Location: Portovenere, Italy
We set sail late last night, with our final destination being Porto Venere, Italy. We were all excited about what awaited us with our night shifts because this happened to be the first overnight sail. We have three watch teams: watch team one, watch Team Two, and watch Team Three. Watch team one started us off for the dog watch, a two-hour watch during dinner time compared to the normal four-hour watch shift. Then that led into watch team two taking us from 8 pm- Midnight. Watch team three get woken up at 11:30 for their 124 a.m. watch. Then the cycle repeated itself with watch team one from 48 a.m. When we are sailing, we have to stay alert, do hourly boat inspections, and, most challenging, stay awake. Luckily, because today was our first overnight trip, we got plenty of time to sleep in, with our wake-up call being 11:30. Everyone was groggy for lunch, and there weren’t as many conversations as usual.
After lunch, we proceeded to have a boat appreciation day, where we were split into teams to complete different tasks. A few of them are cleaning the haul of Argo, cleaning the deck, cleaning the galley (kitchen), etc. It took us half a day to clean her. We got new sheets, which everyone is ecstatic about. After cleaning Argo, we had our daily ocean shower while others took naps. After that, we had dinner, which was chicken stir fry. I then concluded dinner with my question, “What was your first job?” and then a squeeze wave. Today also happened to be provision day, so we spent an hour organizing and shoving food for one week, which still happens to be a lot of food. The receipt for everything happens to be taller than our 5″11 instructor, Anna. To conclude our very long day, we watched the movie Luca, which happened to be based on where we’re currently staying.
– Gabby