Location: UW to Mauritius
Yesterday, you readers learned of the incident that occurred on Watch Team 3 (my watch team) ‘s 48 am. watchyou guessed it, the cream cleanser explosion in the Port Aft Head. Secondly, you may have been told that we no longer have a propeller.
Immediately following the news, students began to wonder how life aboard might change as a result. Yesterday, it was rather anticlimactic, not much, thanks to some solid wind from a helpful direction. Today, we began to see some action. I was previously onboard Vela when the prop was damaged, and we switched to sails only to get back to Panama for repairs so I had a hint of what things might look like going forward. I tried my best not to sound like “it’s always sunny and 75 degrees in North Korea”-esque when telling the students that actually losing the prop was those previous Vela students’ favorite part of the trip. There’s no way to make that sound convincing at5 amm, watching the ETA of Mauritius and its promised ice creams jump from 1.5 days to 3, but today, that all changed.
This morning, I woke up just before lunch with a critical mission. On Halloween, I made pumpkin snickerdoodle cookie dough, but the oven was acting up, so I hadn’t had the chance to bake it. After a short stint living in the freezer, we decided to run an experiment – stovetop cookies. This was a particularly bold experiment to try with Snickerdoodles, which are famously rolled in cinnamon sugar. Meg, Ali, and I fought what we thought was a losing battle against these cookies – quickly burning on the outside and presumably raw on the inside. We made a few and set them in the fridge, but we were defeated. We’d switch our focus back to getting the oven sorted instead. Ali and I split a cookie and decided it was horrible. But then, it became time to pass up lunch, and we decided not to let the cookies go to waste. We passed them up, and they were devoured with shockingly good reviewsthe time in the fridge to settle after the fact somehow saved them. Ali and Meg had cheffed up some yummy quesadillas for lunch, and then the afternoon began as any otherannouncements of classes, due dates, ongoing qualms, etc.
The students went down below for Oceanography class, and I was on the remainder of the 12-2 watch solo. It’s always strange to find a moment truly alone on the boat, and it was a peaceful moment to think about how cool this actually is right now. No auxiliary bail-out method, no hour of helming badly because you were distracted by games on the watch or wanted to use the sail to block the sun, no use for the earplugs hanging above my bed, no noise but you and the rippling waves. A 130-ton boat was being pushed by 11 knots of wind and a bit of current to move 5 knots through the water with nothing but a few overgrown napkins hanging above us. Seriously nuts!!!! The waves began to build, and the wind died out in the afternoon haze. As Argo rocked in the waves, the sails got the wind knocked out of them and began to flog. Tomer came up and said we should put in another reef in order to stop the flogging and sail as deep as possible – the most direct route to Mauritius. So, instead of talking about the theory of sailing with a PowerPoint in the comforts of a hot salon down below, we called all hands on deck and prepared to put in the reef under sail power.
Typically, when reefing (which requires dropping the main partially, tightening a line on the winch to tension an “artificial” new foot, tying a new clew point, tying a new tack point, and popping in some nettles to hold the excess sail, and then re-raising your new, smaller sail after accordion folding some of the foot of the sail away) we point into the wind with the engine on to depower the sail to ease wind pressure against it as we try to work. We also drop any headsails that are flying, centerline the other sails to prevent flogging, and centerline the main itself to reduce risk. Doing it under sail, we don’t have the luxury of pointing right into the wind for these tasks, as we would lose all speed and, with it, steerage. So, to make a long story short, everyone was needed, and different teams were formed to get the job done.
We sheeted in the FJ, the forward staysail, and the main staysail, eased the preventer and took up on the main sheet, took up on the second reef, tied a clew strop, tack line, and then re-raised our new, smaller main sail. Then we eased everything back out before losing too much speed or ground and realized that we still couldn’t sail deep enough on that tack. So we called everyone back after this short intermission and Jibed!
Weeeeelcome to the starboard tack, an elusive guest on any Seamester voyage, as we commonly find ourselves sailing west in the land of south/south easterlies. We centerline all the sails, passed the FJ across, struck and re-rigged the running backstay, and eased everything back out on the other side of the boat as the stern passed through the wind. Lines were coiled and hung, and clarifying and theoretical questions were answered as our stomachs rumbled a shout from the gopher hole rang out almost immediately – it was time for dinner. It might seem like it would be tiring to be told the plan for the day is to sit through two 90-minute classes and instead be tending lines and striking sails for the bulk of the afternoon. But the deck was buzzing. Smiles plastered over everyone’s faces, and the collective feeling that “we’re really doing this” and “we’re real sailors.” More and more sail maneuvers will fill these upcoming days as we approach Mauritius, ultimately resulting in us sailing onto anchor just outside of Port Louis.
Watches pass faster, and questions become more engaged – we still talk about our embarrassing middle school stories but also ask about the sail plan and the whys of what we’re doing. The past few days have revitalized passage. There’s an energy in the air – what we’re doing right now is a crazy story to tell any old salt to earn their respect. Our propeller fell off in the middle of the Indian Ocean and we made the very most of it. At the same time we hit the halfway point and people started discussing how to make the rest of the trip really count, we got the perfect opportunity to do so. The deck is full of laughter, as always. And screams of 2, 6! Gatherings of Jennifer Aniston’s and Jamaican Bobsled Teams alike. Sails go up and come down and go up again – they switch sides, and the resident high siders get to sleep a night when they aren’t falling out of their bunks. We learn. All of us. Maybe all different things, but probably some of the same.
