Location: Kuata, Fiji
Amazing start to the day (for myself, at least): caught a nice 9 hours of sleep after getting the watch off from the night before. Everyone else, on the other hand, not so much. Rhianna woke me up after her 6-7 AM watch; in a flash, I was out of bed, and my first thought was to make coffee. I was quickly reminded to wake everyone up first before the morning caffeine routine. Once everyone was out of bed and up and going, we quickly prepared the cockpit area for breakfast.
We had some delicious French toast with cinnamon sugar, Nutella, and powdered sugar on top. After scarfing our meals down, I made the announcement for all hands on deck. We raised the anchor, prepared the main sail, and battoned down the hatches for our 3-hour passage. Once the basic preparations were complete and we were underway, we all headed down to the salon for seamanship class with Charlie. After learning all about knots, wind directions, and what all the lines on the boat do, we were ready to head back up on deck and check out the new location we had arrived at. The island that we are currently anchored off at is called Kuata Island. Kuata Island provides shelter for all kinds of life such as lizards, chickens, and even goats that we saw hoisting themselves on the cliff sides. Tomorrow we are planning to hike up the island’s peaks and hopefully stop at the local resort on the other side. I know that my fellow trainees and I are looking forward to getting off the boat for a bit and placing our feet on some land for the first time in a while. Anyways, back to today, once we had all settled into our new home for the next couple of days, we prepared the cockpit again and ate lunch.
Rachel was cooking today, so we knew the meals would be good. Pasta salad with chickpeas, delicious as always. After lunch, the 80-day people headed down to the salon for class number 2, marine bio. It was straight to setting up diving kits after class for the advanced openwater divers to do their first boat jump off Argo instead of a dinghy. Once our divers resurfaced, they reported seeing a big turtle, a lengthy octopus, and a giant ray. Once everyone was dried off and
got over what they had saw underwater today, it was straight back to cooking. Tonight we had amazing taco/burrito bowls that most definitely filled everyone up. Dinner tonight was perfect fuel for our first night dive tonight that half of the students are doing as I write this right now; not to worry, we have a second one planned for tomorrow night that I will most definitely be attending! Today was defintly one of the better ones for everyone on the boat whether active or
catching some rest, super fun none the less. Love and miss ya Dad!