A not normal, normal day

Today I woke up much earlier than I expected. I expected to be woken up at 3:30 am by someone saying the time, the weather and that I had to be on guard in 30 minutes. Then they would turn on the lights and I would hit my head on the roof when I sat up in my bed. But today I woke up at 12:00 pm because of the happy noises from the guard “barbord” that had just ended their nightguard.

When “barbord” woke me up I got really confused at first because I thought that it was time for me to put on all my clothes and go up on deck for my nightly guard. But that was not the case and I got really happy. But just at first, I only had 3 and a half hours left to get all the sleep I needed, so I tried to fall asleep as quickly as I could. But it took me up to 45 minutes to do it because they never stopped to make noises. Some talked really loud, some just made random loud noises and some ran in the corridors. So annoying.

I was really tired when I woke up at the time I was supposed to. I put all my clothes on as quickly as I could. It was a bit wet outside so I put on my sailing jacket and trousers. When I got up on deck I expected to be a workingguard like my schedule said, but when I got up I was asked by our guard leader to step in for someone and be a lifebuoy guard. I did as she said and looked out for where all the people on the boat were so no one fell into the water. When you are a lifebuoy guard you are part of the post. The post contains of three people, a lifebouyguard, a person steering the boat and a lookout. When you are a lookout you basically just look out for boats and floating objects in the water.

The lookout is my favorite part of standing post, especially in the morning. When you are the lookout you stand as far forward on the boat as you can get without climbing. I didn't expect to be a lookout today, like I said, so I didn't bring any gloves so my hands got a bit cold. When I stood there today, it was just me, the wind in my hair, the waves, the stars and the clouds covering the stars.

After about one hour it was time for the nightly “fika” that we have every night at 5 am. The “fika” on the night always consists of something more special than the regular “fika” in the day. It can for example be pancakes or scones, but today we got chocolate pudding and it was delicious. You may think it's weird to eat sugar so early in the morning especially as the first thing you eat in the day. My thought of it at first was the same, but it was so good. After the “fika” we got back to our work and now I got to be a workingguard as I was meant to be. Being a workingguard means to do all the work that has to be done on the boat, it can for example be setting sails or cleaning.

We in “styrbord” (the guard that I am in) have the guards from 4-8 and a day contains two 4-8, 4-8 pm and 4-8 am. So we have two times a day. The second guartime today I actually was a part of the post. I was lifebouyguard, the “lookout” and I steered the boat. The wind crew was weaker and we needed to take down all the sails and start the engine. When you take down the sails you need to go up in the masts and bind the sails to the yard. Because I was part of the post couldn´t go up, so it wasn´t so fun to see everyone being up there. Because I really like to climb.

Tilda Sjöberg, Nas2124