Location: Port Louis, Mauritius
I was woken up today at 7:30 and then told I could go back to sleep and didnt have watch in half an hour. Despite the intense feeling of relief, this provoked within me, I didnt go back to sleep and walked up the companionway to see where the night before had been, only water, a whole lot of industrial-looking stuff in front of a shore with a whole lot of tall buildings. Mauritius! Before we even pulled into the dock, though, it was time to start Boat Appreciation.
An admission: I have not been reading the blogs from past skippers, and as such am unfamiliar with the level of education my audience has when it comes to Boat Appreciation. It is essentially a deep clean of the boat. This involves deck/floor scrubbing, cabin reorganization, sheet changing, and, this time around, an inventory of our food stock (this part was genuinely pretty fun, by the way, and was mostly reserved only for us on the bottom level as many cans, etc. reside beneath our bunks in these fun little cubbyholes that are, quite frankly, the biggest pain imaginable to open up due to the aforementioned mattress on top of them in addition to whatever personal belongings might be atop of said mattress which tends to be a lot because theres not really anywhere else to put all of our stuff). Also, a special thank you goes to Ben and Jake for cleaning out the gray water tank. If you dont know what gray water is, look it up! Youre a competent individual capable of using Google/Bing/Yahoo, and I dont really want to explain it because its mildly gross. Sorry if that was mean; it just kicks me out. All of this is just to say thank you, Ben and Jake.
As the cabin galley and saloon are being torn apart, cleaned, inventoried, and reassembled, the deck is getting a deep scrub courtesy of Smash et Al. This process will be repeated below deck on the floor once that is clear. Im trying to paint a chaotic picture here because I want you to realize how it was to be on board with not just this going on but also a bunch of customs officials coming and going from Vela and Tom docking the boat along with some old guy who looks like the picture that 5-year-old Daniel would have drawn of a captain except for his mildly adversarial scowl.
Anyways, after Boat Appreciation was finally done, we were docked and were actually legally allowed in Mauritius. It was quite late in the day, so the crew of Vela did the only reasonable thing to do. Got hammered. I mean, what do you expect, really? Let us live a little. Im only joking, of course. Mostly. Today was our first sign-out night, meaning everyone had 1 or 2 beers. Everyone except me, at least. This is, to be frank, a fact that caused me to feel some sort of sober superiority over my fellow students. Still, quickly, it became apparent that everyone else was actually having a much better time than I was. If Im being honest with myself, Im just afraid of alcohol because Im a petulant child and a weenie (weeny?).
Anyway, after dinner, we absolutely terrorized the two employees of the only late-night ice cream place in our vicinity, Frutti Swirl, which has a logo that would make a Jamba Juice IP lawyers skin crawl (an aside: since this night, I have come across ~7 Frutti Swirl locations within less than about a mile of our dock. How Mauritians consume so much frozen yogurt is a mystery to me. Another aside: yes, I am writing this blog a few days after the fact. Yes, I am just as disappointed in my tardiness as you are).
Having cell service finally, after so many days of telling myself that Im just like the sailors of yore solely because I dont have instant access to more information and entertainment than I could ever want at my fingertips, felt like discovering a new world of current events, happenings of my loved ones, and other stuff probably. Okay, maybe not really, but some stuff was shocking. E.g., I was going to download some audiobooks in a series that Captain Tom had recommended to me. Now imagine my delight when I already owned two books! (Probably because my dad had listened to them) Anyway, Audible credits are precious, and this was really a very welcome discovery. Theres also a war happening that wasnt happening before, and in retrospect, I probably should have led with that and not the audiobook thing. Anyhow, this is the point where I dont know what to write anymore, so bye.
P.S. If youre wondering why this log sounds like it was written by a pretentious loser (or rather some nerd trying to sound like a pretentious loser), its because theres a collection of David Foster Wallace essays on board, which I probably should have steered clear of but just read nonetheless and so whatever you just read happenedmy B you guys.
P.P.S. Luv u Mom, Dad, Clare, and Tom! <3