Proud to be part of SA1821!

Depending on how strictly you follow these blogs, you might know the weather-god has been quite nice to us the past weeks. With almost all the sails set things were going on smoothly, at least until today…

Since we switched watches on Sunday, we in port watch do now work between 04:00-08:00. After a watch-switch, the sleeping schedule gets kind of mixed with so after our evening-watch on Monday we went to bed by 8 o’clock (or at least we tried), although it was not easy because the schedule we’re used to was to sleep at 4 o’clock in the morning. But as we all know by now, sleep is one of the most important things on this boat so we did our best and went to our bunks trying to sleep. All trainees, except Starboards, laid in our bunks, the sea got heavier and you had to hold tight not to fall out.

The hours went on, the clock past 10, then 12 and even 1 o’clock, without any sleep and the sea was now so heavy that you could feel from below deck that the long awaited storm had arrived only a few meters above. Then suddenly, a loud noise filled the corridor and all trainees flew out of their bunks, the hallway filled up with people taking on the slickers over their pyjamas. The alarm has gone off many times on our trips on Gunilla, but only as a drill, this time it was for real. We all helped each other get up, get ready and get out on deck. On deck I was met with chaos. The wind indicator showed 50 knots and deck was filled with flushing water and Starboard’s secured in guardrails.

After around 30 seconds on deck we were told to go back in, it was a false alarm. The alarm had went off because one of the water separating door started to shut. But 2 o’clock in the morning, every alarm sound the same, they all mean: GET UP, and so we did.

The sum of it all, now when the storm is gone and I can look back at what happened, I would say I am very proud of my class and to be a part of it. We finally got our wind!

Best regards,

Cajsa, Port Watch