A day at the gangway

Although we had watch this day, I was quite happy to be onboard because today I was going to be guardian of the ship.

This meant that me and another crew member was going to sit on a chair all day and make sure that nobody unauthorized went aboard the ship. If it was a normal day, I would have sat in the sun all day trying to work on my tan, but the problem was that I had burned myself pretty badly the day before. Therefore, I had to limit my sunbathing. My plan was to have work pants to cover the legs and a t-shirt, so that I could still tan my face and arms. So that was what I did. When the boredom started to come, we came up with the idea to learn different and cool knots. I learned a few but I strongly doubt that I still remember them.

Then lunch came around and we got fried rice with beef, one of my recently new favorite foods. I ate and then went back to my post. To entertain myself I decided to learn the international alphabet that is used amongst sailors and pilots to communicate in crisis situations. It was quite entertaining, until I learned it.

Luckily our chief officer needed help with the bilge wells. He was going to check so that the little floating devices in the bilge wells were working and I had to help him make sure that the alarms were all working. It was actually fun, and I felt really helpful with my walkie-talkie in hand. The time started to move slower and slower, and we ran out of things to do.

Finally, 6´oclock came around and the guarding of the ship was over at last. It had been a quite productive day, even though we didn´t do very much.

Liv Vilu Destremau, starboard watch