Smoking kills and sperm whales

On todays watch, I stood by the rudder and did my thing as a helmsman. I see that two of my watch buddies came out on deck with loads of books and a notebook. They sat down and started reading and writing down notes. When I asked someone what they were doing, but they just said it was a secret. Then it came two more buddies and started doing the same thing, and I became really curious what’s going on…

Later, on the evening watch, I was helmsman again. It was pitch-black outside, and you couldn’t really see anything. All of a sudden everyone in port watch is gathering around in a circle and the two who earlier had been so sneaky was now sitting with the notebook and a flashlight. They were going to have a presentation about health. They were teaching how to live a healthy life and what could make you die sooner than expected if you didn’t know your blood pressure or was smoking! Shocking, I know. Then, they had prepared a test, they asked questions about your life and routines. The end results was telling you how old you are going to be. We are going to die at the ages 64-87, so some of us should feel lucky, and some should maybe question their lifestyle.

Then it was time for the other presentation, and this one was about whales! Or to be exact, one whale. We learnt about the biggest whale with teeth, the sperm whale. Was is maybe the reason why some of you clicked on this blog (oopsi)? I never understood why it got the name, or if I want to know in the first place. The sperm whale can be between 18 to 20 meters. It can go as deep as 2000 meters under the water surface, and when they want to go back to the surface, they sometimes to a little jump out of the water. The splash it makes can be seen up to 15 nautical miles. Talk about a belly flop!

It was really cozy, and I hope we can do it some other time!

Julia (Jullstar) Hagberg, Port watch