Location: Cocos Keeling
11:15 pm – Ben and Kackie wake up Ava, Ali, Travis, and I. 11:18 pm – Gumby suits are acquired in the port three stacks. 11:22 pm – Gumby suits are actively being stuffed with a healthy combination of dirty and clean clothes. 11:25 pm – Stuffed Gumby suits are laid in our respective beds, and final touches are put on. Sheets are draped on top, and hats are placed on “heads.” 11:28 pm – We ran to the three stacks and hid behind anything we could find. 11:30 pm – Philip leaves watch to do wake-ups. We are greeted with a simple, mundane, and unenthusiastic “You have watch in 30 minutes”. Prank failed? Maybe – Depends who you ask. We had been scheming about pranking watch team 1 for a while now. We were just waiting for the right opportunity. Last night was the night. Our plan was to stuff the spare Gumby suits and lay them in our bunks so that when watch team 1 came to do wake-ups, they would be greeted with a lovely surprise. Unfortunately, the plan did not unfold how we had hoped. Philip saw one Gumby suit, heard a ruckus in the three stacks, and decided that was enough for him to end the prank. We were left feeling defeated by the lack of shock and humor in the situation, but we had a great time doing the prank, so, to us, it was a success. We then had a mission of making this 12-4 am watch our best one yet, given that it was our last one with these watch teams. As I completed the first boat check, we were greeted by border control on the VHF, who asked for a lot of important information that Tomer handled, but all I took away from it was an awesome Australian accent saying, “Welcome to Australia.” Feels great to be down under. The next task on our mission for the greatest watch of all time was hot chocolate. Ben, Ava and I took on this task, which was objectively easy until you took into account the motion of the ocean and the number of topless mugs we were using. It first took us a while to find cocoa powder, and as we searched, the mugs flew from one side of the galley to the other. We really hoped that we didn’t wake anyone up. We eventually had six cups full of hot chocolate that we tediously carried back to the cockpit. Ava also brought along some treats, consisting of biscuits and crackers with chocolate, that we enjoyed along with Travis’s delicious chocolates from Kuta. Our final watch consisted of a lot of reminiscing on all the jokes that we’ve shared and new stories that we wanted to tell one another. Being on passage, and specifically on watch, is somewhat hard to explain to the average person. Your watch team becomes the people you see most consistently while on passage. You’re always asleep and awake at the same time as them, sharing almost every waking moment together. This is such a special experience that has allowed all the watch teams to become close with one another and create little families within our one big family. I’m so grateful for watch team 2, and we definitely finished our final watch with an awesome ending, closing out the first chapter of this journey. This morning I woke up ready to take on my skipper duties and wake up my shipmates, the only problem was that I had absolutely no idea what time it was. You may be wondering how that’s possible given that I have a watch and a phone, but on S/Y Argo, we have a man that controls the time, he goes by the name Tomer. Coco’s Keeling is half an hour behind Christmas Island (who knew there were places with a 30-minute time difference?), where we had just come from, but I was unsure if we had adopted this time change or not yet this morning. As we venture from time zone to time zone, Tomer has the power to decide what time we actually follow aboard Argo. Due to the lack of a time change announcement, I assumed we were not changing time zones, but I was still extremely unsure and did not want to risk waking my shipmates up too early. I ran into the galley, where I thankfully found Gabe, Ainsley, and Charlie, and they all gave me the reassurance that we were, in fact, not changing time zones and that I could wake up my shipmates in the next couple of minutes. I believe that it is the skipper’s responsibility to not only wake up their shipmates but also to ensure that they get out of bed. In order to guarantee this, I started blasting “Toxic” by Britney Spears as I went from cabin to cabin, making sure that I heard each shipmate singing to confirm proof of consciousness. As we got ready for the day, we heard someone yell, “Sharks” from up on deck, and we all quickly made our way up the companionway to see that we had finally reached land! Coco’s Keeling is one of the most beautiful places that I’ve ever seen, with turquoise blue waters, white sand beaches, and luscious palm trees. We quickly saw the group of black-tip reef sharks that ended up hanging out by our boat all day. As soon as we got anchors down, we quickly had lunch, listened to Bodhi’s destination presentation, and put the boat to bed as we were all eager to get in the water. Flaking the main sail proved to be a challenge and put some strain on our relationships, but as we got through it, it ended up making us all stronger and even closer than before. It was then BOOOOOOOOM SWANGGGGGG OCLOCK. We started playing some good music as we set up the boom swing and quickly jumped in as soon as it was ready. Everyone took a turn, whether it was an attempted backflip or an unintentional belly flop. It was so nice to be back in the water after a couple of days on passage, and we all truly made the most of it. Some people spotted some manta rays, and others quickly jumped in with snorkels and fins. Juliette, Ali, Philip, Amanda M, Kiley, and Ainsley swam out really far as they followed them. Travis, Charlie, and I were apparently too slow to hop back in the water because we did not see the rays, but we did see a bunch of sharks! We all made our way back to the boat, fascinated by the reef and marine life on the way. Then, it was finally time for ocean showers!!!!! WOOOHOOOO!!! Ocean showers are so awesome, and we truly miss them when we are on passage. We jam out to music as we’re shampooing our hair, which people may do in their normal showers, but it’s so much more fun to do it with your friends. After showers, it quickly got chilly out, and we all changed into sweats right before we had Gabe’s Shabbat dinner with homemade challah that was delicious. We ended dinner with a squeeze, as we always do, and a quick game of sardines where I hid in the starboard three stacks behind the copious amounts of reusable bags that we had and waited for everyone to find me. It got pretty hot pretty quickly, but the game was a lot of fun. As the night comes to an end, we finish watching “Love Actually,” which we started on Christmas Day, and we are all getting extremely excited about the activities that we have planned for the next couple of days on Coco’s Keeling! Coucou Maman, Ali me donne des cours de franais! Jai vraiment trop hate de tappeler a lile Maurice. Mom, Dad, Ash, and Bubba, I miss you all so so much, and I can’t wait to talk to you when we get to Mauritius! Bubba, I hope your first semester of college is going well, and ash I hope your law school apps are going well, too. Happy early birthday, Daddio! I wish I were there to celebrate with you. I love you all so much!