Location: Underway to Brazil
Hello families and friends
Ben here; I’m one of the onboard dive instructors and the marine biology teacher. This morning everyone got their first marine biology exam marks back, and there wasn’t a ‘fail’ grade in sight. Can’t put into words how awesome it’s been to see the effort and ability each student on Argo has applied to the course so far.
My morning got started during the 04:00-08:00 watch with the amazing Watch Team 3, which includes: David, Tim, Audrey, Zoe, Nick, and Katie (who was our watch team leader for today). As the sun came up, we hit our normal stride of listening to music, sharing stories, and sail handling. At the change of the watch, most people either head back to bed, fuel up on breakfast or hit the books and get studying. As 12:00 came around, we got served some massive portions of Mac and Cheese courtesy of the galley crew; Nick, Emma, and Gabe D. Watch Team 2 (Will, MaryGrace, Sabrina, Gabe, Nolan, Elene, Elizabeth C) kept us steady on the helm while we ate serving after serving of cheesy pasta. After our lunch clean-up, the students had class. They kicked off today’s academics with Oceanography which is taught by Argo’s top-tier instructor, Amanda S. From what I could hear on deck. It sounded like the usual loud and lively lesson that everyone had come to expect from Amanda. This was followed by Argo’s first mate Gabe C and his seamanship class. As per, the students smashed it out of the park, and I’m pretty sure all have the class’s “knot of the day” already perfected.
The class was then followed by free time, where the staff was able to rejig our fishing line setup and blame our current spell of bad luck on a variety of factors excluding our own mistakes. As 17:30 came around, we were presented with chicken tacos which, in the words of the galley crew, were “divine,” I agree. Dinner was livened up by Nat, Max, and Elene spotting a large fish, almost taking one of our lines before slipping off and returning back to the sea.
As I’m typing this, everyone is focused on clean-up with Watch Team 1 (Elisabeth B, Nat, Emma, Gabe D, Max, and Peter) at the helm keeping us on course for Brazil.
Best wishes to everyone reading this from the crew of Argo, and a big mention to John and Amy from Staff Member Claire (our medic and mate).