Dinner is a welcome guest. To our surprise, we still had some more of these fun Australian ribbon noodles that Ali used for a Spaghetti Bolognese – both a meat and vegetarian option. It was delicious!! Seriously. A culinary feat of making frozen and canned veggies taste good. Time for squeeze rolled around, and it seemed like the People’s Choice of daily appreciation was “Sail Handling.” – I asked everyone to name an animated character they had a crush on when they were little and got some shocking answers. Notably, Ava said, “I don’t know, probably a bear.” I was unsure which one, but I was confident in the fact that it was a bear. More troublingly, kackie said “air bud,” which is actually not an animated character but a real-life Golden Retriever dog..hmm. After we clowned her for this, she said okay, fine. Then it was the Beast, which is also weird when that cool fish from Finding Nemo exists, but on each of their own. We ended up squeezing with a Macarena and headed off to watch. I was on the 8-12 shortly after dinner, and when we met for the brief, Amanda D. said that she wanted to have a silly watch. Charlie then emerged from the companionway with a literal bucket of cookies labeled “Julie’s Biscuit Asorties,” and we decided to start our watch by miming how we take a shower when the water is really cold. Do you start with your feet and try to acclimate to the cold, or do you brace yourself and go head first? It was hysterical, as most of us had some pre-emptive pump-up and hyperventilation intermission.
I went down to do the 9 pm boat check and found a lot of people awake hanging out in the salon – watching movies and studying for a Marine Bio exam tomorrow. I reached my hand in the hole to lift the Galley Bilge to check it for water when something grabbed me from inside the bilge – I screamed and found Bodhi hiding inside, waiting to prank whoever came from our watch team. It was embarrassing because Kackie had told me about Bodhi’s plan earlier in the day, and it still got me. The rest of watch passed nicely, with good laughs and good company, when suddenly, we heard it – the LOUDEST, Closest blowhole we’d ever heard. Will heard it all the way from the charthouse. We grabbed the spotlight and looked out and saw nothing. But it was an Orca. Auditorily confirmed – the other watch teams disagree with the accuracy of our methods, but when you know, you know. The theory? Orca came up, tried to eat our propeller (as they have a real knack for in recent months), then noticed we didn’t have a propeller to eat, so it blowholed in frustration and swam off to torment the Oyster Regatta behind us. It reminded me of this strange woman I met in the summer, who, upon hearing we were going to sea, offered to give me “Orca bombs” to bring. Just in case. I declined even after she offered to dinghy me out and throw one off so I could “see it in action,” and I stand by it – 1. You shouldn’t get in a dinghy with a crazy person with a bomb, and 2. If an orca wants to eat my propeller, I’d say, hey, it’s gonna result in some awesome stories, and ultimately, in my experience, it is totally worth it.
We do a lot of cool things here. Passage is the thing most likely to be glazed over by the lens of habit. Days become routine, watches become a blur, and life can become a bit samey. But passage is what it’s all about. Passage is what you can’t explain to the people back home, what you can’t replicate anywhere else, and what you’ll probably never do againwaking up surrounded by blue, entertaining yourself with five other once-strangers with nothing but the depths of your wandering minds. The wild. The weird. The wonderful & the not so! The time slip. At a certain point in a longer passage, any day could be day 4 of the passage – it simultaneously feels like we’ve been away from land forever and for no time at all. The watch cycle switches, and you swore you were on the 12-4 yesterday, but you have it tonight, so that can’t be true – but could it really be 3 days later? Is someone messing with us? You celebrate the Lemurian Diamond – a cursed section of the ocean you were pretty sure you made up, but then you sacrificed a rat, and your propeller fell off, so maybe there was some truth in the three-eyed wizards you dreamt up. Every day for the past 10 days or so, we’ve been saying, “More ideas by morning” (which is the pronunciation Charlie’s travel doctor used before vaccinating him for the trip). But if I’m being honest with you, in two days or so, when it really is Mauritius by morning, part of us won’t be so excited to leave this behind. The sunset and sunrise dance parties. Those who don’t want to put on their PFDs stick their heads out of the companionways like meerkats.
Singing songs and dancing dances. Grilling cookie dough. Pranks. Design your own pizza competitionsrain dances for wind, ovens, Biology tests, and everything in between. Again, I don’t want to sound like a strange propagandist, and I know I could wax poetic about passage for longer than anyone wants to hear about it, but passage is everything to me!!! It’s the greatest thing in the world! And I am so excited to go to Mauritius, get an ice cream from Fruity Swirl TM, and see my best friend, Travis Yateeeeeeezy. But passage ROCKS, and having no propeller makes it even better. And I know I can’t convince you of that, but that’s alright, hopefully one day you’ll get to live it yourself – or find a time melding all encompassing experience of your own.
I look forward to hearing all about it. Love to anyone who reads to the end.
Love you, Mum, Dad, Chris, Nikki, Disco, Whiskey, Emma, and both of the Tomasellos. Talk soon.