Location: Cocos Keeling
Hello friends and family!!! Greetings from Cocos Keeling (it is required to say it in an Australian accent btw). We arrived early this morning to a circle of islands and a welcome party of black-tip reef sharks swimming around the boat. As we ate our freshly baked cinnamon rolls (MANY thanks to Lucia), we admired the beautiful, clear, blue waters and a stillness that we had not felt in 4 days. I can safely say that we all have a newfound appreciation for being able to sand it in one place without falling over. Next, we put Vela to bed as fast as we could so we could jump in the water and see the reefs that surround us up close. This consisted of putting sail covers on all of the sails, taking off the halyard lines, giving the deck a good wash, and taking out all of our dive gear for our undoubtedly amazing dives to come over the next few days. I am most excited about the sunrise dive we have scheduled! As an atoll, Cocos is basically one huge reef filled with all of the fish we have been studying in class. As Kasey likes to say, “It’s like seeing a celebrity.” Jumping in the water felt so refreshing, and we all swam for hours. We swam for so long, in fact, that we ate lunch 2 hours late because everyone did not want to get out of the water. We paused our swimming to eat delicious teriyaki quinoa bowls. After our preliminary snorkel to get the lay of the land, we still did not have enough of Cocos. We napped off our lunch and then got straight back in the water. Ben, Ayden, Kasey, and I made our way to a shallow piece of reef that would be a sandbar if the tide was lower. When we put our snorkels on, we were immediately greeted by about ten curious black-tips. Ben and Ayden encountered a few territorial ones that came too close for comfort, and on the way back to the boat, Kasey had a run-in with a HUGE barracuda the size of Kasey herself. Later, Cristian and Nico said that they had seen it underneath the boat, which means that it followed us all the way from the reef! Despite that, a quote from a very scholarly movie has taught that “fish are our friends’ (Finding Nemo), and that includes the sharks. Ayden saw a giant pufferfish, Kasey and I saw a cornetfish, and I saw a very cute little yellow boxfish, just to name a few out of the hundreds of things living in the coral. Other marine life organisms that were VERY hard to miss were the sea cucumber littering the floor at least one to two every meter. They were HUGE!!! Another snorkel group, Margaret, Zoe, Ruby, Ava, and Allie, swam up current for at least an hour to get to a small island/sand bar. They named it Ma’s Island and “frolicked in the pillowy sand “(a direct quote from Margaret). On the way back, Allie’s leg kept cramping, but luckily, our RDIT (rescue diver in training) Ruby, a tired diver, towed her to the boat. We all got back to the boat in the late afternoon. It is hard to tell what time it is based on the sun because Father Time (Smash) has decided that time is whatever we want it to be, and we want the sun to set after dinner cleanup. We have all set our watches back an hour. Strangely, this means that we are an hour and a half behind the time of Cocos Keeling because I guess they have also decided that time is up to them and have a half an hour difference to other time zones. We hung out on the bow sprit, played chess, listened to music, and finally, boat showered in the beautiful water before dinner. Dinner was green vegetable curry, which was so so good. Nico’s appreciation for the day was all of Lucia’s food, stating, ” You won.” The question of the day was: If you were going to perform the ultimate heist, who would you bring along from the boat to help you, what is one item you would bring as aid, and what is it that you are stealing? My favorite answer was from Tom, who said he would steal Jake’s Nintendo using spicy food with Ayden. Smash and I are going to steal a boat full of rubber ducks using shower caps. After dinner and a long line of chaotic announcements, most of which involved information about the heads and how people are using them wrong (use your imagination), we cleaned up! The first team for anchor watch made their way to the cockpit, and the rest reminisced on the perfect first day in Cocos Keeling! Now, it is dark and getting colder as we make our way closer and closer to Africa, so it is time to get cozy in our new clean sheets (yay!). As for me, I have to make pumpkin chai bread batter for breakfast tomorrow. Sending LOADS of love to everyone at home, and make sure you all give extra love to Estee (our ADORABLE Aussie puppy) for me! xoxo