Land in sight

Land in sight, squall weather, shared tears, ronds in the engine, ice cream breaks and many laughter’s were some of the things we did today after we crossed the Atlantic. The first thing we heard when we woke up today was that we finally reached land, and that we had succeeded crossing the Atlantic.

That was such a relief for many of us both students and watch leaders. Before the free watch were allowed to go ashore, we needed to wait for about two hours for Immigration to get our identification papers. Not long after that, one of our watch leaders signed of the boat and a lot of tears were shed.

Then two of three watches left to explore Suriname and Paramaribo. Shortly after that we ate breakfast and then it was time for us to sign on our harbour watch. The schedule today said that my job was to guard the boat.

As a boat guard you keep track of the gangway and who goes on and off. Another thing you need to do is to go rond every hour. To go a rond is when you check the values in the engine room, check the galley, empty the compost and check the laundry. Another thing you can do is to accidentally sneak into the kitchen to get ice cream from those who worked there.

Some of the working force checked the inventory of both food and other necessary things. The rest of them worked with for example repairing the rig. Then we moved on with the second ice cream break. We chose between pistachio, strawberry and vanilla and I think that was the best things that happened today. After a first rainy day in Paramaribo, the two watches came back with a lot of funny stories. Even though it was constantly raining and many tears in the late morning it all ended up better than I first thought.

Filippa Persson
Midships watch