Location: Tenerife, Canary Islands
The morning watch today marked the beginning of the end of an era on STV Argo. The current makeup of watch teams 1, 2, and 3 was set before our first passage out of Civitavecchia, and the teams have each developed their own unique dynamics as our voyage has unfolded. These teams, the only teams these students have known on board, will be broken up and reformed before our crossing to the Caribbean. I can only speak with any authority on the development of my own team, Watch Team 1. This team, which I count myself lucky to have been with for these many weeks, includes my co-leader, Nacho, and our students Oscar, Hailey, Amelia, Thatcher, Bryson, Cameron, and Samantha. I have grown fond of my team as they have developed into an ever more dependable group of sailors. We have spent many an hour listening to tunes (The Lumineers is a team favorite), gazing at the constellations, and having a comfortable mix between stoic silence, calming conversation, and delusional 4:30 am yap. As a teacher on board a sailing vessel as complex as Argo, it is always fascinating to watch my students grow and develop their sailing chops. There are many skills critical for a good seaman, and they range from big-picture to micro-detail. Its easier to gauge the growth of practical skills: ropework, sailhandling, and the like. They are taught and practiced on deck for all to see.
What is more difficult to teach and what takes more time by far is the understanding of how each small process, the easing and taking in of the sheets and preventers, the halyards and downhauls, all come together to make Argo move safely and in the right direction. My squad has gotten to the point where I can ask them to do just about any operation on the deck, and they can organize themselves and carry out their task safely and effectively while I sit back with my coffee supervising from the cockpit (each sip of coffee is like its own little reward). I know that my team will be sad to be switched around, but we will always be Watch Team 1 at heart.
My day started with Rachel waking me up at 3:30 to watch (rude). I brushed my teeth, brewed my coffee, and came up on deck to a full moon dulled by a wispy, low-altitude blanket of clouds patterned like the scales of an alligator slowly drifting south by southeast. After briefing my team, we relieved team 2 and took the con. Watch team 2 had rounded Punta Grieta on the isle of Alegranza and left us on a straight track to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. As the watch went along, we slowly built from a state of comfortable silence in the first hour to lively conversation and music as the full moon set and the dawn broke in the east. The sunrise was subtly magnificent. After a nap in the forenoon, Rachel was back to wake me again (rude) for lunch, followed by an Oceanography and Seamanship lecture during which I slept like a baby. My team had the afternoon watch from 1400-1800, and with the visit from the King of Time during lunch, who put us back an hour, classes were dismissed right as Nacho and I came on deck. This would be Watch Team 1s final watch as a group, and we savored it to be sure. Workout circuits in hour 1 were followed by lots of laughs, some fishing, and perhaps a little reminiscing on our time together. Guest stars from other watch teams enhanced the general mirth of the group. A pause in the general conversation in the cockpit was followed by a suggestion by Hailey. Her position, shared by all present, was that the watch teams, as they are, being so special to everybody aboard, deserve to have their names retired for the remainder of the trip. After our squeeze question, where I asked everybody to share a core memory with their sibling, best friend, or parent, Hailey made an announcement of her idea to the group, which was met with general agreement by the crew. Such as it is, the new teams shall be named Watch Teams 4, 5, and 6, respectively.
I will miss my group of students as they are now, but I firmly believe in the mid-trip switcheroony of the teams. We spend so many of our hours on a program, the majority of our waking hours on a passage, with our team, that at least one switch-up allows for new bonds to form, new ideas to be shared, and new memories to be made.
Signing off from STV Argo,
Shane
Chief Mate
Post Script:
Happy 20th birthday, Quinn! Love and miss you, Q. From your amazing sister, Amelia 🙂 <3