Surprisingly great day

We are in Lisbon and I’m enjoying everything that this beautiful town gives me. Unfortunately was it starboard’s turn to have watch but it has after all been a great day. We have done some hard work but ended the day in the best way.

It’s the fifth day here in Lisbon and today it was my watch’s turn to work on Gunilla in this beautiful port. I have enjoyed the last two days very much. I have been free from work and had the opportunity to do whatever I want, but today’s morning was though.

After some days with spare time in port it’s so much harder to keep up the motivation for work. On the other hand, now when I look back how the day has been, I think we have had a lot of fun, more than I suspected we would have.

Right now the project of deep cleaning Gunilla has begun and that is what I have been doing today. In the end of every trip all students on their watch deep cleans Gunilla in different parts, so the ship is all cleaned when we later departure. Me and my watch friend Simon got the mission to clean the forepeak, which we later understood was to draw the shortest straw. The forepeak is a spowage where different kinds of staff for the maintenance work is stored, for example paint in different colors, painting brushes and oil. The people who had watch yesterday lifted out everything, so our mission was to clean all bulkheads with water and soap and then later stow everything to the right place. The reason why our work was the toughest was because of the climate in there. After a while the oxygen started to end and the temperature started to rise quickly. I didn’t think it was that bad though, we had a great time with some good music to keep the time going.

After the 3 pm break, when we were finally done with our cleaning mission, it was time to start the everyday cleaning of Gunilla. We had to be done with today’s work a little bit earlier because we were going to meet the students on the ship next to us on the quay. For some days now it has been another school sailing ship next to us with students from a lot of different places around the world. Brita our teacher had decided a meeting together with the teacher on the other boat which was planned to take place before the dinner. Apparently the other teacher misunderstood and the students never showed up. A little bit sad but we still had a great time. We decided to eat the chocolate balls we had made for the other students and watched a movie together. So after all, I would say this have been a really great day!

Wilma, starboard watch