Öckerö gymnasium

Farewell Hispaniola!

The day started off with waking up at 7 am in the morning, just like everyday when we are in harbour. I didn’t want to wake up. It felt like I had only slept for five minutes even though I went to bed at 11 pm the day before.

But as soon as you eat some breakfast and drink some coffee the tired feeling slowly starts to fade away. This was quite a big day, because we were going to leave the Dominican Republic and start our sailing towards Florida. I guess it was extra hard to get out of bed becaue I didn’t really want to say goodbye to the beautiful island Hispaniola. It’s always a little painful to leave the places we visit. Hispaniola has so much more to offer than what you can squeeze into a week. Of course I am very grateful for the experience I had, but in every place we’ve been to I’ve left with a feeling of thirst and a great need to return.

It’s always quite powerful to cast off and since I have the 8-12 watch I got to be on deck the whole time. This will also be the very last part of the trip. All that’s left now is 11 more days and then we’ll be back home in Sweden! When we were a few kilometers away from Hispaniola we had practice drill. The alarm sounded three short signals and we all knew what it meant: MAN OVER BOARD! After we had turned the entire boat around and picked up the boi from the water, the captain announced that we were allowed to take a bath in the clear, blue ocean. We quickly changed into bikinis and bathingsuits. Happily we swam around the boat, enjoying the refreshing water.

An hour or so after we left the quai I started feeling seasick, even though the sea was almost completely still. I am one of the slightly less fortunate students on the boat when it comes to seasickness. But luckily I had a little bit of medicine left to escape the nauseausness. There’s only one problem with the medicine: You get really tired for a few days. So the rest of the day I felt pretty lost, like I wasn’t completely awake. But I was comforted by the thought that it will pass and soon I will be full of energy again. I also remind myself that I will be able to sleep however much I want when we get home and have our free week. As a look back I see Hispaniola slowly shrinking behind us. 1000 seamiles ahead lies Miami, the final port of our journey. We better enjoy this last trip, before we get home to our cold and dark home country.

  • Dorothea Schwarzmayr

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Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
Björnhuvudsvägen 45
475 31 Öckerö

Telefon: 031-97 62 00
e-post: kommun@ockero.se