Location: Underway to Moorea
Hi everyone, Colbie here again. This is potentially my last blog for this trip, which is just so tragic. Anyways, gotta start the blog off with a happy birthday to my twin siblings. Brynn and Justin, so happy 21st! Don’t go too crazy and make mama and dada regret letting you go out or anything.
Now onto our day’s activities:
This morning, watch team 1 had the 4-8 watch (my personal favorite). I, unfortunately, didn’t get much sleep past midnight due to the heat and humidity of the girls’ port six stack. At 3:30, I got woken up to get ready for watch. As the watch team leader for this student-led passage, I go up a bit earlier and get the briefing from the previous watch team leader, who is Meg for watch team 3, and then relay it back to my watch team. Since we are not sailing, there was not much to tell, so the briefing was quick. Skylar decided they wanted to helm one last time, and watch team 1 was all in support. We all took in our last bit of passage, star glazing (yes, I spelled that right), and enjoyed the rocking of the boat in the nighttime sea. The glow of the sun appeared quickly at our port stern, and all put in our FFORB First Full ORB) guesses for the last time. Conversations continued as we watched the stars disappear and the sun began to appear on the horizon. Shane got his silly little sunlight-blocking glasses so he could stare at the sun without killing his retinas. Mars, in the end, won with an exact FFORB time of 6:32:00 on the dot.
Watch ended quickly after that as fake hours flew by. Once we were relieved, Nacho and I cleaned up the popcorn dishes left in the sink by watch team 3 (SHAME) before I took a quick 2-hour nap. I was awoken for skipper duties (wake-ups of the general population) at 11:05 for an early lunch at 11:55 (a whole 5 minutes). Lunch and clean-up went by in a blur, and suddenly we were all gathered in the salon for our final class! We got our Oceanography quizzes back from yesterday. Then we had Aidan’s Leadership class, in which Ruby presented the final lecture at a loud enough volume for us to hear over the AC and engine (MAJOR win). Lastly, we had Shane’s final ‘lecture’ thing, where we basically just learned how to talk and communicate on a VHF formally and using proper words.
When we were all done, watch team 1 returned to the cockpit for our 2-6 pm watch (last one ever). It was silent. As Shane stated, “This is probably the most boring watch I’ve ever had” rip watch team 1. Genuinely, the only thing I remember doing during this watch was continuing the clothespin war with Shane (and Rachel got clipped as well, even though she was in the charthouse), and having a very long conversation about different types of chips (brands, flavors, literally anything you can think of) with Kaitie and Shane. Mind you, this was all while Cason was steering while using his feet and sitting down. Kind of an iconic move if you ask me. Thankfully, dinner came up on time (for passage) around 5:30, and we were relieved. Food, cooked by Mars, consisted of rice noodles with tofu and rice or peanut butter rice noodles, and broccoli (my favorite). Once most people were done eating, I announced our squeeze question: What is a niche hobby or activity you do at home that you love? It was super cool to hear all the different answers from people and learn more about what people do at home. I ended queeze with a squeeze-and-foot-clap, before going down to write the blog (which I’m obviously doing right now). After I am done, I will be going to make coleslaw (or however you spell it) for lunch tomorrow because I’m a #SousChef (I hate cooking, please send help).
PS: Hello friends reading this, I miss you all dearly, and I will see you soon in BOSTON BABYYYYYY! and to my familia, give Miss Nala bear some pets for me please
Signing off for (probably) the final time,