Öckerö gymnasium

From emigartion to jive

During our time on Gunilla, the number of things you can fit into 24 hours of free watch varies immensely. Some days, we sleep until lunch, take a walk, play some
guitar on deck and consider the day finished. Today was not one of those days.

We started the day off by walking to the EPIC museum. My watch had to work when the other watches visited the museum, so we had our visit today instead. It was interesting to see the way that Ireland uses their history of emigration as a part of its culture, and also refreshing to see that women were represented almost to the same extent as men, something that is sadly unusual in most historical exhibitions.

On our way back, we saw something surprising. Three new masts showed their presence, a new tall ship had arrived. That means that we now have three ships lying one after another on the same quay, and I see the people staring as they walk by as a confirmation that this does not happen very often. One Swedish ship, one irish, and one British. However, do not worry, Gunilla is still by far the biggest and best-looking ship in Dublin. We also obviously have the best crew.

After a short lunch break, we welcomed a group of students from the college we visited yesterday. Our chefs had prepared loads of berry pie and we presented ourselves as the “Swedish sailing Fika-gymnasium”. We proceeded to show them the boat, of which they were very impressed, and chit-chatted for about an hour. It was very nice to interact with the Irish youth, but I realized that every time I close my eyes everything is still spinning as if I still feel the waves rocking the boat back and forth. Maybe it’s my body telling me it wants to go back out at sea.


When the last Irishman had left the ship, it was time for yet another adventure. We’ve had a tradition to visit thrift shops in every port, and Dublin has probably the best selection yet. I met a sweet American lady in one of them who encouraged me to buy a red shirt that she thought looked good so I did, without questioning her style advice. Now I have a red shirt in my wardrobe that fits none of my other clothes, but I’m sure it’ll look stunning once I figure out an outfit.

Once we came back it was time for dinner, but we had barely started eating before the shocking news hit us. Queen Elisabeth is dead. Except for the fact that the world has lost the most famous monarch of our time, this is also a relevant event at Gunilla. That is because we divide our rags into two different categories, “fresh rags” and “close to dead rags”. Before today, the “close do dead rags” were decorated with a picture of Elisabeth, but now we have to find another famous person who is probably close to dying. Feel free to email me if you have any advice.

Later the same night, we took a walk to Lidl and invested in 24 liters of soda and 2 kg of chips, since we knew that our captain had invited some of his friends to play some music on the boat later that night. We’ve gone out basically every night listening to live music in different bars, for example, yesterday we found a man playing Irish folk music on a flute. I do have to say though, that nothing we’ve heard in the bars beats listening to our captain and his friends giving us a live concert on deck. The watch had put up lighting and we listened to everything from love songs, to sad songs complaining about oppression and famine. One of
them reminded me of Öckerö when they ended every verse with “thank god we’re surrounded by water”. The concert resulted in a dance party with abba and jive, basically all you need for a night of great success.

Caroline

Publicerad:

Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
Björnhuvudsvägen 45
475 31 Öckerö

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