Always Scheming
Location: Underway to Mauritus
If there's one thing to know about Watch Team 2 (Ben, Bohdi, Kiley, Ali, Hannah, and I) is that we love pranks. So we've been spending the majority of our hours on watch scheming. These pranks have included some creative things like constructing fake sleeping people in our bunks, but mostly, we've just been jump-scaring each other. Ali gets the most scared by far. Maybe we've scared her one too many times, though, because now she won't do a deck check by herself. One night, Will thought someone was crying in the chart house- it turns out it was just Ali trying to catch her breath after Ben hid behind the corner. Last night, we pulled off one of our best pranks to date. Ali and Hannah took one of the CPR dummy heads, illuminated it with red light, and used it to very creepily wake up the next watch team. Reactions varied: Charlie: *covered eyes with hands* "Woah." Travis: *nearly falls out of bed* Drazka: "Get away." Ainsley: *giggles* "Okay." Allie: "very cool you guys" Will: "Thank you" *snuggles dummy head* Even if they didn't think it was that funny, we all had a really good time with it. After last night's watch of prank scheming and dancing, Watch Team 2 reunited this morning for the 8-12 watch. We often call the 8-12 watch the "work watch" because it tends to be the best time to get some boat projects done- once we've had breakfast, coffee, and adequate time to hatch. This morning, Kiley got to work making fresh bread for Meg's meals today. Meanwhile, Ali and Hannah "sunscreen" the dinghies (they applied UV protection to the vinyl), and the rest of the day carried on as usual. Gabe taught the Emergency First Responder Course, and Meg taught marine bio. I worked on my lesson plans for the NavMaster class tomorrow. Luckily for me, this group of students likes NavMaster, or at least that's what they say to my face. It's quite tedious work and not always everyone's cup of tea. After dinner, Watch Team 2 got back on watch. Life felt ideal- we watched the sunset and listened to calm music. It was one of those moments that reminded me how lucky I am to be here, sailing across the Indian Ocean with a bunch of strangers turned family. During the handover, we brought the energy back up and had a Pitch Perfect style "riff off" against Watch Team 3 (Will, Allie, Drazka, Travis, Ainsley, and Charlie). We sang Titanium, and they sang Call Me Maybe. We won. Now, I'm sitting in the salon surrounded by Philip and Tomer talking about the meaning of life, Juliette and Bodhi playing guitar and singing, Hannah and Ava making Mac n cheese, and Amanda studying. Tomorrow is Charlie's birthday, so after he goes to sleep tonight, we will be setting up decorations and birthday surprises for him!! Birthdays on the boat are always something to look forward to, but turning 21 while sailing across the Indian Ocean is definitely special. We have one more prank planned for the night- Ben and I are going to switch beds to prank whoever will be waking us up for watch in the morning. I'm agreeing to this prank, but I feel like this might be more of a prank against me. I think he just wants to sleep in my bed because my bunk has better airflow and a thick mattress pad compared to the person who lived in my bunk before me. Nonetheless, I will always commit to the bit, so I am going to do the bunk trade. Hopefully, our waker-upper will find it funny. Shoutouts: Ali's dad is responsible for the bucket hat. Ben loves it. - Mom, I took a comb out of your bathroom last time I was home. It hasn't gotten much use (we don't brush our hair often around here), but I used it today and thought of you… so thanks. - Bodhi's family, just for existing, he says. - Helen, I was showing people the photos of us in our ghost costumes last Halloween. - Helen and Tess, someone put on Mr. Jones today, and I thought of y'all.