Sailing the Atlantic with Gunilla

The morning of our first sea-leg, traveling from the tropical climate of Azores to the temperate climate of England.

I got woken upp from my deep slumber at 06:00 by the night guard, it wasn’t easy to get up as I almost fell asleep directly after getting woken. But I forced myself to get out of bed and put on some clothes quietly as not to wake the others in the room. I meet the other ”kitcheneers” and we immediately started putting forth kitchen utensils and food such as bread, porridge, butter and so on.

We got done quite early with 30 minutes to spare, attempting to fall asleep so we could catch up on some lost sleep but it was to avail. As soon as my butt hit the bed I was needed in the kitchen, cleaning the dishes and making the kitchen nice and tidy for the new cooks. We got done at around 07:50 and I had 10 minutes to put on some proper attire and get ready for the last meeting on deck in the Azores. Our superiors told us we had 1 hour before departure to get everything sea-ready and take some motion sickness tablets. The meeting was boring as they didn’t go through anything new outside of our new guard schedule. The meeting was over quickly though and I got back to my quarter and got ready, putting on sunscreen and sun burn lotion as I had burnt myself on the scalp.

I was ready at 08:45 to get up in the mast for a great view over the sea, it went well and it was nice to look over the horizon from the ocean plateau. The boat who was meant to get us out of the harbor was about 1 hour late and we left at 10:00. Gunilla was finally out of the harbor and ready to sail the open seas of the Atlantic.

The weather was on our side and we got lots of sun and sunshine although with no wind, forcing us to use the motors, without being able to actually set sail. I didn’t complain it was quite nice to finally make way with or without sails, it was the feeling of leaving and going on a journey through the open seas.

I still felt tired from all this so I made my way to the shark net and laid there waiting for something to happen while my tired eyes couldn’t hold me awake. I fell asleep in the shark net as it was like a big cradle rocking back and forth but the sleep didn’t last long as the bells rang. I woke up too dolphins swimming under our boat and jumping out of the water from time to time and I got some nice photos from it. But I had had enough of the shark net and made my way back to get some water. The deck looking like the aftermath of a battlefield with people laying everywhere, suffering from seasickness. And I felt bad as I had no symptoms of sea sickness and had feelings of joy.

It wasn’t all sunshine and pleasure though as my shift was close by and I needed to get to work. I put up a safety net stoping people from falling into the ocean and fixed the mast, it was hard but didn’t last long as it only was 4 hours and it went fast. When the shift had ended I could tell that everybody was tired but the sun was setting soon and I wanted a nice view of it so I got up on the mast to get a better view and watch how the sun disappeared over the horizon.

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