Location: Long Island, NY
Can you believe it’s day 47? We’ve covered nearly 4000 miles, seen about 700 dolphins, discovered a whole bunch of dive sites, weathered a tropical storm, and transited through one of the most iconic cities in the world. Having said that, I suppose it has been quite action-packed, but it really doesn’t seem like two weeks since we were on the dock in St Pete. Speaking of action-packed, today started with another vintage wake-up. Today my torrent of words was shortly followed by an absolutely terrific Spanish omelet by Smash and Rocco, offering just the hearty start to the day called for in this morning’s Deck’lympics. This consisted of splitting into two teams pitting their wits, teamwork, and tenacity against one another in a contest that will go down as one of the greatest to happen in the state of New York this week. The warm-up round was a race to set the running backstays, followed by an epic battle to fill a bucket on deck with water passed up by sponge from a dinghy. I didn’t see any of this happening, but from what I could pick up, it sounded rife with controversy as several of the competitors were accused of moving whilst having the sponge in hand – a cardinal sin in the Deck’lympics. This was followed by a blindfolded Gumby suit and bowline competition.
This afternoon everyone put in a really solid push in beginning our end-of-semester boat clean, which was rounded off by the long awaited set up of a boom swing. To the uninitiated, this entails lifting up the boom to about 45 degrees and then pulling it right out so as to be able to use a line on the end as a wicked big swing.
As the trip draws to a close, I hope we can continue to squeeze the marrow out of these last few days. Its been an awesome journey and a privilege to be a part of.