Location: San Blas, Panama
Hello to all the superfans of your salty, sunburnt, semi-sober, silly-goose sailors,
In the name of honesty and straightshooting, the following segment will be written by a ghost writer, who, because I have confessed, exists, is really more of a Casper the very friendly-ghost-ghostwriter. That is to say, a ghost in name only, but a writer through and through. Presenting Gavi, a rhetoric major who rescued my pleading self by agreeing to write the blog for free. I, who has not bought a beer on a sign out night as the miser I am, am happily willing to throw $10 at he who will take temporairily take away my dread of writing. To Mrs. Woehr, who gifted me Bird by Bird (a book about how to learn to love writing as a graduation present, Im so sorry to confess that I have neither read the book nor learned to like writing. Its probably a causative explanation that I just exposed. Without further ado, please enjoy this blog post worth $10, afforded to you at the low price of free (nevermind the $333 odd per day that this program costs). Id call that the deal of the day.
Guest author Gavi signing on,
Skipper Stella offered me 5 dollars to write the blog today because I studied rhetoric. Little does she know, I ChatGPTd my way through college. It’s ok though because I already lost the 5 dollars. Since we have no boat internet, the remainder of this blog was written by the closest thing I have to ChatGPT, which is the little buttons that pop up on top of my keyboard in my messages app when Im typing that suggest what word I should use next.
Edit- On reading Stellas intro, I realize that she gave me 10 dollars, which means I lost the 5 dollars twice.
Today we learned quite a bit. Some learned more than others. I learned that Sarah is incredibly irresponsible, that Martin is the dreaded gasket coiler, and that Nacho wants me dead. Unsurprisingly, I remain at least two and a half steps ahead of him. Other students stating what they learned today might refer to plotting points on a chart, which we practiced in Shanes Seamanship class this morning. Most of us, however, (not me obviously), might not remember that ever happening, because of the BEACH PICNIC BASH that immediately followed. Further evidence of this is in the crazy man knocking on the window and hooting while doing a silly dance next to my head as I type this. His name, Cason, will be omitted to protect his privacy. I do not believe that he remembers what Shane said about Portland plotters, and latitude and longitude, earlier today. His day was too good. He got caught up in the beach volleyball we played, the swimming, and the burgers and hot dogs. There were even two real dogs, which we did not eat. Yes, we enjoyed ourselves. We found at least two dozen coconuts by my best count, which we smashed and ate like Tom Hanks in Castaway. We met some friendly locals, who chatted us up in cabanas, which were partially submerged, so we never had to worry about our feet getting dry while we drank our non alcoholic coconut beverages. Here, these drinks are referred to as coco-locos.
After a great day at the beach, we returned to Argo to eat what may have been the most satisfying meal I have ever eaten. For the first time in recent Argo history, the oven was functional for a brief period just long enough for chef Meg to make some amazing cookies, which paired perfectly with her cabbage pancakes. They tasted way better than they sounded.
Today was a day that made us realize that we really are having a great time on this trip, even if sometimes we fly into the ceiling in our sleep and get moderate concussions, or stub our toes on branches, or wake up just barely alert enough to make it on deck to vomit not in our sheets from all the seasickness. It was a little first-degree fun, to accompany the great deal of second-degree fun.
To conclude, Ill say just one thing. Youre missing out.