Location: Fernando to Devil's crossing
Hello everyone! I’m back for your skipper update on Argo’s third crossing. Today was a fun and eventful standard passage day. As is now my tradition, I want to update everyone that we have hit 4469 nautical miles today, and we are getting closer to the 5000 mark every day. Today is one of our first days finding our way out of the doldrums the equatorial region where heat from the sun creates a low-pressure zone that leads to lots of rain and low winds. In the characteristic fashion of these latitudes, we got a thorough mixture of good winds, low winds, rain, and heavy sun.
Starting on my night watch, which was 0400 to 0800 today, we had a day of constant sail raising and dropping. We started our watch by dropping the flying jib, our foremost sail. By the end of our watch, we had dropped our jib as well. In the next watch, the 0800 to 1200, which we call the work watch because there is enough consistent light to get a good dent in our task list done, the wind resurged and backed a bit. With enough wind for the sails coming at almost a beam reach, Argo’s fastest point of sail where the wind hits the widest part of the boat square on, we thought that it would finally be time to raise the mainsail for the first time since Fernando. Just as watch team three was about to raise the sail, heavy rains came on. They opted to wait for the rain out until they raised the sail after rerigging the first two reefing lines lines on our sails that allow us to shorten the sail area by pulling the middle of the sail towards the mast. Unfortunately, by the time the rain passed by, the wind had lightened, and the sail stayed down. In fact, the sun came out, and it got so hot that we retrieved our sun cover and rigged it over the main boom for lunch. During the rest of that work, watch the new watch team members bond over learning to whip lines, which is the process of ensuring our lines won’t fray by lashing whipping twine around the open ends. The process of sail raising and dropping continued all day until the time I’m writing this, right after dinner, where we have every sail out except our fisherman’s sail and the main, with winds gusting up to 20 knots.
Today was also a huge day for classes. As a recap, our main classes are marine biology, oceanography, seamanship/navmaster, leadership, and, for some students, PSTC. Today was our final day of presentations on our oceanography literature review papers. We had presentations on everything from fisheries management to threats to the true efficacy of coral restoration projects. We learned that fisheries are a threat to the fish they rely on, and we need to modernize our fishery policy to ensure the survival of future fishing sustainability, and that coral restoration projects may not be as possible as they seem. The students who are working towards their master of yachts 200 ton gt limited license had a big day taking their final tests for meteorology. Finally, all of the student crew received their grades for the second marine biology exam.
In the afternoon, I watched Shane and some people at midships, and I saw dolphins jumping off of our port side. As always, it was a welcome distraction, and everyone on deck rushed to the life rails to watch the show! As it got later, we gathered in the cockpit for dinner, where we finished cutting the hair of some of the student crew who offered their luscious locks to Poseidon’s court at the equator crossing. Just after the haircuts, we finished off the day with a delicious dinner of taco bowls and a little side of rain!
-Kiki
P.S. Personal message: Much love to Page and the whole family! Most importantly, HAPPY SLIGHTLY EARLY BIRTHDAY RANA. I can’t wait to give you a birthday call, and I hope you have an amazing day! I love you so much, and I couldn’t wish for a better brother. XOXO