Location: Underway to South Africa in the Indian Ocean
We had our last day in Mauritius, which we spent aboard Argo, helping her get ready for her next and last long passage for this semester. While preparing the boat, a large Japanese research boat docked on our stern, and it had a submarine on board! It was really cool to see up close, and it resembled a spaceship. We also took off and stowed the flying jib. After lunch, we had a pilot vessel guide us out of the channel, then passed through immigration rather quickly. When we were out of the way but still in sight of Mauritius’ beautiful and scenic landscape, we did a massive deck clean to get all the soot from the land off and make Argo beautiful and clean again. Afterward, we finished the second half of our Oceanography research paper presentations. During the presentations, Leah came down below and told us there were whales off our port side. Naturally, we all went on deck to take a look. We saw a few sperm whale blowholes spout water, but they were rather shy and disappeared shortly. After a delicious dinner, the crew was issued a task from Dan: set all the sails sans help from the staff. The staff has been assisting us up until this point in raising sails. We split into our new watch teams and successfully set the sails! This turned out to be a great way to be about to work with our new watch teams before watches formally began for this passage. We’re now settling back into life at sea with our new watch teams. All sails are set, and we’re heading into our 10-12-day passage to Richard’s Bay, passing south of Madagascar. The weather looks to be fair for the next few days, and everybody is well-rested and ready for our last long passage and to arrive in South Africa!