Location: Cape Town
After a restful night of sleep, I woke up the crew bright and early at 7 am with some soothing rap music. We had a simple but tasty breakfast of granola, yogurt, and freshly cut fruit before cleaning up and diving right into academics. We had our second lectures in both Oceanography and Seamanship. In Oceanography, we learned about plate tectonics and how the movement of plates creates all kinds of geological features like deep ocean trenches, mountain ranges, and volcanic island chains. During our Seamanship lecture, Jake taught us about the physics of sailing, including how sailboats sail upwind and the difference between tacking and jibing. It was a very useful lecture to have before we finally set sail for St. Helena tomorrow morning. After our lectures, we broke for a tasty lunch of a cheesy polenta veggie bake with freshly sliced watermelon.
The watermelon was deliciously refreshing in the heat of the day, and after a quick clean, we essentially had the afternoon off to relax, study, and prepare for passage. Nick put the film Master and Commander on in the salon as Nate, Charlton, Benno, Kip, Kaden, and I sat down for our first game of Catan on a real board. After Nate won the game with the largest army, the score of the Spring 2024 Vela Open Settlers of Catan Tournament now stands at Charlton with two games, Nate with one game, and myself with three games. A bunch of people got sent up the main mast in a bosun’s chair today to get a beautiful view of the VA Waterfront, including Madison, Connor, Maddie, Christina, and Benno. After the game, I organized a huge Uber Eats snack order where Frida, Kaden, Alva, Sophia, Arielle, Lazlo, Benno, and I all secured our final snack choices before our departure. Emma had to go back to the hospital to get it wrapped again and discuss it further with doctors, but now she is ready to rock. We had a delicious dinner at a Tex-Mex bar with ground beef, avocado, rice, beans, and all the fixings. Pretty much everybody loved it and went back for seconds. Now it’s after dinner, the boat is cleaned, and we are going to go shower and hang out for the rest of the night. Despite the change of plans, morale is very high after another great day on Vela.
Best,
Tom
P.S. Jodi, Jake wanted me to tell you that he loves you <3