Location: 18,09,1 South; 00,00,0 East
Day 19
As I start to write this, we are 4.7 miles away from the Prime Meridian, a milestone we have all been eagerly awaiting since we left Cape Town. Despite this, it was a different reason that the first half of the day was buzzing with excitement, the long-awaited bowline competition. After we finished oceanography (where we learned all about energy in relation to the oceans), we headed up to the cockpit to begin the tournament. Try, if you will, to imagine the Superbowl combined with the Rugby World Cup, the excitement you are imagining most likely pales in comparison to what we felt as one by one we faced off each other in the most intense knot tying session ever witnessed. It came to a climactic finish when James, Katrina, and Emma faced off in a three-way finale (3 miles to the Prime Meridian). While everyone performed remarkably today, it was Emma who came away victorious.
With that behind us, we turned our attention back to the quickly approaching Prime Meridian (which is now 2.5 miles away), which in the seemingly empty ocean, is just the arbitrary marker we needed. Approaching 2 miles away and we have all applied celebratory temporary tattoos and prepared oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. (I’ve just resumed writing, we are now .5 miles past the Prime Meridian) For the ten minutes before the passing, we all went up to the cockpit, and all excitedly ate cookies and celebrated what was happening. With a honk of the horn, we entered a new side of the globe, and once again set our sights on St. Helena.