A short but hectic day

This rather interesting day started off like any other day in port, being woken up at seven o’clock for breakfast. During the mustering at eight our Captain Hans breifed us on the plans, which were to switch over to seawatches and then leave port at half past one and then set the clock. But as always the plans don’t stick and we never really know what’s happening.

After the mustering, while others headed out in Belfast one last time, I decided to go back to sleep instead and woke up an hour before lunch. This day then became a bit less lousy, first we joined the other two watches at handover to sing for our crewman Ture as today happens to be his birthday. And as we all know birthdays mean cake, a very nice choclate cake served at three, or four depending on which timezone your mind is in. The problem with sailing across many timezones like we are is the fact of setting the right time on the ship, and it’s always done differently, today we changed the time just on the way out of Belfast while we usually set it while on the way in.

After lunch most of us gathered in the large mess to listen to a little lecture by crewmate Olle, a lecture on the history behind the Northen Ireland troubles and as a extention on a tour we did in Belfast. It became a very well done and interesting hour and hopefully most of us left with a better understanding off the whole conflict and what caused it.

During the fika, at four o’clock swedish time, our watch went on and were the ones who unmoored and made way out of port. Our watch, which is now four to eight, went by quite swiftly as there was some things to be done after leaving port and preparing for sea. We also need to get to know our new watchmaster whom is also completely new to Gunilla and arrived yesterday night. On top of that he happens to be danish, so the entire four hours was spent trying to understand what he was saying, which didn’t go very well, but we got by.

So now a few days of sailing to france lay before us while we’re trying to understand a danish watchmaster. But who knows? Maybe we will all speak danish by the end.

David Karlsson

Port watch (4-8)