Location: Jamestown, St. Helena
Today was rather uneventful, quite frankly. After waking everyone up, some friends and I jumped into the Atlantic ocean to start the day. We ate an apple-ginger oatmeal breakfast then proceeded to ready our gear for snorkeling and exploring St. Helena. During this process, a local fuel ship pulled up impromptu to fill our diesel tanks. Meanwhile, Robbie, Rob, Colin, and Davis played catch until Davis made a sweet throw overboard. Apparently, we couldnt jump in to retrieve it because there was a massive barge pumping a few hundred liters of fuel into Argo, so we had to let it drift away until it was a mere speck in the deep blue. Then Tina and I whipped the dingy out to save Wilson. This delayed our departure, but it mattered not because an hour or two later, we jumped in the water with a small whale shark, which was pretty ok. It was nearly as big as the fishing boat that brought us to the location off of Barn Point. The dive masters brother, Keith, told us all about the Island on the way back to Argo. Apparently, the R.M.S. St. Helena cargo ship has been supplying the Island with essentials for 200 years, and today it arrived for the last time. There are mixed feelings regarding this change because the cargo ship has been the lifeline for the local inhabitants. The reliance has shifted to the recently constructed airport. Regardless, we eagerly explored the Island, and for most of us, this was the first time on land since Cape Town. After exchanging money, the grocery stores were raided, the ice cream stores were drained, and the coffee shops wifi had more internet traffic at one moment than it had had for a long while. Oreos, peanut butter, crisps, candy, and juices were a few of the favorite purchases. The students scattered and ate their lunches, my favorite being a ramen and seafood joint halfway up the only road. We were then picked up promptly at 4:30 for jump-in showers. There were a couple of nice backflips, but the highlight of the day was a really nice cannonball by Eileen, who took about 45 minutes worth of convincing to jump in to get the conditioner out of her hair.