Spoiled with fika

Gunilla is now as I write, slowly sailing down the coast of Denmark. At 3.30 AM, the watch and I were all awoken by my friend Sigrid playing the guitar. She informed us that we were now strikingly close to the Öresunds bridge.

We put on as much clothing as our bodies could bear, and hastily went out into the chilly night. The sky was dark, but on both sides of the boat you could see the city lights shining. Malmö on the Portside and Copenhagen on Starboard, each city competing to outshine the other. Sailing closer to the bridge I could have sworn that the tall masts were going to hit the bridge and break, cutting our trip unexpectedly short. I’m guessing that the captain had already double checked that this wouldn't occur, as we, in my surprise, sailed seamlessly underneath the glimmering bridge. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Wherever you turned or looked, the moon or either of the surrounding cities shined brightly through the dark.

Time flew by and we kept busy during the watch by furling the jib. After an hour we took a break for fika and ate us nauseous on buttery cocoa balls. For the rest of watch we ran around and braced all the sails. When we were done, our watch leader and chief officer looked up at the rig and decided that they weren’t satisfied and we had to do it all over again. This process of bracing, dissatisfaction of the bracing, and then bracing again continued throughout the remaining two hours of the watch.

Finally the bell struck eight glasses and the watch was over. We went under deck for breakfast, which I decided to skip (still feeling slightly nauseous and full from the earlier fika), instead going straight to bed. After a few hours I woke up from my well needed nap, ate some lunch and studied for a bit. In between classes and before my evening watch, we had a safety drill, fika and our weekly boat meeting. As if the morning fika wasn’t enough, the three o’clock fika today was cheesecake! Don’t think we’re all that spoiled with sweets. Cheesecake was a request from my friend Elina as it was her birthday yesterday. Though, come to think of it, our chefs on the boat do spoil us quite a lot. Not complaining!

This evening I had a galley-shift. I had, maybe sounding extreme, dreaded this, as I really really do not enjoy working in an institutional kitchen, especially not on a rocking sea. Nevertheless it was really nice and I ended up having a great time in the galley with my friend Ida. We were a good team and the time flew by without me even being near a breakdown. It was in fact really nice to get a break from the psychically tiring work up on deck. After four hours of work in the galley, me, Ida and the rest of the watch eventually were done for the day and had time to rest. I got myself a cup of tea, chatted with my friends, and crawled up in my cot. I begun reading and slowly felt my eyelids turning heavier as the waves rocked me to sleep.

Liv Hillberg SaB1922