Location: San Blas, Panama
They never tell you how hard it is to wake 30ish people up when you can’t use pots and pans. On this particularly phenomenal day, I was phenomenally awakened by the phenomenal sound of the anchor being raised, which is phenomenally louder when you sleep in the forecastle 6 stack (a phenomenal room with an even more phenomenal stench emanating from the 4 heads right next to it). The best way to describe the phenomenal noise made by the anchor chains is a blender full of silverware, metal pipes, coins, and rocks, hooked up to a dollar-store microphone in some phenomenally twisted ASMR. I was woken up to this phenomenally jarring noise. I was thrust out of my nightmare when McDonald’s took the Egg McMuffin off the menu. I’ve only had 3 in my whole life, and I don’t even think they are that good. and inadvertently caused mass rioting around the globe and the potential collapse of society. As skipper, it was my duty to wake the boat up, and in my lethargic state after being woken up, I couldn’t think of any better way to wake everyone up other than loudly saying, “Wake up and continuously knocking on the cabin doors. I know it is not creative, but I was disallowed the use of pots and pans. In the future (30 days from now), I will wake the boat up by yelling”OOD MORNING ARG” (sorry for the caps) and banging a spoon against the top of my water bottle. Anyway, getting woken up by the anchor being raised is a 10/10 wake-up that I will never be able to recreate as a human ththatisn’tt boat.
Today was our second day in San Blas, and for breakfast we had great cinnamon rolls made by Martin G and his sous chefs. It was my first time having cinnamon rolls ththatdidn’ttome from a vending machine, and I would say that they were amazing. Today we had AiAidan’s challenge course, where we were split into watch groups and competed as a team in various challenges. Each of the watch teams was given a color: 1 was purple, 2 was green, and 3 was red. Dressed in clothing in our team colors, we made our way by dinghy to an extremely small island covered in palm trees that looked like it was from a movie.
Our first challenge would basically be a game of capture the flag, but with specialized roles. The captain gives the orders. The quartermaster is in charge of defence. The first mate organizes raiding parties to get flags. The navigator goes into the “ungle” to gather clues that provide the team with various pieces of information and advantages. The first round was pretty fun. I did not have a role, so I went on offense with the first mate to get the purple bums. I am trying my best to be unbiased. WATCH TEAM 2 RULES. Anyway, watch team 3 ended up targeting watch team 1 along with us. Mars got a flag and swam far out into the ocean to a neighboring island to get away from everyone who was chasing him. In the meantime, I was busy trying to get the flag from watch team 1. None of us really understood the rules in the first round, so not much happened, and nobody got any points.
For the second round, we got a better understanding of the rules. We went with the same strategy as before and decided to bum rush the bums of watch team one. While most of us were away on offense, however, Watch Team 3 ended up stealing our flag. We had to recover our flag by the end of the round to stop watch team 3 from getting a point, so we targeted them instead and were successful in keeping them from getting a point. After that round, we had a brief minigame where 2 people would try to knock each other off a paddleboard by whacking each other with pool noodles. Sadly, watch team 3 ended up winning this challenge by cheating and using their goddam hands instead of the pool noodle. For the next round, a new mechanic was added: the staff would join the game, and one of them would have an immunity idol that we had to get from them by chasing them t “rough “he “jungle. The round started off fine, and I even managed to get my hands on the immunity idol for a while before it was taken away from me. I was hiding behind a pile of palm fronds, waiting for Aidan to run past, but there was a toe incident, and the game was cut short.
After the Toe Incident (ATI), we all hung out on the island. For most of the game, Nacho was opening up a coconut and finished opening it up, so he taught us how to open up coconuts, drink the milk, and harvest the meat inside. We spent the rest of our time on the island destroying coconuts and swimming until it was time to go back for lunch. On the island, we put on zync body paint, zync being a main component in sunscreen, so many of us ended up getting some pretty funky burns from the island. Lunch was grilled cheese and tomato soup. After lunch, it was time for the dreaded marine biology quiz, so I did some last-minute studying instead (Don’t worry, Mom and Dad, I did well). All I will say is that it turns out I ddidn’tneed to memorize the scientific names of five seagrasses native to the Caribbean and one invasive to the Caribbean, as the study guide said. After the test, I prepared to do my laundry for the second time today, only for it to start raining again one minute later. I also came up with the ingenious strategy of cooling off my last can of Coke by holding it in front of the air conditioning duct for a while.
For dinner, we had gyros with pita bread. After dinner, we got our tests back, and all I will say is that I did better than the tag team of Captain Nick, who answered “red “”cea” “o What are the conditions needed for coral growth? Anyway, it’s almost 11 cuz writing this took me a while, and I was delayed. I ate a lot of raw onions for dinner (big mistake) and had to take a break for a bit and wait for the computer to be free again. Good night, Argo. WATCH TEAM 2 RULES, AND WE WERE THE TRUE WINNERS CUZ WE HAVE DONE 5 OUT OF THE 2 TACKS AND 3 OUT OF THE 7 JIBES ON WATCH. Maybe the true winners of the challenge course were the burns we got and the coconuts we ate along the way and the toenails we lost (@Colbie).
By Skyler Wolff (The better one)
P.S. We lost our fish-finder connection, and now I am scared sharks will eat the boat.