Fish, fish, SAILING!!! and more fish
Location: Underway to Gibraltar
WHATS UP WORLD!! A full trip around the job wheel means IM SKIPPER AGAIN! Today was awesome. For me, it started bright and early with a 12am-4am watch on day 2 of our passage to Gibraltar (t-minus 3 DAYS UNTIL MONKEY HIKE!!!) I can confidently say this was the best watch that watch team 3 has had yet. We started off by telling scary stories while doing our planks (we’re up to 3 minutes now💪💪) and I’m not sure why we requested scary stories because I was thouroughly spooked the rest of watch. I don’t think I’ve ever jumped up quicker than when Annika said someone was behind me. Makayla was especially spooked by the towel sitting on the Charthouse so much so that she missed a step while trying to get away from it and full face planted into the deck. Let me tell you we’ve never laughed harder (don’t worry she was okay!!) I think we woke up everyone in the Charthouse with that one, oopsies. I think I also woke everyone up when I bumped into the throttle and made us sound like we were a spaceship ready for takeoff. Anywaysss watch team 2 came to relieve us and they caught a Mahi Mahi!! After getting me daydreaming about sushi, Sam told me we had to release it because it was too small🥲🥲Everyone was woken up at 11:30 and found it was oddly quiet inside of beautiful Vela… BECAUSE WE WERE FINALLY UNDER FULL SAIL POWER!!! ⛵️⛵️⛵️We shut the engine and generator off completely and were cruising at a solid 6.5 knots!! We were all SOOOOO excited. We enjoyed baked potatoes for lunch shortly after, thanks to head chef Owen and sous chefs Clara and Sedona! After lunch we had leadership class and for the first time ever we could actually hear everything that was being said thanks to the engine being off!! After leadership we had marine bio and I think we all owe Dan an apology, but our dear Vela is veryyy good at rocking us to sleep—especially when she’s under full sail. We tried our best to stay awake Dan I promise!! From what I was able to catch, we were learning about intertidal zones and marine life. During class, Francisco caught another Mahi that we sadly couldn’t keep. After class we had 45 minutes to nap before dinner. Dinner was yet another delicious meal of butter chicken curry and Nan bread. While we were eating, something caught the line! Mac and Clara tried their best to reel it in but sadly lost it. Our squeeze question today was whats your favorite song of all time. I confidently said Hotel California by the Eagles, but almost everyone else found it kinda difficult to choose just one (sorry!!) While Baxter was in the middle of answering, something caught the line again!! Damien started to reel it in and it looked like another Mahi jumping through the wake but sadly he didn’t stay on the line for long. Tonight, watch team 3 has the 8pm-12am watch and we’re all soaking in the last few days as a watch team before we shuffle teams! That’s all for now, and mom and dad I haven’t gotten seasick this trip yet WOOHOO!!! Much love, Hollis