People. As far as the eye can see, a sea of people. People of different backgrounds, standards and beliefs, all gathered in one place because of one common interest: big boats.

That’s what the pier which we had docked at was like today, and yesterday too for that matter. A festival with the theme of seafaring, the one which we had previously been invited to, was in full swing. The normally quiet little pier was completely transformed. There were white tents everywhere, and people dressed in complex, impressive costumes walked around in the sea of people, taking pictures and making sure everyone had a good time. In the midst of this chaos, our ship lay quiet. The crew of the T.S Gunilla was preparing for open ship. This mainly concerned Midships, though, the watch which had harbor watch duty today.

Being in the Portside watch, I didn’t have to worry about the incoming flurry of hundreds of visitors. Me and my friends decided to use our free time today to visit the famous Titanic Museum, located at the same site at which the ship of dreams was once built. Making our way through the thick crowd, we could see the impressive architecture of the museum, standing tall on a plain of green grass in the harbor. Outside the museum with its big, angled walls stood the ship Nomadic, another old ship. We went inside the museum, and read through all the descriptions and marveled at the several artifacts rented from personal collectors, such as authentic lifejackets stripped from Titanic corpses, furniture from Titanic, the keys to the infamous binocular storage, which a commander on the Titanic who left prior to the Atlantic voyage had accidentally kept, subsequently causing the terrible collision with the iceberg as the lookouts were forced to try and spot icebergs with nothing but their bare eyes. There were many interesting things and pieces of information at the museum, and we stayed there for a good while. Before we left, I bought myself a Titanic keychain and a patch.

After our visit to the museum, me and some other pals of mine tried to find a good restaurant to eat at. This, however, proved to be impossible, as the great crowd of festival visitors had the same goal as us. Every single restaurant we visited was filled to the brim with people. There was even a queue into the local supermarket. We had to give up any hope of ever getting any food, so we went back to our ship to eat some rests instead. The ship, as one might expect, was filled with visitors at this time. People were being led around the ship by my crewmates from Midships, and things appeared to be rolling on smoothly. Once we had eaten our fill, we proceeded towards the cinema to watch the movie “Oppenheimer”, a movie depicting the life, success and decline of Robbert Oppenheimer, the inventor of the atomic bomb. The movie was extremely interesting. I was completely absorbed the whole time. It was definitely one of the best movies that I have ever watched.

After the movie, we ventured into the city to buy some snacks and drinks for the approaching sea leg to Cherbourg. I bought four packs of Sour Patch Kids, and an eight-pack of Dr. Pepper. Once back on the ship, I joked around and talked with my friends for a while, before I went to bed. Today was a pretty good day. It was a little hard to move around with all the people from the festival, but the things I got to see at the museum greatly compensated for it. I really do love being signed on the T.S Gunilla. The things you get to see and the people you get to meet are experiences that will last you a lifetime.

-Fritz Karlbäck