Wash day

The sound of someone opening the door woke me up. I tried to fall back to sleep but only a few minutes later my roommate turned on the light, and the day had officially started.

I threw clothes on before entering the door for breakfast. It was another day with more porridge and orange juice for breakfast. We brushed our teeth and then rushed up to start a washing machine for our dirty clothes. Every watch has their own wash day and today was portside’s. The reason we rushed up before our shift was because there´s only three washing machines on the boat and everyone fights to get them first. If we don’t wash our clothes on the wash day we need to wait until the next week. I was post today so the four hours between 8 and 12 I have been standing, watching over the ocean. It can be fun to be post if you see things but the only thing I saw was water, water and more water. But you get bored of it fast and even more bored because you are not able to talk to anyone. After our shift we rushed down to our cabin to pick up our dirty clothes and rushed back up to the laundry room before anyone else could steal the washing machines. Before lunch we also cleaned our cabin and made the beds with new sheets. That’s also a thing we do on washdays. After lunch we watched a movie ”12 years a slave” as preparation for Friday when we will visit a cottonfield where slaves used to work.

We ate dinner at six, watched the sunset and then it was time for watch again. The four last hours of standing watching over the ocean before bed began.

Filippa Wieck, Portside