Location: Darwin, Australia
Today was a day of preparation in Darwin, as tomorrow, everyone will be off the boat for an all-day excursion, and the next day we depart for Bali. In the morning, the students took their International Crew Certificate exam for MTE, during which they showed their knowledge of basic boating skills that they had learned so far from the course and from living on Argo. After courses, many people took off for town to do a last round of laundry, check emails, and grab TimTams (the best cookies ever) for the passage. Annie H, Will, Kevin, Zoe, Alex, Leah, and a few others took the soccer ball over to a nearby field and played soccer, enjoying the opportunity to run around on the grass for the last time before we were surrounded again by water. A few students headed with Tor to Woolworths, the local grocery store, to provision for our passage to Bali. A few hours later, they returned with bags upon bags of cereal, meat, and fresh produce. Due to our current docking position and the large tidal range in Darwin (up to 5m!), we could not just pass the bags from the dock to the boat, so we hooked up some large bags to a halyard and passed bags across that way. Some of the guys also got to work on their throwing and catching skills as they tossed individual bags of tortillas and cereal from the dock to the boat. By the time all of the food was organized and put away, the chefs were already starting to cook dinner: Alfredo pasta with prawns and a big salad. A quick cleanup was followed by an outing for some to the deck chair movie night on a big screen outside in town, while others enjoyed a quiet night on the boat and got to bed early in anticipation of our outing to Litchfield National Park tomorrow!