Location: Richard's Bay, South Africa

The early risers helped move Vela around the dock as we were ordered to relocate by the dock officials. Come 7 am. I woke up the remaining, well-rested crew by playing ‘Good Morning,’ ‘Morning Has Broken,’ and ‘In the Morning’ by Kanye West, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, and J Cole, respectively. Breakfast was divided by those eating Allie’s yummy coffee cake and those eating cold burger patty leftovers (I was part of the latter group). Post-clean-up, we de-passaged the boat and did a mini boat appreciation. People are very happy to get new clean sheets. After doing boat things, we had oceanography, which entailed finishing the remaining presentations on our lit reviews.

For lunch, we had tacos and the rest of the meat leftovers. We then did our Emergency First Responder test and got our qualification to be an emergency first responder. During Marine Bio, we learned about marine mammals, which was good timing, as just the other day, we all saw dolphins and whales on passage. During the whole day, we had teams baking our Thanksgiving desserts, which all looked absolutely delectable. There was a bit of free time after class where phone calls home, PB+J eating, naps, and dance parties took place. At supper, we had an amazing chicken parm with pumpkin, thanks to chef Allie. The squeeze question of the day was, ‘If you’re hosting a tea party and have three guests, who are you inviting, and what’s the topic of conversation?’. The most frequent answer was Steve Irwin and “how to get that bag up” (those answers didn’t tend to be together). The last thing on the agenda is we’ll be watching the film Invictus for leadership class and packing our bags for tomorrow’s great safari adventure has an early start. Since the sun has set, our voices have been drowned out by the birds chirping around us, someone’s excited Vela has arrived.
Love you mum