18/2–2025

I am currently on the 4-8 watch, so I woke up at 03:30 to wake up for watch. The first watch I was what we on the ship call “Rondman”. The rondman´s assignment is to check that the small things on the boat run smoothly.

You change towels, check the engine, look around the ship so nothing is on fire and tidy up. This means that the rondman instead of the watch can be a lot under deck, this is especially nice if there are hard winds and raining outside. This was the case on this particular night watch. I, as a rondman had manage to escape all the worst winds and most of the rain and because of this become a bit cooky. That is why, when it was time to pass over the watch to the next group, I did not wear my raincoat. But just as we passed over the watch it started to pour down heavily and I got soaked and I felt that all my hard work of trying to stay dry was in vain. After that I hurried down and put on some dry clothes and went to bed.

The next time I woke up it was time for lunch and we got pasta and meatballs in tomato sauce. It was delicious. After that we had some lessons and our director of study hade a presentation of the new harbor, Terre de Haut. It is a small island south of Guadeloupe and is a French colony. The presentation was exiting and everybody was thrilled to visit this new place.

After the lessons had ended it was once again time for watch. This time I was part of the working crew. We started the watch with adjusting the yards so that we would look good before anchoring outside of Terre de Haut. After that we got to learn how to serving rope. This is when you wrap marline very tight around a rope to protect it from weather and wind. It was very important that the marline was tight so that no water could seep through and damage the rope. After that we had some dinner and I then had to steer the boat for 35 minutes while the helmsman eats. After that the watch was almost over and we spent the rest of the time tidying up. Then we passed over the watch once more and I went to sleep.