Location: Kawe, Raja Ampat
Hola everyone, me again. Sidneys Mom, if youre reading this, I appreciate you appreciating my blogs. My mom, I know youre reading this, hi. Sorry, I have been MIA since arriving in Indo. Alas, I am not dead; I just have no service. Anyway, today was a good one. My team and watch team 3s on July 29th started at 330 am when Anna and Iain came to wake us up for our little sprinkle of watch on our 12-hour passage from Fam Island up to Kawe. This was an especially exciting time to watch because we would be on for sunrise and would be the first ones on Argo (ever) to see Kawe coming into view. Its quite rare that we go to a place in the world that Argo has never been. Shes been around the block once or twice, or like seven times, but whos counting? still, there is the world she has yet to see. Back in my first season of Life on Argo, our captain was called Tim, and he was very into what he called face-melting places. Examples include Palau, Wayag in Raja, and many others. Kawe was a place he had looked up way back when because he had heard it could be face melting. Three years later, here we are, watching three at 4 am, waiting for the sun to rise over this new, hopefully face-melting place. It was definitely a sleepy watch, but we kept the convo going and the banter coming from the bow watch back to the cock pit over the VHF. The most exciting thing was a tiny little island Lexy spotted on her bow watch. That little island was actually supposed to be fully submerged underwater, but there she was, sticking out there, covered in trees. Gotta love Indonesia charts, and definitely love Lexy and her bow watch skills. The sun came up, and we saw Kawe in the distance. It was glassy calm, and it felt like dolphin weather. I literally clapped my hands and said, dolphins, please and immediately on cue, a ray jumped out of the water twice in the distance. I was shocked at how well my ask worked, which was quite an improvement from the last time I did this, where instead of an animal, there was a massive log that was shaped like a sperm whale that fooled us all, even the marine science teachers. Whoops. As the sun rose we slowed down so we could get enough light to come into a brand new anchorage. Before we were in, we woke up watching Team 1, and they took over, and we went back to sleep for a little nap before the day’s shenanigans. Watch team 1 got to pursue the area for a good anchoring spot, with help from a cruising guide, and we ended up anchoring deep inside a semi-narrow bay, stern to the island, and tying some lines to two coconut trees on the beach. Were surrounded by green tropical trees, bright (Gatorade) blue water, and reefs on all sides. Around 10 am, we were all secure and sorted, and people started jumping in the water to explore the beach and the reef right off the stern of Argo. Lunch came up, and we gobbled it down, excited for the afternoon’s activities. First up was a marine biology class with Anna for the 80-day students, where they learned about coral reefs. Pretty perfect for the place we’re in right now. While they were in class, I kept going through EFR training for our 40B girlies in preparation to start rescue diver training in the next few days. After classes, it was time for the main reason I chose to make a pit stop here. Kawe is directly on the equator. When I say directly, I mean it runs right through it, and some of us have hopped across the equator more than 10 times today. Our (aka my) mission was to get everyone to dive as close to the equator as we possibly could. Lucky for us, there is an island in the middle of one of the bays here and a big statue on the island marking the equator, and it has a beautiful reef right in front of it. So off we went. Beck and Lainey, our resident divemasters in training, were tasked with briefing and leading this dive. Both of them asked me, Whats this dive site called? to which I said, The Equator. On top of all the beautiful coral and heaps of fish, dive group 1 saw a bunch of nudis, a spotted eagle ray, and a maaasssiivveeee puffer fish. Dive group 2 also saw a bunch of nudis and a humphead wrasse. Plus, both dive groups got to start their dive in the northern hemisphere and end their dive in the southern hemisphere. How many people get to say theyve done that before? While not diving, many people spent half an afternoon exploring the island behind us and snorkeling around Argo, finding even more nudis. Are you sensing a theme here? Or the fact that I have projected my obsession with tiny brightly colored sea slugs on all of these students? Yes? Good. I spent most of my afternoon whipping up breakfast, which is my grandma’s pumpkin bread that she usually makes for Thanksgiving. But its just so dang good I am making it for breakfast tomorrow. Afterward, I dove off the bow spirit and soaked in the scenery from the water for a bit. Once everyone was back home to Argo we were treated to a delicious fried rice dinner made by our chefs Kylie, Beck, Lainey, and guest sous chef Elanore. As usual, cleanup is happening around me as I type away in the chart house. After cleanup, the students will meet up in the cockpit with Tomer for a Leadership class to explore different ways to influence others as leaders. P.S If any of you were expecting a sappy blog, well this one wont be sappy this time around, I cant get sappy on command come on people. But dont you worry! I will be skipper one final time 20 days from now, which will be day 76, aka one of the last few days of the program. The sap will be loud and proud then. See you then, folks.