Location: Underway to Tahiti!
Long time no see blogginators. Today will be my final day as skipper, which is pretty sad, not gonna lie. Watch team 2’s day started off with the deserted island d 8-12 morning watch. Gubby, our designated waker upper, informed us of our need for our foulies. Some of us weren’t too happy about it, but I got to rock my all-yellow fit for the first time and really take on the role of the man in the yellow hat finally (from Curious George, for those who don’t know). Luckily, the watch didn’t feel too deserty since we were hit with a few squalls. The rain was a nice reprieve from the normal blazing sun and reminded me of home, so I’m not really complaining. The squalls did, however, steal our wind for a little bit, so, as per Tom’s request, we dropped the main sail. It was going smoothly until it came time to flake. The baton decided it had it out for everyone on the port side of the boom. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of us have goose eggs on our heads tomorrow. With the rolls, the sail kept flapping about and was pulling our flakes right out of our hands, so we dropped the sail fully and flaked her from the deck. From then on out, it went pretty smoothly, but let’s just say it wasn’t our fastest flake to date. After a bit of time on the helm, it was time for me to go do wake-ups for the next watch team, along with Elise and Daphne. Most of them were already awake, so it proved to be an easy job for us. Lunch was a bit late, so the rest of the crew got an extra 15 minutes of sleep. Lunch was a delicious Greek pita meal courtesy of Magdi. I don’t know if you’ll be able to guess what we did after clean up. If you guessed classes, you would be correct. Today we were graced with oceanography and leadership. Coincidentally we were learning about waves in OCE, which I think may have prompted the waves to pick up through the day. We had our final leadership student presentation from the book. I think everyone is going to be happy about being done with that book because, no offense to the authors, it is boring. Personally, I took a nap after classes. Unfortunately, I am a little under the weather right now, along with many of the other crew, so my nap was much needed and much appreciated. Others were a bit more productive with their time and worked on our marine biology essay that is coming up or were on watch. I got woken up at 5:30 for dinner dog watch by none other than Miss Gub. The Starboard 6 room was quickly infiltrated for a quick girl chat before going up for watch/dinner. Once up on deck, it became much clearer how rolly we were. Looks like we will be in this sea state for about the next week, which is great because we get to sail but not so great for sleeping. Before getting dinner going, watch team 2 were sent to drop the main staysail. Elise and I sweated the sheet-like pros before assisting with quite a beautiful and, might I say, much quicker flake than this morning. As per usual, the dog watch team got to get their slop first. Slop was an Austrian dish that I wouldn’t even try to spell, but all you need to know is that Magdi and the sous chefs killed it. Meal times in a rolly sea always make for an interesting time, with lots of flying forks and screams as we slid around. My squeeze question, again provided by the amazing Allie, was, what is a moment in your life that you would like to re-live. I said that I would love to go back to the special nights I got to sleep on a mattress on our rooftop patio with my dad and watch the stars. I remember always being amazed that my dad was able to tell if it was going to rain or not that night. After a pretty wholesome squeeze, we got right into cleanup. The dishy pit is quite chaotic at the moment, with screams coming through the shut hatches every few seconds. Tonight’s forecast for watch teams 1 and 2 is finishing off the second half of Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire. In my opinion, HP4 is the best one, but Drew and others would beg to differ. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Drew’s argument for it being a bad movie is because he thinks it’s Harry’s worst haircut in the films)
Looking forward to more garlic salt popcorn and some deep sleep tonight.
I won’t be back on here, so here are my final farewells. Even though this trip continues to test all of our limits, I will forever hold it in a special place in my heart. I’m sure if I was asked ‘what moment I would like to relive in my life’ in even just a year’s time, all of my answers would be about our time aboard Vela.
Hope you have all enjoyed my time as skipper as much as I have. So long.
P.S. Almost a month till I’m home, Mom and Dad, don’t be missing me too much. I do miss you, though. And Sami, I can’t wait to talk your ear off for hours about anything and everything about the trip. So, prepare yourself.