E.T.A? To be announced…

This day started with a longing feeling of seeing land mixed with a wish of never arriving in Setúbal. A confusing set of emotions, made more confused by the fact that the estimated time of arrival keeps getting put off by the commanding officers. When asked we’re met with answers of, “one can’t be sure but…” or “we think…”.

The complaints end there, especially since this day began with a beautiful sunrise that cast a red hue over the world for a few moments and made it look like a Claude Monet painting.

My favourite part about being onboard Gunilla is getting to sail, and everything that comes along with that. Lucky for me, this day was full of exactly that. It started with furling some sails, and ended in a lesson about wind angles, points of sailing as well as a few practical demonstrations.

Since we’re only a few days away from Setúbal, or at least I believe that is the case, we had a presentation about the city. We also learnt some things about the history of Portugal and saw the schedule of our visit there.

During the night watch, the confusion remained regarding when we would arrive. Since it (probably) was our last night watch with our watch leader he made sure to be extra careful in his inspection of our hard work. We kept cleaning, and re-cleaning for almost two hours (it usually takes us under one hour). But we were greatly compensated by said watch leader afterwards when he told us all about his interesting 22 years on this planet.

Emma Berntsson, Starboard