Location: Underway to Mauritius
The year is 1700. The wind flows through your voluptuous matted hair, and you raise your right hand to cover your one good eye from the sun alas, your hand is a hook, not very good for sun shading. You haven’t seen land in weeks, but that doesn’t matter because everything you need is with you on your ship: cabin, Tim tams, crew, Tim tams, tools for locating treasure, a large supply of Tim tamsthe essentials. The rules of regular society don’t apply to you out in the middle of the ocean, and neither does time. Instead, you’re governed by watch team schedules, and you mark the passage of time by how often you’ve had to trim your magnificent beard and how many boxes of Tim Tams you’ve gone through. You are a pirate. Except plot twist: the year is 202,5 and I actually just described myself aboard Vela’s fall semester passage across the Indian Ocean.
Exciting newswe saw lights from land today! Only two days left of our passageexciting and a little sad cause it’s been so much fun. I started my day off at 12 am for our 12-4 am watch. The watch team before us had adopted a pet bird that landed on the boom and named it Brick.
It was our watch team’s last 12-4 watch session of the passage (tragic because we had a great watch team who I love so much: Jewel, Wiley, Fin, Zeke, Sam, and Perry), and the moon was so bright, and the temperature was perfect. We finished it off with a pack of original Tim Tams, which we cheered with for our last 12-4 watch of the passage. The Tim Tams were voluptuous and delicious. We cheered and said “It’s not about the fight in the dog, but about the gift horse in the mouth” to a chorus of “here here’s”.
Henry caught ANOTHER wahoothis is number three, public service announcement to all Indian Ocean wahoos, watch out for Henry. The wahoo was probably as long as six boxes of Tim Tams end to end! If you tried to show how long it was while standing in a telephone booth, you would probably die. Keith also helped with the Wahoo (go Keith).
Payton recreated the fish photo with a potato. This potato was extra exciting to us because it sprouted and had leaves: the first plant life we’d seen in weeks.
In PSCT today, Mac was teaching Alice and me about sound signals. Turns out the best way to learn sound signals is to imitate them, so our class could be heard from around the salon and galley, making loud honking noises at strange intervals (with the occasional bell and gong sound too).
Destiny made BURGERS and also cooked the wahoo for a surf and turf type vibe, and Emma made BURGER SAUCE, which I basically ate with a spoon. (Ft the picture of us pre and post burgers).
After dinner, for a squeeze, I asked everyone to tell a story that makes them laugh. The answers were all so good, some highlights being Vera’s story about her dad pouring ketchup on her brother’s pasta, Henry’s story about Zeke and the BCD, and Adda’s story about her little brother’s toes. After dinner, I helmed while everyone cleaned upwhich is when I started thinking about pirates. I was steering the boat directly into the setting sun, watching everyone clean up like a well-oiled machine, and I thought about how awesome a pirate I would be, and how many Tim Tams I would keep on my ship.
After cleanup, I met up with my watch team of the century for our last 8-12 pm watch, where we took a legendary photo (featured below), bumped some tunes, had a goooood time, and ate some more Tim Tams (and watched the boat, ofc). All in all, the passage has been superb: 10/10 would do againso much love for Vela, her crew, and our diabolical amount of Tim Tams.
Ps. Dear Family and friendsmiss and love you all so much! PSA, I will not be answering my phone for the first few days in Mauritius to re-acclimate to society. Don’t worry, I’m safe. Talk to you soon!