The great day of arrival!

The great Master T/S Gunilla has turned into some kind of flue ship, not only has everyone got the same terrible cough which makes the student corridor echo, but there is also a fever sickness spreading like wildfire.

We are like the ships from the 1300s spreading the black plauge, everyone onboard are rats infested with the sickness one way or another, but the show must go on!Despite of all the sick crew, we made it to Dakar! I remember being sick with fever getting myself up to deck after sleeping all day, just looking outside and seeing Africa in real life for the first time in my life.

It wasn’t all magical like that all day, because coming to a new country, and even a new continent, means having to deal with immigration and authorities. Everyone gathered on deck to receive their passports and seamen’s discharge books, because we were apparently going to immigration that same day.

Fast forward to us finding out we weren’t going after all, everyone on board got a taste of the Senegalese sense of time management and professionalism that day. Good thing that the kitchen saved everyone’s mood by offering ice-cream, it cooled everyone off which was necessary. The heat was getting to all of us, having a boat full with both a sick and overheated crew wouldn’t be good in the long run.

The word that a new ship all the way from Sweden arriving in the Dakar port spread fast, all of a sudden we were surrounded by men trying to sell wooden sculptures from land, handing everyone who dared to walk by a wooden monkey to hold and buy. Some of us fell for it, and some didn’t. All I’m saying is that I’m three wooden monkeys richer. Getting a taste of Senegal early and quick was all that mattered. When I went to the real market in Dakar a few days later I missed when me and the streetparlor had a whole boat between us.

Alma, Starboard