beginning of the watch and then later, be in the best mood and have so much energy.

When we got out on deck it was dark and kind of cold, almost all of the sails were set, and we could see the lights from Lisbon, lighting up the sky. When we started our watch, my watch, midships, sang a song as usual. This time it was a remake of the Swedish song “Ingen sommar utan reggae”, by Markoolio. It was very appreciated by the other watch.

The first hour of the watch we just sat sown at halfdeck, and were half asleep until night food, or as we call it, nattfika. Todays nattfika was pizza buns, one of my favorites. After fika we got ready to dowse all the sails. It was kind of though, especially since it was 5 o’clock in the morning, but we also had very fun. When the sun started to rise and we were up in the mast furling sails, we saw what must have been over thirty dolphins, jumping, heading towards Gunilla to play and swim alongside us, it sooo cool. When Port watch took over the watch, we made a song for our chief officer, Oskar, and our watch leader, Harry, it was our last watch with them as commanders, so we made a very special song. We did a remake of the song “En så’n karl”, by Lill Lindfors. It was very appreciated by everyone, and we got standing ovations from both the other watch and the commanders. Midships has kind of become known for our very creative songs and performances on the watch switches.

After the watch we went to sleep again, I was so tired and nothing is better than the nap between the night watch and lunch, I feel like a new person every time I wake up. After a couple of hours, we woke up in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal. It really is a breathtaking city, and after only a couple of hours here I can say that this is a harbour that I really love. There is so much to do and see, and the designs of the houses and the squares, and everything is beautiful. After lunch, me and a couple of friends went out to explore the city. We went to one of the main shopping streets so check out the shopping. Unfortunately, we were welcomed with kind of bad weather. It was cold and rainy, but we had a blast anyways. After some shopping, we wen to eat sushi at a very cozy restaurant. Then we decided to call it a night and took an Uber back to the boat to catch up with some sleep. One thing that we learn here at Gunilla, is to sleep every chance we get, because we need it.

It has been a very good day, and I’m looking forward to spending a week here and explore this town.

Tilda Ågren, Midships