Location: Underway to Palau
Hello everyone, it’s Steph making a very exciting surprise skipper appearance today on our fourth day of passage!
Today went as many days on passage do, starting with an 8-12 watch that I was not on today, so I got a nice little nap in this morning. Then we had Japanese tea soup made by Gabe, Max, and Ian for lunch. It was after this meal that I learned that I was, in fact, skipper for the day! Great news to receive following a delicious lunch. After lunch, we had a double science day for classes! Very exciting, especially if you’re me or Amanda, who get to teach our science classes. First, the students had their 4th Oceanography quiz, which I am sure they all aced! Followed by learning about deep-sea marine creatures with Amanda and a riveting round of deck showers. For dinner, we had, as Gabe described it, “Jewish Chicken,” with challah bread, which was super tasty and reminded me of when I was a kid and used to eat strictly challah bread and honey at almost every Jewish celebration throughout the year.
Now it’s time for some passage related updates:
First, we are now on day 4 of passage, which means that we have gone through one complete rotation of our watch schedules. This means that everyone has now sat every single watch slot at least once, and everyone seems to be settling on their favorite watch times and favorite moments within their watches. For example, watch team 2, led by Elle and myself, call the third (of four) hour of watch power hour because it tends to be the hardest to power through. We have turned power hour into dance party hour, and they have flown by the last few days.
Second, everyone seems to have moved forward on the road of recovery from sea sickness today. With everyone eating and keeping down both lunch and dinner!
Finally, all of the bananas aboard Argo are currently ripe. While I know some of you reading this may think “Oh god, bananas on a boat, that’s bad luck” but let me tell you, they are a good source of nutrients and people like them a lot and if we went with old traditions of what should or shouldn’t be on boats, I wouldn’t be here writing this blog for you all. So bananas it is! People have been eating bananas quite frequently throughout the day, even sometimes 2 at a time. Our record for the most bananas eaten in the last 24 hours goes to Chloe, who has eaten 12 so far…
Overall, everyone seems to be settling nicely into passage life, and we are looking forward to the next two or so weeks on our journey to Palau together.
Last but not least, a shoutout to my parents and my boyfriend, who berate me every time I don’t give them a blog shoutout even if I had literally spoken to them on the phone that same day. Hi Mom and Dad! I’m sure you’ll be very excited to be reading a blog of mine so soon when I told you it would be at least a week and a half! Love and miss you guys. Hi Shauny, I love and miss you too and hope you’ve seen many turtles since we spoke last
That’s all from me folks, see you all again in about 10 days! By that time, we’ll be closing in on Palau (:
Photo 1: Watch Team 2 on a rainy watch
Photo 2: Pano of Argo’s mainsail with a second reef in
Photo 3: about 10% of Tyler’s selfie escapade with Kylie’s phone