Night Watch

Night-watches can get really boring sometimes, but it’s wonderful that the small thing become the happiest moments and they always matter at night time.

Two bells, four bells, six bells, eight bells. Eight bells stroken. It was midnight and we had just started our night watch. Barely awake I was heading for my round as I was rondman. It’s funny how I don’t need night vision anymore because after two and a half month on this boat you know every inch of it. I did my round and wrote down all the numbers that I don’t have a clue what they are and why they are important. Nothing special happened until I was heading for my third round. Before that the watch just chilled at halv deck as we usually do when we have nothing to do. We often discuss what we are going to eat when we come home. How our candy bag looks like and what chocolate we choose. Some people miss their cats, some people miss their friends and most of us miss to shop food at a classic ICA store. I just told our second mate Jerker that I was about to go on my round when we heard a Swedish voice calling on Gunilla on the obligatory radio-canal 16. She asked us if we could change to canal six to communicate with each other in peace. Slowly I went back to the skylight. Jerker respond and the next five minutes follows with a conversation between them on a speaker so the whole watch could hear it. Her name was Agnes and she were mate on a cruise ship called Adventure of the sea which also had the same home-port that we are going to in Everglades in a couple of days. She thought it was nice to see a Swedish ship show up on the radar and then we heard a lot of more things that she thought was nice. It was cool to hear another swede because the usual case on channel 16 is som Russian or Ukrainian people who are really bored and start to sing with each other and then there is always one Spanish guy who get really pissed of.

We saw another ship that came from starboard and headed right in front of us with two short nautical miles which is kind of risky. Nothing happened though. The stars lighted up the sky and even though the wind wasn’t with us, we still had a good watch. When I was done with my round I came back to see my watch gathered around the skylight. Someone read about Gunilla and everyone ether slept or listened quietly. I took myself a seat little bit away from the group and just watched them as everyone laid on each other. The stars were the only thing that lighted up the dark. When you lay down on deck you can see how the mast, with all the sails on, itching heaven. Its pretty amazing that we have used the winds to sail across a sea with those sails. Then I don’t remember anything else from this day but this is a normal night watch on Gunilla. See you soon peeps!

Bye

Ebba Axelsson Larsholt

Portship