Almost at the top

Standing at the upper platform, seeing the clouds touching the top of The rock of Gibraltar while gently rocking side to side with a view over the city and two big yachts. Could it be better than this?

Sofia, my savior of the day, woke me up at 7.35 when we were supposed to be woken 35 minutes earlier. We grabbed some breakfast and went up on deck for being assigned today's duties, greasing the ropes. As usual Linn and I made an awesome team together, Linn as my sidekick, watched out for my bucket with grease so it wouldn’t fall out on deck, and pulled the ropes closer so I could reach them with my grease. We do it so they won’t rust but luckily other students had greased on the hardest parts to reach under the sails, so we just had to look it over and then continued down towards the deck.

Later on we switched so I was her sidekick and watched out for her going under the front sails were she removed rust to get Gunilla cleaned up. She was very brave standing on the chain meanwhile she was scrubbing the rust with phosphoric acid. You do not want it in your eyes so we got a cool pair of glasses that took up the most on the face. There is something satisfying by looking at Gunilla getting rid of dirt and turning white again.

As I’ve been really scared of highs I couldn’t help Linn at the top sail so I decided to climb and see how far I could make it. At the beginning of this trip I couldn’t even look over the edge of Gunilla without feeling sick. Anyways, I came as far as right under the upper platform and couldn’t make it any further. When you get to that point, Sofia taught me that you think you are going to die but you’ll be fine and that’s so true because it was exactly what I thought, I’m about to die. The rope ladder is tilted in a direction you will have to climb hanging in a few meters before you make it over the platform to the two sails at the top. I went down disappointed but tried again and I FINALLY made it, almost at the top! My feet were shaking for a long while but nothing compares to seeing the view from the top so it´s worth it, even though my underarms and legs got bruised all over. At the moment there are two big yachts moored next to us, I got a great view for count all five floors and to see the expensive details.

At the evening we spent time together with the others who were on The rock of Gibraltar during the day patting monkeys and walking in the clouds.

Linn Themner, Styrbord