Location: Atlantic Ocean
The morning started pretty normally for passage today. I was on the 4-8 AM watch with the rest of watch team 3. We passed the time by getting rained on repeatedly and ranking different fast food restaurants and condiments (Chick-fil-A and Honey Mustard in S tier). Once watch ended, a few studied for the Oceanography exam or worked on our Fish ID logbooks for marine bio, while others went to bed. We broke for a nice lunch of pesto pasta with veggies, which also got rained on. It was a nice change of pace from the relentless heat that normally takes up midday. After lunch, we had a great town hall where Freddie and Steph responded to some of the comments that we left on our trip evaluations, told us about plans for when we get to Fernando de Nohorna and for the back half of the trip, and gave us the opportunity to ask questions and discuss what was working and not working for us as students. It was a super productive conversation, and I think it cleared the air of a lot of lingering questions and greatly improved group morale. After the group meeting, we had our leadership presentations. Each watch team chose a topic that each student would be able to give a 2-minute presentation on, and we voted on which of the three topics we wanted to hear each student present. The highlight was definitely Emma’s presentation on how to lick Steph’s fingers clean, which had the whole class rolling. One of the big changes that were made during the meeting was that the 2-6 PM watch is now a whole staff watch, meaning all the students on the boat have that time to hang out, study, or get some rest. So the whole boat was able to spend some downtime together, which literally never happened on passage and was an awesome, unexpected treat. Towards the end of the 2-6 watch, we were called up to do some sail handling. Vela was leaving the band of pressure that we had been using to sail the past couple of days, so we had to take down the jibs and the mainsail. I got to go out on the bowsprit to help flake the jib and helped lead the flaking of the mainsail, which although we got rained on a bit towards the end, turned out to be one of the best main sail flakes we had done so far. We had a delicious dinner of deconstructed shepherd’s pie with mashed potatoes, veggies, beef, and gravy. I asked the squeeze question, “If you could go anywhere in the world for a month, what would you do and where would you go,” and got some great responses, although Jake’s answer of Hoboken, New Jersey, to meet the cake boss definitely took the cake. Now the post-dinner cleaning is done, and I’m done writing this trip update, so bye.