Location: Cabo Andritxol, Mallorca
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! (only one day late)
We started out our morning with some nice classical music for wake-up. The crowd favorite seemed to be Vivaldi’s Winter from the Four Seasons, which was a good choice, in my opinion. Afterward, we had a nice breakfast casserole prepared by Helayna, Charlie, and Elle and dove right into the second part of our Advanced Open Water SCUBA Certification (pun intended). Today’s focus for diving was a deep water dive, and in total, we ended up descending to almost 90 feet underwater. It was truly magical to get to see all of the marine life and seaweed and the underwater ecosystems in general. We were joined in our dive by Capt Freddie, who is also completing his Advanced Open Water Certification, and Dylan and Shona, who are both working towards their Dive Masters Certifications. I think I can speak for everyone in saying that the dive was tons of fun, and we all can’t wait to dive again (which sadly won’t be until we’re in the Caribbean).
Since we only have enough dive gear for about 18 people, we had half the crew go diving in the morning, and half the crew goes in the afternoon. This meant that while we weren’t diving, we were able to have some downtime and (hopefully) get some work done. Right now, most people are focused on our Oceanography literature review, which is due a week from today. Everyone seems to really enjoy researching and learning more about their topics, and I had lots of very interesting conversations with people about their essay topics. The downtime was also a nice opportunity to deal with chores and non-academic responsibilities (such as laundry) and just having some relaxing time tanning in the sun or catching up on some much-needed sleep.
As aforementioned, it is (the day after) Canadian Thanksgiving, so, in honor of Grace (our resident Canadian), we had a nice little celebration this evening. Leoni pulled out all of the stops and spent almost all afternoon in the galley making three wonderful pies for all of us. There was a pumpkin pie, an apple pie, a mixed berry pie, and cookies made of the leftover pie dough (and even mini gluten-free hand pies for me!). They were all absolutely delicious, and, as you can, Grace was very happy with the maple leaf decorations, going so far as to play Oh Canada for us as we all got our pie.
Overall, it was a very nice day, and I can’t wait to go onshore and then get back to classes tomorrow and then heading out for our longest passage yet (6 days!) as we head back to mainland Spain.
Until next time!
– Celia
P.S. Jacquie and Jon, I hope you have a wonderful anniversary today! I love you both, and I can’t wait to see you again when I get back.
Pictures:
1: Grace and her pies
2: James and Garret getting some studying done in their free time
3: Jack and Emma suntanning on the chart house
4: A wonderful lunch of grilled cheese quesadillas
5: Zoe getting some laundry done