Location: UW to Galapagos
Wow. What an amazing day. Some might even say “perfect.” For me, the day started super early – 3:30 am to be exact. I had the beloved 4:00 – 8:00 watch, and it was absolutely beautiful. We started with a super dark night sky, complimented by a true crime podcast called Shane and Sally. Full confession: my mom made it, and the first episode dropped today!!! If you like true crime and podcasts, you should defo give it a listen. It was sooo good to listen to on watch. Go, mamma!!! Watch team three (and me, duh) love you!!
While listening and watching, we did some other boat things – turned on the gen, turned on the water maker, ran through all of the lines on board in preparation for a Seamanship exam later in the day, watched the sunrise, etc. All amazing. Then, I personally went back to bed. I inteded to get up only an hour later and do some work, but my eyes were not having it. I slept until lunch. But what’s a tired girl to do? For lunch, we had Ash’s famous bagel sandwiches (unfortunately for Chance, no blueberry bagels today). Then we went into the line exam, which means everyone walked around the boat and told us (the staff) what all the different lines are and what they do. I am honestly so impressed. This crew has learned so much in such a short time and, in many ways, are already running the watch teams themselves -helm rotations, boat checks, all the things. After the line exam it was time for marine bio (for the students), and I did the 14:00-18:00 “staff watch” with my fellow staff. We did all kinds of planning and scheming. Very successful. It was also gorgeous.
Just calm, rolling waves all around, big open sky. Magic. AND THEN. We realized we had two boobies (specific species ID pending) hanging out on the bowsprit and hanging out as in straight chilling. They were there for hours. This meant we obviously turned into a nat geo bird-watching boat and all gathered around to watch them exist. We also got the binocs out to get an extra close look. They are sooooo cool. And they had red feet. And such fluffy little necks. And blue beaks?!! Then, for dinner, we had Ash’s delicious Massaman. I was feeling inspired by the boobies so for squeeze I asked what animal everyone would be. I picked a blue-footed boobie. So yeah. Perfect day. See the wildlife photos attached.)