Location: Underway to the Azores
Ocean. So much ocean. Everywhere, ocean. We are sinking into the depths of our minds. Oh wait, that is just water from the bilge. We’ll be right back. Okay, so today is day 30 of the program, and the morning routine was, indeed, routine. Watch team 3 had the 8-12 watch to start the morning, and after some wind arrived, we raised the fisherman, jib, and flying jib, significantly increasing our speed for a couple of minutes. Then the wind died down. Then the wind returned. Then the wind…you get the picture. However, we were able to keep sails up throughout the entire day, only turning the motor on in the late afternoon for some added speed. We consistently went around 6 knots. Talking about knots, our knot exam, administered by Gabe, was today. Everyone passed as we all knew what knot to do. That was a pun for those who missed it. For lunch, we had a very delicious stir fry and, after, went down for our final leadership presentation and the aforementioned knot test. After this followed a study hall where many people worked on their literature review papers for oceanography. After that, people were awoken and rallied for dinner. As everyone was coming up for dinner, an atypical flag was raised on the flag halyard.
Santana’s water bottle was flapping in the wind: punishment for it being left in the salon. It was stuck for a couple of minutes, but Callum used his line whispering powers to ease it back down to safety. Dinner consisted of lasagna and bread rolls with plenty of marine creature sightings to keep us jumping up from our seats. We saw a shark, two pods of dolphins, and a pod of unidentified cetaceans. Finally, to celebrate Cate’s birthday today, we had chocolate cake and sang Happy Birthday. The chart plotter says we will arrive in the Azores in around twenty-four hours, so perhaps the next time you receive a blog, it will be from a safe harbor. This is Alexander, over and out.
Love you, Mom and Dad! Talk to you in a couple of days!