Location: Underway to Coco's Keeling
Today started early, with my 4:30 to 6 a.m. anchor watch with Finn. Finn and I were lucky to be able to prepare a little more before the leadership presentation that we had later in the day. From 6 to 7, when everyone was still asleep, we practiced our fake audience. Once seven came around, it was time for me to wake everyone up for the breakfast Smash had made for us. It was a berry bread that was coffee cake-like. It was amazing, and everyone had so much. Once we were finished, I gave the brief for the day, and we followed that up with cleanup. After cleanup, I started to give everyone jobs to get down for passage prep. Passage prep went by super fast because we prepared a little yesterday. Once everyone was done with passage prep, we had free time until lunch, when Smash was making crepes. During that time, I read a little and took a nap, but most called their families and friends to let them know that we would not be able to make any calls for the next few weeks. None of us would have service until Mauritius.
Everyone chowed down on lunch, and it allowed us to get cleanup done pretty fast, which was nice. Once we got clean up, we started to get ready to sail. Made sure everything was 40/40 and that all the hatches and water-tight doors were all closed in secure. Nico was sent on the dinghy with Jake to go get all our mooring lines off. Once we had the mooring lines in, cleaned, and everything secure on deck, we went below to have two leadership presentations: chapter 5, which Ruby and Lina taught, and chapter 5, which Finn and I taught. Each presentation was around 15 to 20 minutes. They were both ever entertaining, definitely, Finn and I, mostly because Finn wore a suit with no shirt, which was amazing.
After we were done, Tom put us into position to raise the main sail, main staysail, the forward staysail, and the jib. Everyone was given a job to help out, and after a few minor inconveniences, we were able to get all the sails raised and set. This would be our first passage we are doing that will most likely all be done under wind power. We will be using the wind until at least the last few days of the passage. When we were getting the sails raised, there were birds all around us trying to land. At first, it was really cool, but once student Allie got pooped on, we all quickly watched the sky for a different reason. Once we had that all done, we went back down to have Oceanography, which lasted around an hour. After watch, team 3 went up to continue watch until 6, when my watch team would take over until 8. When my watch team was on, we had dinner and clean up. We noticed that it was getting dark super early, and we did not enjoy doing clean up in the dark, so Tom and Smashed informed us we would do a time jump ahead an hour tomorrow. It is fun to think that we have control of time a little bit until we get to Mauritius to make our lives a little easier. Not much happened after dinner other than a few people getting seasick and others getting some work done and taking showers. I plan on going to bed very quickly after watch because we have the 4 to 8 a.m. watch.
Before I’m done, hi, Mom and Dad hope all is well, and everything you guys had planned went well or went well, depending on when you see this. Best of luck, Mom. Love you guys!