The day we have all been waiting for

 After four extra days in Lisbon filled with excitement, expectations, confusion, new information and longing for this day, we finally woke up the morning of February thirteenth ready to take off into the big open sea.

This morning I think the most of us woke up with hope that the captain would tell us that everything is fine and everything will go exactly as we planned. That we finally would set sail to the Azores and have a 7 days long sailing without any problem. However this was not the case. At the regular morning gathering at 07.55 am we were told something that shocked us all. ”We will sail today but it will not be to the Azores, not yet. At 11am we will take off for a hopefully 5 days sailing to Madeira. We are expecting to arrive on the 17th of February”. If these news were good or bad is up to everyone to decide by themselves but in my opinion that I know many will agree on, I think this were the best news we have got in a long time.

We left Sweden the first day of February which means that it has almost been 2 weeks. Two weeks of learning and preparing for this specific day. Everything from how we should hold the door while entering a room and how to clean our cabins so things wont move when the boat does, to the big things like how to set sail. Although everything of this have been very helpful and interesting, standing at the front of the boat and feeling it move with other student around me that I am now able to call my friends, I didn't have a single thought about how I will work, sleep or eat these coming days. All I could think about in that moment was how thankful I am that I got the chance to meet these people. That wherever this boat takes us, however how many times the plans will change, I will make it through because of one single reson, my friends on this boat.

I have no idea if I will love or hate being at sea. If I will be sea sick, yelled at, hurt or very homesick but either way I'm excited to find it out and I never could have done it without my friends.

Saga Eriksson Forsell, starboard