Places to Be, Monkeys to See
Location: Bali
Day seventy-eight. Your favorite Argonauts have spent their penultimate full day on program, squeezing every last drop out of this adventure that they can. After a morning of re-integration chats, guest books, card writing, and adjusting Argo's lines and anchors. After lunch, the crew hopped on a bus and rode down to Uluwatu to see the picturesque, famous Uluwatu Temple, situated atop the high western cliffs of the Uluwatu peninsula on the south side of Bali. Featuring beautiful views and lots of monkeys, the crew got to see a traditional fire dance and had a Balinese dinner out. Surprisingly, no phones or sunglasses were stolen by monkeys during this excursion.
Endings are a heck of a thing. This morning, as I was trying to get everybody up to the cockpit for breakfast, I was met by a group of students in the salon. Skye and Addy were holding a sign saying "happy first last day," referring to the start of CU Boulder's classes today, marking the start of each of their senior years in college. A teary-eyed Skye looked up at me and said, "After this year, I won't be able to go to frat parties." As we look back on our voyage, we know that it will be impossible to really recreate this experience. When you bring 32 strangers together for an adventure like this one, the process of forming the group dynamics from scratch is a large part of what makes it special. Students come in with a set of expectations for the experience itself, but with no preconceived notions of the people they will be sailing with. That, combined with the removal from each person's comfort zone, comes together to create strong bonds that thrive in this context. Upon departing the vessel, such as with any other splitting of a group, some bonds will hold stronger than others through the distance and distraction of life.
In our re-integration chat, we talk about being horizontally rooted. That is to say, relative to being vertically rooted - having all of your familial and friend relationships concentrated in one place - people who seek out adventures such as this one often find that their friends and family sometimes seem scattered. This can be seen as a sad thing. Sometimes it can feel isolating. However, I have found that the more you branch out, the more you spread your wings, the wider your roots become. As an example, as we have been sailing on this route around the world, I have found that more and more, I run into old friends in the most unlikely places. Coming into Bali, I have 3 friends who just happen to be here while we are. In 4 months, I will be able to go hang out with my Irish friend that I worked with in the Caribbean because we will both be in Cape Town.
Leaving friends is truly a sadness. It is a pain we feel to leave those with whom we have grown so close. There is beauty in sadness because it shows us how important these connections are to us; I also find that there is immense beauty in running into an old friend. Somebody you shared laughs and tears with in adventures past. You have both gone off and lived your own unique lives, and fate has ordained that you meet again at just the right time. What each and every one of the Argonauts is walking away from this experience with is 31 more roots that will spread with the wind. Each of us has had each other's backs for these past 80 days, and that mentality does not leave our minds or indeed our hearts as we take our next steps to whatever adventure awaits us next.
I will truly miss this crew. I could not have been luckier or have wished for better on my first program as Captain.
Best wishes,
Captain Shunc