Location: Portsmouth, Dominica
Hello everyone,
It was an early morning for me, as I woke up at 5:30 because I hit my head on the top of my bunk. Keaton later told me that it was so loud it shook her bed and that she was worried. Anyway, I decided to spend my hour and a half of free time in the salon where I watched our head chef Max and sous chefs Julian and Noah work hard to make our delicious breakfast of eggs, hash browns, and bacon. Today was a slow day that mostly consisted of class, swimming, or lounging on the deck. After breakfast, we all headed down to the salon for marine biology. For class, we watched the movie Blackfish which is a movie I’ve always avoided watching because it is so sad; however, if you have not seen it, 10/10 recommend. Long story short, don’t put big whales in small tanks and separate them from their families because the result is just not good. Also, don’t go to Seaworld. After an hour and a half of being sad about whales, we had oceanography, where we learned about aquaculture and the fishing industry. Basically, all you need to know is that it is very difficult for fishing to be sustainable, but we’re trying to figure it out.
After a long morning full of class, we went back up on deck for a much-needed swim. It’s always a good day when we get to go swimming, which is basically every day. We all discussed how strange life is going to be when we can no longer swim in the ocean every day whenever we want- a fact I am not quite ready to face yet. Lunch consisted of spring rolls and fried rice- in the words of Grady, “very tasty.” The last class we had today was leadership, where we had a riveting conversation about the movie Passengers. If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s all you need to know: a group of 5,000 people are traveling to a new planet on a 120-year journey. All of the people on board are asleep- their bodies are in hibernation so that they don’t age over the course of the journey. The mechanics on the ship falter, and one man, Chris Pratt, wakes up 90 years early, and he cannot go back to sleep. He is forced to spend the rest of his life alone and is confronted with the choice of waking up another person or killing himself. The question posed to us during class was: would you wake up another person even though you are basically ruining their life? For some, like Keaton, the answer was obvious. She can simply not live without other people to talk to, so she decided she would wake up all 5,000 people- this doesn’t surprise me at all.
While some people worked on oceanography projects or napped down below, a few of us sent some more time up on deck. Just as I was falling asleep on the chart house, I hear Sam say, ” We’re moving!” It turns out we have been cleared from quarantine, and we had to move to a new part of the harbor. This also meant that we got to cut off our orange quarantine bracelets, and for Chris, this was exciting because he didn’t have one to start out with. I volunteered to flake the anchor chains, which was a long process as our chains pulled up a chunk of concrete. Steve saved the day when he dove in a freed the concrete from the grasps of our chains. Once that was done, and we moved 300 yards, if even, we went for another swim and got ready for dinner.
Currently, I am in the chart house writing this blog with the help of Keaton, Grady, and Julian. Keaton just brought me the best hot chocolate I have ever had. The two of us are mentally preparing for our Nav Master practice with Brahm, which we will be doing as soon as I finish writing this. So that was our day; I hope you enjoyed 🙂
Hi Paxton, but more importantly, hi Maci and Dilly
Pictures:
1: Me and Keaton being the cutest
2. Keaton looking adorable while sleeping
3. Henry, Grady, and I
4. Noah giving his presentation
5. Johnny doing a backflip
6. Me and Keaton being adorable part 2
7. Grady, Johnny, and Celia swimming
8. Chris
9. All of the girls except for Katie 🙁
10. Me flaking the chains
11. All of the girls, including Katie 🙂
12. Katie
13. Erin, Celia, and Meg pretending to work on their project
14. Keaton, Erin, and Meg
15. Showing off our peanut butter which is huge because we can’t eat it because it will kill me
16. Noah and Max preparing dinner
17. Grady doing one of his graceful backflips