Location: San Blas, Panama
Happy Monday! Since you last heard from Argo and crew, your favorite Argonauts have arrived in the low-key (or high-key?) hella exotic land of San Blas. During our last night on passage, some exciting stuff went down. Watch team 1, always vigilant, spotted the silhouette of a sailboat coming head-on with no navigation lights. Our helmsman Katie, 3 hours into her helmsona, dodged easily just like that old pixely traffic dodging game. Katie went on to complete her helmsona with 4 hours straight as an arrow minus the boat dodging. Our favorite Canadian’s chosen helmsona name is “Tim Helmtons”. Our 8-12 also featured world war 3 (Cason, Avery, Avi, and Jazmyn cooking naan in the galley for 4 hours). Will filed an official noise complaint. Sorry Will. Upon being relieved by Meg and co, my stream of consciousness skipped 8 hours. The next thing I know, Captain Nick is waking me up by petting my hair, singing, “You are my sunshine. I walked up the companionway and was greeted with the juxtaposition of the gorgeous archipelago of San Blas under a dreary grey sky. I heard about Jonas, Rachel, and Nick having “drone time” looking for coral heads and other obstacles coming into the anchorage. After a French toast breakfast, Nick went ashore to deal with the captain’s custom things, and while he was ashore, we put the boat to bed, and I got to re-anchor the boat because an unexpected wind shift put us just a little too close for comfort to some shoals.
Once we were all fed and cleared into the country, everybody gathered in the salon for a morning Seamanship class. I gave my first lecture on the Navigation portion of my class, in which I teach coastal navigation using just a chart, a compass, and some plotting tools. Navmaster is my favorite part of my course to teach but it’s also the most challenging both for me and for the students. A good navigator needs to be able to use chart instruments with accuracy and precision, have good spatial and mathematical reasoning skills, and, most of all, patience for the process and for oneself. I tell the students that the only way to master these skills is through repetition and taking care at each step. A small mistake early in a problem can put you miles out by the end.
After lunch, the students had some time to study for the upcoming marine biology exam. They then got picked up by a local guide to learn about the local culture and explore a nearby community. The highlight, I am told, was playing tag with some local kids, “tag is universal” -Skylar.
Dinner was held down in the Salon due to the rain. I am told by our resident captain/meteorologist/fortune teller that rain and thus down below meals will be a common theme for our time here. For the Squeeze, everybody shared with the group a core memory with a sibling, parent, or good friend. And just like that, Monday was fading fast.
This particular Monday marks day twenty-eight of the program, and it’s already starting to feel like Antigua was just a hazy fever dream. With Argo’s haul-out fiasco, life on program for the staff has felt like a game of catch-up; This passage to San Blas has been the first time recently where I felt like I could think and reflect both on the program so far and my time at Seamester as a whole. I’m Shane, by the wayFirst Mate extraordinare. For me, the beginning of this program marked a year on S.T.V. Argo. This job has featured many periods of high intensity, which do not, in the moment, induce nor often even allow for reflection until after the fact. Intensity intertwines with long passages where 4 hours each night are often spent doing nothing but thinking when no action is required to keep Argo happily moving along.
Time passes strangely on board. Like water flowing along a mighty, endless river, it seems to rush by through the chaos, at times rapid, at other times meandering lazily as if rolling along through a wide, flat delta. On a long passage, swaths of time blend together. Often, I couldn’t tell you the day of the week. I had to look at a calendar just now to know it was a Monday. It would almost seem like lost time if it weren’t for the fact that the Ocean and often Argo herself are constantly teaching you lessons. There hasn’t been a single day in my year-and-a-bit here at Seamester where I haven’t been faced with a lesson. Many, mind you, have and will require some repetition until they are truly ingrained into my brain, body, and soul. Some wise person said that every mistake is a lesson, and lessons will be repeated until they are learned. I think one of the reasons that sailing calls to me so strongly is that it constantly keeps you just beyond stability, just beyond comfort. You must stay constantly aware of the world around you: the weather, the tides, the phase of the moon. Is your equipment in order? Is your crew in good spirits? The constant effort required to stay safe teaches so many lessons that translate to every aspect of life (except maybe to table manners).
I hope that every student on board Argo is taking the time to appreciate and absorb all the lessons presented to them every day. I can see the crew improving in their ability to live aboard Argo; to sail her and work together as a crew. What I can’t see is the internal impact this experience has. Often, students won’t know this impact themselves until they have had the time and space out of this context to gain clarity of what their time here meant and what it taught.
Thank you for reading.
To my Family, I love you all to the moon and back 100 gazillion times.