Location: Underway to St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Today we woke up bright and early to the smell of delicious baking in the galley. We got ready and made our way on deck for a feast of corn flakes, pumpkin bread, and honey (we love honey). After breakfast, we did the world’s fastest cleanup in order to get ready for passage. During the last little bit of passage prep that we had to do, I found myself monkey-ing up the main mast and attaching the halyard to the mainsail, and then being coached through mousing (wrapping the shackles in wire as a fail-safe) the halyard by Avery who was standing on the deck. It took a few tries but eventually, I got it. We all finished making sure everything was ship-shape (haha), and then we were ready to go. Leaving port seemed much simpler than coming into it, but our captain Tim makes everything look easy, so I’m not sure if it actually was. Once we said goodbye to Tenerife, we watched the cities shrink, and the mountains become fainter and jumped into some sail handling! While we were getting everything in order, we got a really good omen – a pod of thirty spotted Atlantic dolphins came to wish Argo farewell!!! They came right up by boat, and some of them even had babies. Feeling excited about the journey ahead, we mustered in the cockpit and got our new watch teams. Once we had our schedules, it started to feel like we were really underway. We had the best tacos known to man, courtesy of Sam from staff. Over lunch, we made a new time system, with one hundred ‘Jakes’ in one “Valpey’ and 14.4 Valpeys in a day. At the time of writing this, it is 11 Valpeys exactly. Then, we learned about coral reefs in marine biology and about plotting on charts in seamanship. Then it was deck showers. The thing about deck showers is that they are a little bit magic. Even if it has been 80 and sunny all day long, as soon as deck showers are announced, the wind picks up, and the sun disappears. Even so, they are usually a highlight of my day. We got clean and fresh, and I had a clementine and did some work before dinner. Dinner was shepherd’s pie, and it was delicious, and we also had fresh cabbage salad!!! We enjoyed the sunset and the fresh veggies and thought about the long passage ahead!
Pictured:
1. Brian and Anna, regaining their sea legs
2. Watch team one stanced up during boat check
3. Andrew, Michael, and JP with mashed potatoes, hold the mash
Current position:
27 37.37’N
016 59.47’W