Location: Underway to San Blas
This morning my watch team and I were woken up for watch by Gabby at 03.30, where we were told to wear our foul weather gear. Turns out that that was a great idea. It was a decent cold night with a strong breeze and a bit of rain. We had the company of a little lovely bird taking a rest on the main staysail, which made Toria very happy. The watch team before us got to witness a marriage between Charlie and Gabby to save their friendship. I got to wake up watch team two at 7.30 for their watch. Which was very exciting cause I hadn’t tried that before. When we were relieved, the majority of our team went back to bed to get a few more hours of sleep in, but not me and Alexis. We stayed up and did some homework. We have a leadership essay due next week, and it felt great to get started on that. Skyler slept all day, which made her really happy (glad some of us got the chance to do that). The Crew was woken up at 11:30 for a delicious brekkie, aka lunch made by Allie and her great sous chefs Ben and Gabby. We got green pesto pasta with cheese and veggies, but since we had some rough waves, we grabbed the food below deck but ate on deck as usual. During cleaning, we were accompanied by some dolphins that came up to say hi to Vela. We went straight into Oceanography, which Steph made very interesting by teaching us about the ocean floor structure and how coral reefs are made, which was a theory first mentioned by Darwin. Then we split up since some had to do Navigation class, and the rest either had watch or took a nap.
Others, like Lake and Saskia, weren’t feeling their best, so they joined us up on deck. I had watch at that time, which was very cozy. We had a blast. I did not take the helm cause Smash wanted us to stay on course, so people down below won’t get so seasick, and recently I have been a bit off course:) When the Navigation class finished, the rest of my team came to join us to watch. Everyone was in a good mood right until we got splashed by a wave, and my speaker drowned, but luckily for us, Fargo had a speech and was able to continue playing his reggae music, which kept the good vibes going. During watch, I got super excited because I realized how to read the chart, and I walked quickly (you are not allowed to run on a boat) down to Ula to tell her about it cause she was fighting through our Navigation homework. Turns out I did not know how to read the chart correctly, but that’s alright because Allie explained it to us, and now we know and learned something new every single day onboard Vela. Halfway through watch, we jibed (pulled the sail from the port side towards the middle and then out to the starboard side and chanced the side of the flying jib because we chanced course).
Dinner time arrived, and jet again, Allie and her sous chefs delivered a five-star meal for dinner. We got Chicken fingers on the side we got corn and zucchini, mashed potatoes and gluten free for Toria. The staff were all vegetarians, so they ate veggies, as always. My squeeze question of the day where “If you were a shoe, what kind of shoe would you be.” So back home in Greenland, we have these boots that everyone wears all the time. They are so solid and have a bit of a skewed length. I would be those shoes. We ended the squeeze with singing and doing the head, knees, and toes. Now one team is back at watch, and the rest of us are studying or getting a few hours of rest before we are back on watch. Overall today has been a really great day. Take care and talk soon:)
Btw. Happy Birthday Victor (my brother turned 23 yesterday)