Location: Underway to St. Helena
Today was our first full day sailing to St. Helena. Currently, we are sailing up the coast of Africa. However, we are unable to see land because we are too far out. Due to not being docked anymore and only being surrounded by waves, a majority of the student body has had to rush to either the port or starboard side of the boat to throw up. However, we have medicine on board and are all slowly getting used to the motion. Being on our way, we now rotate through our watch teams. I had the 12 am to 4 am watch (arguably the best watch to have) last night, allowing me to witness a clear sky being lit up only by stars. Also, my watch team (and the two other watch teams) rotated who gets to be at the helm of the boat. One of the tricks to sailing at night in clear weather is to pick a star and try to stay in line with said star. Which was really cool!!
Another activity we started today was our classes after lunch. We had a Marine Biology and a Seamanship class; both were held outside to make it feel better for all of us dealing with being seasick. In the Marine Biology class, we talked about history and how science came to be today. In the Seamanship class, we started off with practicing knots, then talked about the direction of the sail while also talking about the vocabulary we needed to know. After classes, we had a study hall, where some people did work, nap or hang out on deck. Our squeeze question of the day was if you were described as a color, what color would you be? My answer was sage green.
Hope all is well,
Elizabeth C.