Öckerö gymnasium

Greetings from Portsmouth!

After yesterday’s hard wind with waves that surprised all of us, today’s weather has been relatively calm.

My watch was woken up at 7 am and after approximately 30 minutes of snoozing my cabin was fit for fight and ready for breakfast. We were served the standard breakfast aboard with yoghurt, porridge, bread, cereals and all types of toppings. My breakfast here doesn’t vary much; my standard morning meal consists of a mix of muesli and cornflakes with milk and of course coffee. Lots of coffee. After yet another stressful breakfast we went back into our cabins to prepare for the watch that began at 8 o’clock.

During the last couple of days almost every student crew member has lubricated the rig with either oil, grease or tar. We have tar everywhere on our clothes and most of us has started to get tired of the smell. So when our 1st mate told us that we couldn’t tar during our watch because it was too windy everyone in starboard were joyful. With a head wind of 10 meter per second it’s quite understandable that we didn’t sail, but at least it’s better than yesterday’s winds of 20 m/s. The whole workforce of starboard was assigned to remove old varnish from the benches on deck. That’s literally what we did for 4 hours, besides our coffee break.

We continued to travel through the English Channel and came closer to our target, Portsmouth, every minute. Yesterday we were told that we would arrive a day earlier than expected and anchor outside of the city for the night. Our captain gave us other orders today though, due to bad weather, and we sailed to quay. This was a pleasant surprise for all of us, I mean, who doesn’t want to spend another night in England? So that’s where we are right now, near Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth!

The different watches have taken turns visiting the town, or at least the gigantic shopping mall that lays just next to Gunilla. Starboard had to be back on the boat at 8 pm to clean the student’s corridor, which we managed to complete in 18 minutes. That’s a new record! During our trip last year, portside held the record of 25 minutes. Gotcha!

The cohesion aboard is better than ever. Tonight my watch had a lovely time watching one of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. Now we can’t wait to see what England has to offer!

Cheers,

David Törnered, starboard

Publicerad:

Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
Björnhuvudsvägen 45
475 31 Öckerö

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