Location: Underway to Villefranche
It was a very productive day aboard Argo. It started off with a typical wake-up call at 0730, which turned out to be the first challenge of the day. The majority of the crew, being 18-20 years old, loved to get lots of sleep, so the process of becoming coherent began at 650, and all 24 students made it to the cockpit for morning breakfast and meeting by 0729. It was a success story with a minute to spare. It was smooth sailing from there, as they say; after breakfast, we decided as a group to prepare for our passage to Villefranche since Portovenere was our last stop in Italy, and everyone wanted to maximize their time onshore. After an hour, the boat was spic and span; everything was secure; it was a job well done. At 0830, we moved into our marine biology class, which is always interesting. We do a lot here on Argo the pace never really slows down, and it’s great, doing so much and experiencing different things all the time, I’m pretty confident in saying that everyone is having exponential growth in some area of life. 10:00 am rolls around, and the day has just started; the dinghy starts taking groups to shore, onshore groups and break off, and the majority go to a wifi bar, yet everyone enjoys the cafes, coffees, and delicious bakeries. The group was back on Argo at 1400, and we sailed into the sunset on our way to Monaco at 1500. Underway, we enjoyed an hour of Oceanography and a delightful dinner; at 20:00, watch team 2 hit the deck for their 3-hour shifts and rotated out throughout the night till watch team 3 anchored Argo in the harbor of Villefranche at 7 am. Days seem to be blurring together, so although it was a solid 48, it was the best 24 hours.