Location: North Male Atoll
How you going,
Today we started off with Marine Biology class. Then quickly after, we got Vela into ship shape and ready for a light sail. Today was a hot one, definitely in the upper 90s on deck. Everybody got a little pink. We got our heading and started south about an hour of Edible Island to look at the surf for tomorrow. Everybody is super psyched and ready to “Get pitted.” While on the way, a couple of other students and I threw in some hand fishing lines, and my line got hit by something big, but I wasn’t able to hook it. It was actually so big that it took the lure I had on right off of the metal wire it was attached to.
We had a Man overboard drill today that was lead by Tom. We also got to raise the mainsail for the first time, and man, that thing is huge. All the students are learning all the terminology and starting to understand the rigging and sails. After scouting out the surf for tomorrow with the “Binos” (binoculars), we headed down into the saloon for Oceanography. We split into our research groups and came up with our hypothesis for our first assignment.
While we were below deck, the staff turned us around and headed back to Edible Island because there was no good anchor spots. We got to see a pretty good sunset and then had dinner. The crew is cleaning up right now, and we have our last class Seamanship at 8:00. I think that today was the first day that I got to actually see how many days we had been on board, and it blew my mind. It has felt like at least a month, but I guess it’s only been 9 days, not that I’m not having a great time. It’s just that time goes slow out in the middle of the ocean.
Photos:
1. Henry on the bowsprit watching the sunset.
2. Ian and Zack in the saloon
3. Tom briefing man overboard drills.
4. Seth and Danner hauling lines.