Location: Underway to St. Helena
Hello everyone! Its Isaac here, the largest sailor on this ship, here to tell all of you the amazing things the crew of Argo did today on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean! Today started even fishier than the last with watch team three (Benny, Cecily, Nini, and Maddy) waking up our watch team with a wet fish to the face. Zac and I, covered in fish slime and hungry to get our revenge on the self-titled undefeated watch team three hatched our master plan, take their beds and hide them. After stuffing their mattresses in the empty port 3-stack, we, including the rest of watch team one made our way up to work watch (8AM – 12PM) but it didn’t take very long to hear Nini from below deck yell, Where is my bed!? Before lunch, Calum shared that the pranks might be going a little too far so we all agreed on some terms for future pranks. I unfortunatly did not get the last laugh, as I got a nice swig of ramen flavored water right after the group prank discussion courtesy of Benny.
All pranks aside, today was another unforgettable time on the beautiful open water. Watch team three in their early morning watch witnessed a meteor fly over the sky, shining a bright green light, before soaring away into the night. After their shift, the greatest watch team on the boat, one, got up and began taking care of Argo, which consisted of scrubbing down the foredeck, washing all the cap rails, and preparing to gybe the boat. I hear most of you thinking at home struggling to even pronounce that word, but trust me, it’s quite cool. Overnight the wind shifted resulting the angle no longer being close enough to keep our sails full while on course to St. Helena. To fix this, watch team one struck all the boomvangs and preventers, took in on all of the sheets, centered all the sails, turned the helm over letting the wind pass behind us, and eased everything back out on the other side of the ship to keep course. Trust me, its easlier said than done, but even with new winds, Argo presses on to St. Helena!
After everyone’s morning watch, we all mustered in the cockpit for a pasta lunch prepared by Meg with some beaustifully cooked asparagus to go with it! Delicious! Following our meal the students were all shocked to hear that we would be visited by a very special guest today. As we all sat around confused on how this special guest was going to get here as we only saw deep blue for the past week, Calum broke out his speaker along with some of the greatest dance moves I had ever seen, and intruduced us all to the King of Time, a special guest who comes to visit every time the ship changes time zones, and made it just in time to give us an extra hour. Following that whole shebang, the students gathered in the cockpit once more for oceanography class in which a makeshift sediment lab using skittles and candy eggs to represent different sediment concentrations in different parts of the ocean. After the lab and snacking on the sediments, we all went down below deck to take our first oceanography quiz on tectonc plates, sedimentation, and origins of oceanograpy! We went back above deck one more time for our Seamanship class, which was learning all the names of the standing and running rigging on Argo. We split into teams to race each other to see who could write down all of the important rigging fastest, it was a race down to the wire and resulted in the climactic finish of no one being even close, but! With lots of confusion, comes lots of learning!
Most of the students had some extra time off after class with the added hour so it was a chill time to get some work done for our classes. The Master of Yachts students had a quick class with Calum, watch team three looked after Argo, Kackie, Eli, and Cecily got some work done repairing the ripped jib, and I even had time to fold all my freshly ocean-washed clothes! Coming up to dinner, we were all told to pick three pieces of paper with a name, location on the boat, and a weapon. Nicole explained to us that we were playing Assassin and that we had to get our person to hold the weapon in whichever location to assasinate them, and then you can claim their bounty to keep going, last person or most bounties when we make it to St. Helena wins! Be on the lookout for some updates to the game in the upcoming blogs! During dinner, we all discussed at squeeze what our favoirte memory with our sibling(s) are, which shockingly works as no one on Argo is an only child! Following the delicious chili meal, Zac, Benny, and I had a karaoke dance session. Kiki and I had a ball cleaning the heads, and I finished my dinner watch with team one. Another unforgetttable day on Argo, with St. Helena still in our sights, but getting closer everyday!
P.S. Hey Mom, Dad, Nick, Angie, Elise, Josh, Jane, Oma, Silvia, Ed, Eric, Jamie, Olivia, Barb, Nicole, and Valorie!!! I am having the time of my life and I am super stoked to share every detail with you guys when I get back! Much love for all of you from the middle of the Atlantic!