Location: Atlantic Ocean
This morning, watch team one was woken up at 7:30 for their eight o’clock watch. Emma, Alva, Laszlo, Christina, Kaden, and I then spent the next four hours sail handling. We had been crawling for the past two days, and Freddie wanted to reconfigure the sails to see if we could squeeze some more juice from the wind. This meant setting up the running backstays to support the main mast, setting up the fisherman’s sail, taking down the fisherman’s sail, tacking the jib, raising the main sail completely, and finally bringing down the main sail when Freddie decided that the motor was turning on. After this, lunch was on all of our minds. Nick, Meg, and Benno cooked up twenty-three cheese toasties, which were paired well with tomato soup. I was nervous going into this meal, thinking that I would still be hungry, but the homemade bread baked by Alva was filling. I can usually handle four to five grilled cheeses with ease, but one was plenty today.
After lunch, we went into our routine clean-up, followed up with oceanography. Today was the last lecture of the chemistry unit. Frankly, I dosed off during the lecture but then rallied back for Jake’s seamanship class. We learned how to find the position of a boat in the Chesapeake Bay using three landmarks on the chart. The hardest part of these problems is finding the actual landmarks on the chart. After class, most people took a nap, but Emma and I decided to work out on the stern of the boat while watch team 3 was in the cockpit. The workout then led to a needed study session for our marine biology test tomorrow. Kip and I then spent the last hours before dinner washing the stink out of our clothes. Nick, Meg, and Benno then prepared a mean steak stir fry that hit the spot. Finally, we ended dinner with everyone sharing, “What are the things people do that really grind your gears?”
Shout out to the rest of the Schaner family, love and miss you all!