Location: Underway to Cocos Keeling
Leaving Christmas Island in our wake, the team has enjoyed a day full of laughs, games, and good food (thanks, gigantic Allie). The crew is settling into passage life well and definitely giving life onboard its own spin. The most recent discoveries of how to optimize sleep include Drazkas mattress toe clamp and Traviss lee-cloth arm hook, which, in his words, nearly ended up taking his arm off after passing over some larger waves. Finally, the sea biscuits himself (Charlie) wakes up with a Rock Paper Scissors battle in the face after having your eyes open for a few seconds. Although a little bit of fatigue spread throughout the boat following the diving interim we had on Christmas Island, everything was forgotten after another lush sunrise at sea. As always on passage, the day began at about 11:30 am. Presented with some festive pumpkin cake (aka bread for you US folks), yogurt, blueberries, and granola, I announced today would be the first lecture-less day on passage, and we would all enjoy a day of festive celebrations. In my eyes, it is illegal for Christmas songs to be played prior to my mid-November birthday, let alone films and games, but today was fantastic! Event one had Kiley and baby Ali conduct their Christmas Island destination presentation, which allowed the students to learn a little more about the place that provided such an amazing dive for us yesterday. Shortly followed was a Secret Santa. As we head further south and continue getting deeper into the Indian Ocean, temperatures will consistently drop. The large Santa-like bags of laundry were hauled from the bilges and distributed in a variety of ways. The only catch was that everyone was blindfolded, which made balancing in the rocky salon tricky. In the past few days, Ava and Hannah have been gathering information from everyone about their own Christmas traditions at home, and they have made an Argo family feud.
Divided into teams, namely, the boat appreciators, babaganoush, and Mittens, we battled it out. After 15 questions, the boat appreciators and mittens were tied. Philips dancing and Charllies early cries of victory during the quiz were hushed. What lay between the winners was a spoon of raw cocoa powder. Myself, a representative from Mittens, and Philip, a representative from the boat appreciators, faced off. My compulsive desire to narrate what was going on spread a cloud of powder over Philip and let me down. Philip walked away as worthy victor. The afternoon was wound down as all great Christmass are. I love popcorn and the boys playing Nintendo Switch in the corner. Biggg shout out to Willo, who, throughout this whole period, held down the fort and helmed for the afternoon. We gathered in the cockpit for some dinner and shared some embarrassing stories over squeeze and cleaned up as day turned to night. With warm cookies for our watch teams tonight, everyone is keenly anticipating another night spent star-gazing at some of the most beautiful night skies this world has to offer. Time for Megs marine bio revision session. Enjoy the three snippets of our day. FYI, on the TV is Philips photo finish proof that he finished the cocoa powder first. Sending lots of love home to Evie and my family. Happy birthday for the 15th Jasmine! Ben