Location: Fiji waters
Hi everyone!! Today was a bit of a slow day, but we did start our “short” (~30hrs) mini passage to Kandavu around 5 AM! We’ve been slowly doing longer and longer sails to try and get everyone’s sea legs developed before we embark on the big ol’ 3-week passage to Palau. My day started quite a bit earlier, though – I had anchor watch this morning from 3:00-4:30 AM. Once I was relieved from my duties by the next watch team, I promptly fell back asleep until around 6:50. When I woke up, the boat was already moving, and the galley was already bustling. As per my duties as skipper, I woke up the rest of the sleepy crew and enjoyed the smell of pancakes and bacon that were being cooked by Nora, Heather, and Drew.
Immediately after breakfast, we all gathered in the saloon for an oceanography class led by Heather. We spent most of our class time learning about marine provinces and the main regions of the ocean floor. Next was a marine biology class taught by Ben, where we learned all about the fundamentals of ecology. After essentially two and a half hours of class, we were all starving again, and the galley crew provided us with another delicious meal – BBQ bean burgers and seasoned potatoes.
I did some digging around in the saloon after cleanup and found the Vela book – a half-blank journal filled to the middle with stories, memories, letters, poems, and jokes from past crews that have lived on and adored our ship. I cannot wait to fill it with our jokes and love as well 🙂
Soon after, Heather got back from the mainland, where she was doing a ton of provisioning! We restocked on food and got everything we needed to make everyone’s personal recipes. I’m very excited to try the meals that everyone loves from back home and equally as excited to make some of my own. Among the new food stocks, we got more apples (like a CRAZY amount of apples)!! Based on everyone’s reactions to this, you would’ve thought that we were all given bricks of pure gold. If you couldn’t tell – these apples are treasured commodities. One of the pictures below is of Barb expressing the excitement that we are all feeling. Another treat that we got from the provision hunters was three tubs of tasty ice cream! We were all so excited that no one even bothered to get bowls. We all just dug in with spoons. With the limited amount of sweets that we get on board, this was for sure a wonderful treat.
After getting a final prep sesh from our respective watch team leaders, the four-hour versions of watch began for the very first time. Wish us luck as we navigate the seas!!
(also pictured is me with my shark drawing that I’m very proud of)
The waves are a bit gnarly right now, and I’m starting to feel woozy, so I’m gonna grab a Dramamine and head above deck. See y’all tomorrow!! <3