Location: Underway to Richard’s Bay
Today is the first day of our last time around the job wheel :(. I typically hate pointing out lasts, but as I sit here, sipping my mango, peach, pineapple mixed cold juice after what has to be the best day on passage, I want to make sure I take in the last 23 days with all my heart.
With that said, let me tell you about the BEST DAY EVER ON PASSAGE (subjective opinion- your sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends, nieces, nephews, and other relations may come home and tell you a completely different story for their best day): It started off with the 12-4 am watch for my watch team with Scarlette, Maia, Payton, Thaxton, and Wylie. A few of us had stayed up until 10:30/11 pm to watch Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, which Perry so nicely let me put onto my personal drive! Unfortunately, that did mean we only had an hour of sleep before watch, which wasn’t ideal, but the sleep afterward hit SO HARD. Anyway, as I came up from the companionway for watch, the pitch black sky filled with stars, and as I looked out at the water, I could see bioluminescence in the small waves the boat was making, and the stars reflected in the water like we were in a lake. It was like being in a glitter world or, as Maia described it, a snow globe of stars. I wish I could describe it as beautifully as it was to experience. In my 22 years, I truly have not seen a more beautiful night.
Watch started off slow, with most of us just trying to absorb the beauty of the night. By the time we had our first boat check and I had my fuel (ramen), Maia and I began discussing our New Year’s resolutions, which was a very stimulating conversation. We then moved to the discussion of our future dream weddings! There’s a lot to be said there, but I won’t bore you with my ideas or Emma’s planned-out-to-a-T wedding. It’s truly impressive how many things she’s thought of. You could throw Emma into an engagement today, and she would have that wedding and probably the honeymoon planned tomorrow.
After watch, I ended up journaling for 40min so I didn’t forget any details about my resolutions, but then I fell right asleep. When I woke, the engine was off, so either there was a small emergency or “biotic life” as Mac would call it. When Destiny came in to wake me up, as she does every day with a giant smile on her face that makes me happy the rest of the day, she told me there were striped dolphins! When I came up, I saw them for a small moment, but apparently, we had been following them for an hour. Perry says they’re often rare to see, so it was an awesome moment. Also, apparently, the sunrise was beautiful on the 4-8 am watch (pictured), and Keith weaved us through that watch on the helm!
Then we sped up again and ate some sausages with homemade buns for lunch made by Zeke. They brought me back home and reminded me of Fenway sausages, lathered in peppers and onions. After lunch, I got to helm for a bit while everyone cleaned up and all of a sudden
The fish alarm went off! As Henry, Mac, Riley, and Perry tried to pull it in, they saw a HUGE Mahi Mahi. Unfortunately, it let go of the lure :(. No Mahi tacos for dinner. It was okay, though, because then Mac let me throttle up the boat, and I felt like a REAL boater.
We then headed down for our FINAL Marine Bio lecture with Perry and Fin, and I made coffee, as is our habit after lunch. But today Fin made a dirty chai, and I did not think it was good at all. But he liked it so. After class, we had a FIRE DRILL, during which we paused because we heard a longman’s beaked whale blow AND saw it come out of the water a bit. Anyway, it was hard not to laugh through the drill, especially when Alice came up with her Type 5, looking absolutely flabbergasted, holding the fire extinguisher in one hand and trying to wrap her lifejacket with the other. It was crazy, and we were quite rusty to say the least. But all is good! Because afterwards, we got to do a mid-Indian Ocean swim! Literally the coolest thing ever. We got to swim, shower, dive, cannonball, flip, but most importantly, BELLY FLOP. I swear, every day these people somehow feel more and more like family, because while we were swimming, Zeke kept pushing people underwater, so I tried to push Zeke underwater, but then he pushed me underwater, so Jewel screamed, “NOT MY SISTER,” to which Zeke responded, “Um. She’s actually my sister.” And Kyler and Emma played mermaids while Jewel and Maia played colors. It was so fun.
We had a competition for the BEST BELLY FLOP, and whoever won got to get a WHOLE PACK of Tim Tams. I did not participate, BUT I did encourage Rai-Ching to do her best belly flop because I knew, from watching her dives, that she’s really good at just falling into the water, so I told her to just do that, and she did, and it was the best belly flop I’ve ever seen in my LIFE. It was impressive. Other contestants included Fin, Wylie, and Maia. The usual suspects. We were all just about to get out of the water, and Riley, Henry, and Scarlette were the only ones left in the water when all of a sudden.
“FIN” – Emma spotted a fin of SOMETHING, so we all got out of the water, and when we carefully observed, it was fully a barracuda. It was SO scary but also really, really cool to see. We couldn’t see it that well, but eventually we saw two just swimming around the life ring by the stern of the boat, just being little curious Georges. Sam got a cool shot of them with Bubbles (the drone). We tried throwing those sausages so they would stay, but they were out quickly. I guess we weren’t that interesting to them.
Then, when we finished admiring more “biotic life,” we had a staff vs. students competition to see who could put up the staysails the fastest! The students BASICALLY won, but I hate to say that our halyard coil (which may or may not have been coiled by Maia and me) was our downfall. Mac called it pathetic While I recoiled it, Zoe recounted some of the worst injuries she’s ever seen, which were a bit gruesome, but interesting to hear.
Anyway, Zeke had already finished his beef stew for dinne,r which he very appetizingly described as “jelloey.” Regardless of the description, it was actually a really good stew, and I thoroughly enjoyed the mushrooms and getting to sit next to Vera, my favorite dinner buddy.
Now we’re mostly just hanging around, trying to get used to our new time change, where we are now 2 hours behind from when we started passage. Hopefully, watch isn’t too hard with the time change tonight. But anywho, we’ll be in Richard’s Bay TOMORROW! I’m so excited I can barely even think straight. Talk tomorrow!