Work, Sleep, Eat - Repeat

Today is the seventh day at sea, meaning a week has past by since we last stood on steady ground. When you are at sea your perception of time gets kind of messed with, as a result of having a unusual schedule. For exemple my watch, portside, is currently on the 12-4 watch, meaning that you are on deck, working and sailing, between 12pm → 4pm and also from 12am → 4am. This schedule devides your day inte three sections of eight hours each:

• Section 1: Working on deck
• Section 2: Time set aside for us to sleep
• Section 3: Awake “Sparetime” (including meals and three lectures)

These sections above is a well calculated scedule that includes every one onboard. The meal schedule is often very tight. You and your watch often have 25 minutes to eat, and when your time is up the next watch settles down for their 25 minute meal. Summary the life onboard is work, sleep, eat - repeat. Sometimes I think of it as the food and sleep clock, the turtle called “Skalman” from “Bamse”, brings everywhere.

Enough about the schedule and time, what I was actually trying to prove was how fast time flies onboard. You get lost not knowing wich day of the week it is, because the only thing that matters is your watch´s currated 24 hour schedule.

As this blog´s purpose is to update the readers on the day to day life onboard i can summerise today, the 12th of march: Today the wind we have been waiting for actually came, wich was nice. More wind means more sailing, up to a point of course (if the wind is to strong, the top sails might be torn apart by the wind). But right now the wind blows around 30 knots, and we are sailing at a speed of 9 knots, wich is a great speed. If we would continue in this speed we would reach the Azores in a matter of 6 days. But that is very unlikely, since the wind is very unpredicteble.

Writing this I’am sitting in the big mess having lectures, and soon we will have a 25 minute break for dinner. After dinner it´s back to the lectures, and we are free to go around eight o clock.

Best wishes,

Lilja Alm, Portside