Location: Underway to Mauritius
knockknockknockknockKNOCK – kaplunk. What a sound to be hearing at precisely 5:43 am. Allie had just gone down below to grab a snack, and the sun had just begun to rise as the rest of watch team 3 (Ainsley, Charlie, Travis, Will, and I) scheme in the cockpit. What could this sound have been? Is the propeller falling off, perhaps? Surely it couldn’t be that. Was it Clayson? Was it the wizards of the Lemurian diamond? The Kraken, per chance? We continued to make assumptions as Tomer, Gabe, and Allie worked in the engine room. Allie returned to the cockpit soon after with no snack in hand. She said that it could’ve been an engine problem after sharing a story of gaslighting herself into thinking the watertight doors were extraordinarily soundproof. When she returned, she informed us that the shaft was still spinning, but we were not gaining any momentum, meaning that there was either a problem with the transmission or the prop itself. In normal people’s words, everything in the engine room was fine, but the thing that spun under the boat was acting up. Allie came with information but still no snack in hand. We enjoyed the sunrise for the rest of watch and continued to guess what the true damage was. Allie was kind enough to go do wakeups to watch team 1 (in reality, it was her third attempt at getting a snack). She returned triumphant, with the watch team 1 leader, but still no snack (I think she gave up on this mission at this point). Tomer informed us that they narrowed the problem down to being propeller damage.or a non-existent propeller. We briefed the next watch team and chose to use a sneaky, nonchalant approach to dropping the “huge” news that we may no longer have a prop on the boat. The information was delivered calmly and casually to avoid any unnecessary stress – just be cool about it. After the handoff, watch team 3 went back to bed while Tomer constructed a method to get visuals on the hull of the boat. They ended up tying a GoPro to a boat hook and lowering it into the water to take a video of the prop. I woke everyone else up to Banana Pancakes, by Jack Johnson, at 11:30 am and was greeted by Meg in the salon. The first thing she said to me this morning was, “It’s gone.” We all knew it was possible. Just didn’t think it was real. She showed me the video of the bottom of the boat, and there was, in fact, no prop where there should be a prop. Not only was there no prop, but there was also no shaft. The news slowly filtered through Argo and was finally announced as we gathered for lunch. Gabe, along with sous chefs Philip and Ainsley, prepared beef and rice bowls with cabbage (everyone’s favorite delicacy). After lunch, we partook in Marine Bio jeopardy. It became very apparent, very quickly, who had started studying already, while others had a nice reality check and reminder that our second exam was in two days. After a tough loss from the Freaks (me, Ainsley, Philip, Charlie, and Kiley) and TBA (Amanda, Travis, and Bodhi), the Floor Sleepers (Ava, Hannah, Ali, Juliette) took the win. We then had a leadership class, during which we once again divided into teams. By the luck of the draw, all the boys ended up on one team (Boy Stew), and another team (The Girls) consisted of me, Ali, Ava, and Amanda. The third team (Girlier) was Hannah, Juliette, Kylie, and Ainsley. We played song association – Allie gave us a word and we had to come up with song lyrics that had this word in it. Due to their musical experience, the boys were extremely successful in this game. My team, on the other hand, for lack of a better word, was “cooked” from the start. We came up with approximately five songs per word (not including Ava’s fake songs – although we should’ve gotten creativity points for those). On the last round, Allie gave us no time to prepare. She said the word “she,” and my team went first. We felt confident after our first song. The next team couldn’t come up with a single song. Then it was time for the third team (the boys), and you won’t believe it based on their previous performance, but they also couldn’t come up with a song. Surprisingly to all involved, The Girls came away triumphant from the last round. When we went up on deck after class, we spotted land for the first time in almost two weeks! We were passing by Rodriguez Island (fake Mauritius) and were lucky enough to have cell service to call our families. We then enjoyed a pasta dinner, a nice sunset, and a Show and Tell for the Squeeze. It was cool to learn something new about everyone based on the items that they shared. We are now continuing to sail on to Mauritius. We are a sailing vessel, so who even needs a prop anyway? It’s November 1st, which many of us agree came out of nowhere. Did October even happen? Given the circumstances that unfolded today and the fact that we are past the halfway point of the program, many of us have spent time reflecting recently. Reflecting on the program, on the passage, and on ourselves. Passage is hard. The first couple of days are spent getting rocked and thrown in ways our bodies aren’t used to. You’re getting less sleep than usual and being woken up at odd times. You may even be seasick or homesick, or you might just feel off. Yes, this doesn’t sound great, but it passes. Once you give yourself the time to adjust to passage of life, you are able to appreciate the beauty of it – the simplicity of the routine. Passage life is not replicable and almost impossible to explain. Your life revolves around schedule. You’re either on watch, in class, or asleep. This allows you the freedom to find appreciation in simple or intrinsic things, like the warm bowl of ramen that you ate on the 12-4 am watch when it was freezing or the long conversation you had with someone under the starlight of the 8-12. You start to notice smaller details about the world and the people around you. You can tell when the stars look different one night or when your cabin mate is having an off day. You learn to appreciate the company of those around you while also learning to value the time you spend alone. We’ve all grown in one way or another by being on passage. Whether it’s learning to sail handle or working on your relationships with those around you, we’ve all improved ourselves in some way. We’ve learned to appreciate the beauty in the things we cannot control, such as the prop falling off the boat. Everyone responded to this differently. Some were upset that we would not be getting to Mauritius as soon as we thought, and others were uncertain about what this meant in the long run. While these feelings are valid, I see this as a blessing in disguise. How lucky are we to be sailing on a boat across the Indian Ocean? On day 45, we reflected on what we would like to get out of the rest of this experience. Many students, including myself, stated that we wanted to continue learning as much as possible about sailing and the boat. Now that we won’t be using the engine, there is not a more opportune time to dive headfirst into sailing (and we all get a cool story out of it). While on passage, the last couple of weeks, we learned to value the times when we got to turn the engine off – the boat is quieter, the engine room is significantly cooler, and boat checks are quicker. Although it may now feel that we are forced into this condition, these are things that we can remind ourselves to continue appreciating through the rest of this passage. It’s easy to fall into the blur of routine. We forget to take a step back and appreciate not only the little but also the big things that we’re doing. We’re truly sailing across the Indian Ocean – not many people get to say that. It might not be Mauritius (pronounced moor – idis) by mornin’, but I think that’s a good thing.