Playing guitar in the beautiful sunset

This day was full of tar everywhere. But apart from that, what more do you need than beautiful weather, happy friends and a beautiful sunset while playing the guitar?

I was supposed to eat breakfast this morning but I couldn’t. I was so tired that I couldn’t bring myself out the door, down the hall and into the dining room. Instead I continued to sleep for about half an hour until the other ones in my cabin woke me up to tell me it’s 10 minutes to line-up. I flew up from my bed to get dressed and then hurried up on deck to see that I was kind of early.

Anyway, after the line-up I went back to my cabin because it’s the departure day from Huelva in Spain. This means that we have sea watches and since I have the 12-4 watch I was free until 12. I thought I would give my homework some love but instead I fell asleep again and woke up two hours later, too tired to study. It was about an hour left before lunch so I stayed in bed reading my book. It’s really cozy to lay in bed, reading and feel the waves swing the boat back and forth.

To lunch we ate pulled pork in tortillas which was really tasty. After that I went back to my cabin to get dressed for the watch. When they woke us up this morning they said it was warm outside so it was a nice surprise. Usually I wear a wool underwear, sweatpants, two fleeces and a sailing set. But today I wore training pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie, really nice if you ask me.

When I got up on deck I saw that we already left the Huelva canal. It’s really beautiful to look out on the sea when it’s clear blue water and the sun shines on the sea. We had our watch shift as usual and after that we tarred the whole watch. The worst thing about tar is the smell. It’s hard to explain it, but if you know you know. It’s a strong smell that sting in your nose. Some people love the smell but some hate it. As you may understood by my description, I hate it.

Another thing that is annoying is that it’s really sticky and gets everywhere. You have to be very careful when you climb in the rig so you don’t spill it out and take a little at a time so it doesn’t drop. Since it’s so sticky you have to wear an overall, safety plastic for your harness and a cloth in your hair. This makes you look like a worker from way back in the history. Like someone that works in an old mine or something.

Besides from that, the good thing about tarring is that it’s calm and cozy to climb in the rig and look out at sea. Hopefully you can see dolphins and whales but we had no such luck today. But if I’m being honest I would rather do sailing stuff like set sails, furl or learn something, but this also has to be done. Anyway it was a good watch in beautiful sailing weather, it could just have been a little more wind.

After the watch I spent some time together with some friends looking for “the green man”. The green man is a stuffed animal that our teacher hides some place around the boat for us to look for and if we find it we get candy. But today was not my day because I didn’t find it. Instead there was someone else that found the green man later this day.

Usually we have lessons after our watch but since it’s the departure day it’s lesson free. Therefore I went out on deck, after looking for the green man, to discover that it’s the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. I took some pictures and stood there and watched until my friend came with a guitar. We sat down and played some guitar and sang while we watched the sunset. No matter how many sunsets I see I can’t get tired of them, they’re just so beautiful. Sunsets is something I really appreciate.

And now I’m sitting here studying because I’m finally in the perfect studying mood, not too filled with energy but not tired either. After I’m done writing this I’m going to get hot chocolate with whipped cream and take it chill because I have two hours left before my night shift. I’m really looking forward to waking up tomorrow because then we will be outside Gibraltar which is a really cool place since you can see two continents at the same time, Europe and Africa.

Today was a really good day here at T/S Gunilla (if you see trough that my hands still smell like tar). I hope you all had a wonderful day back at home too, take care!

Emilia, SA2023