Location: Durban, South Africa
Welcome back to Argo in the big city! Last night, the sleep was amazing! No leaking hatches, no getting thrown into the ceiling in the fo’c’sle or hitting zero g’s in the head. The harbor we are anchored in is completely protected from waves, but we woke up to a chilly morning with wind from the south and sprinkles of rain. Breakfast was eaten in the salon, and the day was laid out for us. The plan was to knock out a class in the morning followed by an Emergency First Responder review and scenarios after lunch, and then we were going to crew for boats in a regatta around the harbor! Thanks to Allie, who reached out to the yacht club here in Durban that did Wednesday night races and was willing to take a number of students onto their boats to help staff positions. But first, we had some lives to save. After an amazing build-your-own deli sandwich lunch by Chef Juliette, we split into two groups and were called into the salon separately. When my group opened the doo,r we were faced with two panicked people (Allie and Drazka) who were incoherently freaking out, looking around the room, I saw Gabe’s legs sticking out from underneath the port salon table and Ben on the ground on the other side of the salon with knife wounds and some sticky notes indicating that he had lost 4 liters of blood. I ran over to Gabe and saw he was wrapped in an extension cord that turned out to be plugged in, which I did not notice until too late. Ali noticed it was plugged in and pulled it out of the wall saving Juliette and Charlies life but it was too late for me, I was already dead. Drazka continued to freak out and ended up passing out on the ground, so people began CPR on her and Gabe as well while others applied pressure to Ben’s wounds, keeping him conscious and bandaging him up. We forgot to call EMS until about five minutes into the scenario, but eventually, they came, and after deliberation, the staff told us we needed to try again. Same with the other group and we both went a second time, it went much smoother and all patients and responders survived. It was afternoon at this point, and we needed to be on the docks around 1600 to meet our crews and help set up for the race. It was cold, windy, and rainy, so we all geared up in our foulies and got in the dinghies to motor ashore. On the way, fish were jumping out of the water, and one almost hit me in the head. Once on the dock, we helped inflate the marker buoys, and then Travis went in the marker boat to drop them off. Ali, Hannah, and Kiley go on the Bridge boat, which signals the start of the race and puts up a signal flag. Drazka, Charlie, Juliette, and Ainsley were on a 30-ish-foot boat called Guru, Ava and I were on a racing boat called CFM, and Amanda and Philip were on another 26-foot boat. We introduced ourselves to the crews and walked to the boats. CFM was the only official racing boat with an eight-person crew, ten of which included Ava and me. The skipper and owner of Ava’s boat was an 80-year-old South African walking with a cane from recent knee surgery. He showed up wearing skinny blue jeans and a wetsuit top. Everyone was so nice, and we all cracked jokes the whole time. The strong wind died out a bit as soon as we all got out to the start line, but CFM was still flying! The horn sounded one minute, and the boats all tacked and jibed around each other, jockeying for positions. The final horn sounded,
the boats crossed the start line, and the race began. CFM quickly took the lead. Being the only racing boat, it was naturally much faster than the others racing today. Ava was in the cockpit helping with sheets and halyards, and I was on the back stays with another member of the crew. As we approached the first marker, we hardened up into the wind and jibed around the body; then, in the span of 20 seconds, we pulled up down the jib and hoisted the massive spinnaker, which caught the breeze from behind us and carried us further from the competition. It was so much fun to go fast coming from sailing Argo, where dropping and raising a sail could take an hour and a half or more till it was all said and done. Everyone had a blast, and you could see Argo’s crew dotted amongst the boats with our bright yellow foul-gear hoods and big smiling faces. After the race, we helped secure our boats and went to the pub to celebrate, eat, and drink. The rest of the evening was spent with new friends, drinking beers with sailors, and eating delicious South African food. It thundered and rained outside but inside it was warm and dry, we played pool, travis played the piano for the first time in months and our bellies were full.