A day in the gally

Today I worked in the gally. This is the workstation I love the most. My mate Mathilda, and I started off by serving todays lunch, an African stew with rice, to the freemen. It was very appreciated. After half an hour poor Mathilda felt seasick and had to change workstation so Dagmar stepped in. When we finished cleaning after lunch the work was hectic, we helped the cooks to prepare for dinner and fika and cleaned the kitchen.

In the middle of a lesson, one ran into the big mess hall and shouted that we could see whales from deck. I pushed my self out on deck through the crowded door and ran to quarterdeck where we were lined up along the rail. I estimate that on a distance of about five hundred meters from the boat we could see their exhalations. Some of the others had the luck to see some fins. When the excitement was over, my friend came to tell me that if I were interested in seeing dolphins there where some up front. She on the other hand was going under deck because the dolphins could not compete with her lack of sleep anymore. There were almost ten dolphins and a great sunset but after just a few minutes I went under deck to rest too.

At eight o´clock we got to watch a movie on quarterdeck for the first time. The cooks made popcorn and we all cuddled up under the sail. I got disappointed by the movie, an old documentary in black and white, I had expected something like Pirates of the Caribbean or Titanic, but it was a great vibe.

At twelve o´clock it was time to work again. Even if the temperature never goes below twenty degrees it feels cold at night and I had been awake since twelve in the morning and was therefore very tired, so when I stood at the line up, I longed for a cup of sugar with milk and coffee in the warmth inside.

When the rest of my watch started working Dagmar and I went inside and started cleaning. At half past two we served tea and freshly baked bread which our watch enjoyed very much.

Later, I was just about to finish the dishes when I saw a cockroach. A couple of days ago some from midships tried to extinct them and killed more than fifty for sure. Yet we could kill almost as many. With bloody hands and a good conscious, I fell asleep quickly at the end of the day.

Alma