Location: Underway to Fernando de Noronha
The endless view of the open ocean is a sight that I may never get used to seeing. It’s beautiful and yet amazing to think that a few days ago, we were in St. Helena, and now we are yet again on passage to more unique and picturesque places.
Today started off with normal watches: watch team two from 8-12, watch team three from 12-4, and watch team one from 4-8. My watch, watch team one, was lucky enough to watch the beautiful sunrise and think about how lucky we are to be able to have this experience and to experience it together as the Argonauts. We have all had a relatively busy day aboard Argo. After a delicious lunch and lunch clean-up, we had class; first was OCE (oceanography) and then SLD (Student Leadership Development), where we were told to write down and discuss, if we wanted to, our strengths and weaknesses. For some, like me, this exercise was difficult, but we were able to learn from each other and think of new strengths or weaknesses that we have. After SLD, we had a how-to presentation by Helen about toning. Straight after the class finished, and we were beginning to pack away our laptops and files, we were faced with a very loud fire alarm drill.
The fire alarm consisted of us running to our bunks and quickly grabbing our Type 1 PFDs (Personal Flotation Device) while some of us brought out our pillows to fight off the fire. We split up into our different watch teams to do our fire drill duties. Once we had set up the hose and stopped the fire, we had an abandon ship drill where we had to go get the medical supplies and the life rafts.
Once we had completed all of our drills and officially all survived, along with not having to abandon ship anymore, we had time to shower. Deck showers have become like second nature to us, along with the cold ocean water. After showers, watch team was on duty, the chefs went to cook, and the rest of us either tried to squeeze in a 30-minute nap, which we have all gotten really good at, or just to catch up on the loads of homework that we have to get through that is all due on day 30.
Tonight’s squeeze question that I chose consisted of something called the Pandora box; it is where you are able to take away something in the world and replace it with something else. We had a few that consisted of getting rid of animal cruelty, poverty, or whole hunger. In contrast, Emma’s consisted of getting rid of Justin Bieber, and some of the things that we would put into the world in replacement would be chocolates that didn’t make you fat and mandatory nap times.
Speaking of nap times, I think it is that time of night for me to retire to my cabin and catch up on maybe a little bit of work and get some sleep, and be prepared for a 12-4 AM watch.