Location: 36’10.499 N, 12’11.408 W
My day as a member of watch team 2 started at 4 am as we woke up for the 4 am-8 am shift. We had a pretty normal watch except for the fact that Sadie decided to obtain her Helmsona by taking control of the helm for 4 hours straight. She ended up choosing the name “Sadie Helmen,” which is a helm-inspired spinoff of her actual name, Sadie Allen. Emily set the boat check record of 45 minutes this morning as she fell asleep in the salon as she was checking the bilges. Alex(Male) also took a snooze on the bow during his bow watch (as pictured below). Watch team 3 came to relieve us promptly at 8:03. We woke up some 4 hours later for a lunch of chicken curry prepared by Shane, Charlie, and Avery. After lunch, we cleaned up and went down for our leadership class. We started class with popcorn, reading a story about a ship called the “Endurance” that was trying to sail across Antarctica but got stuck in the ice and was thus abandoned. The second half of class was led by Rooke and Alex (female), in which we played a very frustrating and questionably unfair card game that seemed to have really gotten Andrew going. After class, watch team 2 was back on watch, and this one was quite different. We started by trimming and center-lining all of the boom sails before dropping the Jib and the Flying Jib. After dropping two head sails, Lana, Sadie, Logan, and I reefed the main sail to the first reef. After the installation of our reef, we went up to the bow where we re-raised the Jibs before deciding to raise the Fisherman sail. After soon realizing we couldn’t keep the same course while also keeping the sail happy, we decided to drop the Fish after all.
We gathered in the cockpit for a dinner of Gnocchi and Focaccia. The crew is cleaning up from dinner as I write this, so I just thought I would share what some people are doing up on deck at the moment. Greyson and Hays are scrubbing the decks as Brig, Brady, and Ella clean the dishes. Emma is currently “mastering our trash” by cleaning all of the wrappers and smashing all of the cans. Macie and Lanie wanted me to mention that they achieved their “Boat-check-Sona” today by completing all four boat checks on their watch. Maya is sitting next to the Dishy pit drying dishes and handing them down the Gopher hole to Lou Lou, who passes them to the kitchen. We currently have around 22 knots of wind, so I’d love to go out and get some more sailing in.
To all of the parents: If you have seen any good pictures of your child(ren) on the blog, then it is likely that I took them, and it is also likely that I have about 50 more pictures just like that. I will be putting them all into a shared album at the end of the trip so that y’all can frame them and send them around to whatever family group chats you may be in.
To My Parents: I still have not cut my hair. Also, you should let me stay in Spain for a few days.