Location: Underway to the Marquesas
G’Day.
Routine.
This auspicious Tuesday marked, in its own way, a continuation of the passage routine that our Argonauts have now become so used to. Routine is everything on long voyages. Our particular Argo-flavored routine goes in a three-day dominant cycle regulated by the watch rotation. One night, you have the 4 am to 8 am watch. The next day brings the midnight to 4 am, culminating in the 8 pm-12 am/8 am-12 pm one-two punch (liked by some, dreaded by many). The days are made up of the lunch and dinner dog watch, so called because they are curtailed to only 2 hours long (get it? cur-tail? dog watch? anyways), and the 2-6 pm afternoon watch is reserved for class.
Routine on board anchors us (or me at least) to reality. Without routine on board, sailing the seemingly endless ocean – not seeing land for weeks – would seem like slow simmering in an eternal cosmic brothno aims, no direction, just existing in its purest form. Hey, I’m sure that works just fine for the monks, but we sailors need structure. On a sailing vessel, a lack of direction and purpose is a one-way path to an unhappy ship.
Historically, navies were exceedingly proud and protective of their routine. In Nelson’s navy, the Royal Navy of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, sailors followed a 4-on, 4-off rotation. On the first Sunday of each month, the captain would read the articles of war to the entire ship’s company. And the church was rigged every Sunday except in battle or foul weather.
One aspect that Argo draws from the Royal Navy’s traditional routine is the use of the morning watch, our 8-12, for vessel cleaning, maintenance, and beautification. This morning, Watch Team 1 began the day with a student head deep clean, followed by an easter egg hunt (identifying and discarding eggs that have gone off). Those toilets have never sparkled so much. Sadly, 9 eggs were lost to the deep. I myself was updating our SOLAS checklist, which includes visually inspecting all of our safety gear, logging the expiration dates of flares and such, and testing our search-and-rescue beacons. Lunch brought grilled cheese and tomato soup. Thanks, Avery. I had the afternoon watch off and studied up on the Colregs (rules for navigation at sea), and read some of my book while the students learned about wave dynamics in oceanography.
Dinner brought lighthearted conversation with plenty of laughs. The day ended with some surprise sail handling, and now it is time for this sailor to get some rest.
Thank you for reading.
Mom, Dad, Dakota, Joss, Javi, Marla, Emily, I miss you guys. Love you all!