Location: Underway to St Helena
Welcome back to another wonderful day aboard the S/Y Argo, ladies and gentlemen! We have been having a great time continuing our way through the Atlantic to St. Helena. However, once one has been on a boat for multiple days without any land in sight, things start to get weird. By weird, I mean everyone’s inner prankster is getting its 15 minutes of fame. Our three watch teams have been at a prank war for what feels like the last 5 days, but in the boat, time is only about the last 36 hours. The morning started off strong during watch team three’s boat check. Around midnight, as I was conducting my final boat check of the evening, I went to check one of the bilges (space below the boat floor, where we check to make sure there is no water in them) and found Darien hidden underneath the floorboards. Darien and her accomplice Zac failed at scaring me but shortly after scared the living daylights out of Cecily. This was not an original prank, as yesterday Benny and Cecily hid in the galley bilge and scared Kara during her 4 am boat check.
The fun does not stop there, folks. Overnight, we frequently get visitors that come on board and, unfortunately, get stuck there. These visitors are called Small Head Flying Fish, and they are seen very often during watch. A few made their way on board last night, and our students wasted no time adding them to their arsenal of weapons for a prank. One of our lovely crew members, Shane, was so helpful when he offered to hold Zac’s headlamp while watching, only for Zac to hand him an entire fish. Needless to say, at 4 am, it took Shane a moment to process why Zac’s headlamp was so squishy. To get back at Darien for her scaring watch team 3, we decided to play a game of balancing the shoe on her while she took a nap before lunch. For those of you wondering, six shoes and one textbook are not enough to wake this girl up!
The winds died down a bit as the morning emerged and our knowledgeable Captain Calum advised watch team 3 to raise the Fisherman Top Sail or as we call it “the Fish”. The Fish got lots of attention today as it was raised and lowered in a matter of 4 hours due to winds changing once more. It took all hands on deck after lunch to get the Fish wrangled and to adjust the Forward Staysail to keep us on course while we got the motor fired up to do some motor sailing, which helps us stay a little bit more on schedule when winds are not ideal for sailing entirely. We have reached the halfway point between Cape Town and St. Helena which gave our team a boost of motivation!
After a bit of sail handling, Nicole and Ben led us through some great classes. In leadership we played a quick game of two truths and a lie where the students got to know each other even better. In marine biology class, we did some fish identification quizzes, and the small-headed flying fish was included in them. We had a great dinner that was cooked and prepared by our very own Talia, Eli, and Benny. During dinner, we all talked about the places in the world we wanted to travel to but had not been to yet. The place I want to go to most but haven’t been yet is the Seychelles! Where do you want to travel to? The students are winding down the night with our usual post-dinner clean-up dance party in the galley and some late-night homework before we settle in for night watches. Life out at sea is calm, and we are all enjoying the routine of classes, watch, and an appropriate amount of tomfoolery.