Location: Underway to the Azores
Sooo in my first blog entry, I apparently forgot we could show a personality. Let’s rectify that a bit! Today was a rather standard day of passage across the Atlantic. We ate some meals, cleaned up after, and had some class (including a safety quiz, oooooo so scary). Some of us did our laundry (shoutout to Eddie’s laundry bag thingymabob), others caught up on sleep after a late watch, and even more of us laughed and studied in the Salon. Very routine and surely very boring to talk about…..excepttttt I forgot to harp on one small thing.
We’re in the middle of the Atlantic. You know. The ocean. Yeah, it’s so cool. Thank you for agreeing.
We do these chores, have these routines, on a wonderful moving island smaller than 120 ft long. Sure, we’ve adjusted to the constant rocking: leaning our bodies to compensate for the boat’s tilt, never putting bowls down (except the incident at dinner, we don’t talk about that), finding creative ways to not roll out of bed. None of us are seasick anymore, and my God, am I thankful for that. But whenever we feel bored, whenever the receptiveness of the day gets frustrating or tiring, we can all just walk up to the deck and see an expanse of beautiful water and sky. Our current lack of wind, sad as it might be, has provided some magnificent vistas (plus no rain in a while, woohoooo). The stars over the past two days have been brilliant, brighter, and more numerous than any I’ve ever seen in my life, and the bioluminescence of the waves crashing against the keel was simply awe-inspiring. This morning while helming, I saw so many Portuguese man o’ war sails and wonderful flying fish (picture stuck in nonexistence, sadly). I was essentially standing at a wheel for 2 hours, but I didn’t mind one bit. This place makes the mundane special.
Well, that’s enough harping about routine. We had some great out-of-routine experiences today, including sighting a pod of whales! They were likely sperm whales, and out of the whole ginormous ocean, they came right by little ol’ Argo. Sadly no photos of the whales themselves (curse you, iPhone camera quality), but you’ll see a wonderful image of people straining their eyes to see another glimpse of them in the water. We love whales here.
Also out of routine was the rare dance of the self-appointed “time king” (aka our skipper Calum) as we FINALLY changed our clocks one hour forward. I say finally because watch team 3 last night reported a FORB (full orb) at 0440 in the morning. Naturally, such a thing is a crime against nature and humanity. Something had to be done, and indeed it was. We are forever grateful to our time dictator. Long may he reign. I, for one, am cashing my bet on a FORB at 5:35 AM for my 4-8 watch the next morning, and I bet snacks on this, so please let me be right.
Anyways. I am on a tangent. But that is what a passage blog post must be. So please bear with me.
The sunset tonight was also gorgeous. We’ve been having an amazing streak of them the past week, and tonight was no exception. Photos can’t quite capture the magnificence, and sunsets from land simply don’t hit as hard.
And as the major highlight of the day, we had an impromptu dance session at the stern. This included some incredible slack jaw dance-offs, where if you smile, you lose the duel. In those, Gabe was the undefeated victor. Dancing at a 30 deg tilt? Not easy. But unbelievably fun, especially with such great people!
And that’s that. Passage as usual (mostly)!
P.S. Future Sammy here (aka the Sammy of 0613 the next day). My guess of 5:35 FORB was exactly right, so BOOYAHHHH.