Location: Komodo
Today, I woke up to the beautiful view of the hazy Komodo mountains. I was immediately put to work helping raise the anchor, with Kat taking the lead. She’ll be our chief mate for the upcoming student-led passage, and the elected leaders are trying to get as much training in as possible before that. While Kat, Lawrence, and I were sweating, organizing ropes and fenders, while dancing to Rihanna, the first group of divers set off.
For lunch, Noa made a phenomenal shakshuka to fuel us up for the remaining dives. I was in dive group 2 with Marijke, Joshua, Noa, Jack, and Tougy. We spotted a turtle and a blue-spotted stingray. After only 37 minutes, we had to ascend because Joshua got cold. This dive was probably going to be the last of the trip, so I felt incredibly grateful to experience the beautiful ocean life one last time. As a final celebration, Jack, Tougy, and I were doing somersaults and handstands underwater.
Back on the boat, we had some chill time, tanning on the chart house while dive group 3 was out. In the afternoon, we left our anchorage to find a new spot for the night. While watching the sunset, Zoe and I made turkshead anklets.
To impress some passing boats, we did a couple of backflips before dinner. Chef Noa, along with her sous chefs Jack and Joshua, had been working hard to prepare delicious quinoa bowls for us. To cap off the night, Dan played “Linger” by The Cranberries, and we all sang along. That song has been a staple of the past 32 days and will surely remind us of Vela for a long, long time. We kept the fun going during clean-up, with music blasting both on deck and below.