Location: Haamene Bay, Tahaa, French Polynesia
This morning, everyone got out of bed for some scrumptious French toast. After some positive words of encouragement during the morning meeting to increase productivity, our newest members prepared for their confined water dive sessions 1-3, where I’m told they swam with four rays. Were I to be taking Marine Biology with the rest, I might be able to share the specific name of these rays, but I can assure you it was a majestic sight to behold. Meanwhile, the rest of our crew took time to enjoy another of earth’s majesties, oxidation. That’s right; the rest of us used this downtime to clean and polish our Argo. Before long, it was lunchtime, and we enjoyed some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches and leftovers. To help aid the digestion process, the new members returned to their dive gear and finished confined water dives 4 and 5. Yes, the new crew fit in all their confined water sessions in one day. *reactions of awe* The rest of us continued to clean as well as prepare Argo to move to Haamene Bay in Tahaa. (Until we hear the correct pronunciation, we will pronounce it as HAA-ME-NAY). Underway, we were finally able to catch our breath for the day. Henry, Ryan, Ellie, Jim, Frankie, and Mina met together with Leah to plan out our schedule for a few weeks from now. I hear there is a hike planned for the future. If that is no more than a rumor, I’m happy so long as lunch is still scheduled. Finally, at Haamene, our chefs finished a wonderful chicken spaghetti Alfredo with buttered green beans. To give you an idea of how delicious it was, I went for seconds, but it was already finished offa tip of my hat to the culinary skills of Lindsey. For our squeeze question, I wanted to learn more about my fellow crew members by asking them to reveal a secret about themselves. I asked everyone to share an interesting fact about themselves that most people don’t know about them simply because it does not come up in casual conversation. Sadly, no one was a secret underwater basket-weaving enthusiast. In order to allow for the integrity of these secrets to be maintained, I will share only one: mine. I have very loose ligaments in my thumbs, so I can bend them back rather far. How thrilling! Everyone seemed to be an open book, but we all opened up a bit more to reveal more of ourselves to our new family for the next 62 days. Lastly, our day came to a close with Captain Sam leading the basic seamanship course, where we covered as many of the safety precautions as possible. Don’t worry. This was mostly a review for the academic purpose of this course, and all safety briefings were made at the beginning of this voyage. Then Alex Germaine and Frankie graciously volunteered to demonstrate how to put on the Gumby suits. To make things more interesting, we had them race each other to see who could suit up the fastest. It was hard not to be amused by two people who seemed to suddenly forget how to put on clothing, with the result ending in each of them looking like Ralph’s younger brother from A Christmas Story in all his snow gear. It has been a busy day that ended in many laughs, as most of these days have seemed to. On that note, I bid you all a pleasant farewell.