Location: 19* 54.149 N 49* 23.904' W
Nothing gets me more amped for the 12-4 watch than Skeezy serenading me to Vamp Anthem by Playboi Carti. For every person reading this, I demand you to listen to this song right now. This is how watch team 2 has begun every morning/night this whole passage, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Last night I walked to the cockpit to get the brief from watch team 1 and walked into them practicing the days of the week; this was weird. The wake-ups have been quite interesting as well; it’s an absolute joy waking up at 4 in the morning to another person in your bed that barely fits my shoulders across. I also was woken to a heap of potatoes, limes, other random things, and a carton of milk in my bed. This relieved my midnight snack cravings.
It’s crazy to think we haven’t seen land or anything in like 12 days. My dreams have said the opposite, though. Last night in the 45 minutes of sleep I got before watch, I dreamt that a speedboat came up to us out of nowhere. This was very confusing. I don’t remember anything else. These boat dreams are crazy, the other night, I was on a date with this girl, and a man came out of nowhere and mugged me. She set me up, and I still stayed with her to explore whatever city we were in. I’ve also been waking up at wild times, absolutely convinced that I have watch. At approximately 6:23 this morning, I woke up in a panic that it was time for watch and almost started getting my clothes on. To my surprise, it was not time for watch. The other night, a man wearing my foulies came and woke me up to tell me that I had to get to the dishy pit and help wash dishes. I think I was staring at my foulies hanging up on my hanger for like five minutes; then I realized there was no man and that it was the wee hours of the night.
I was enjoying my job as bosun yesterday till my intrusive thoughts got the best of me, then it got even better. I was shooting some water up into the air for Mia to catch in her mouth; then I decided that she’d enjoy the water stream at full power going into her mouth. In the next five minutes, as we jammed out to some throwback bops, every single person in the proximity had been blasted in the face at least ten times, and Jimmy and I were soaking wet. Jimmy showed our decky team his skills of drinking from the hose like a dog; he explained that he drank too much water and really had to pee. The only option to solve his issue was to pee his pants while standing there on deck.
In the past four days, I’ve seen both Surfs Up and White Squall twice. Since there’s always a team on watch, one team always gets left out during movie time. Lucky for me, we had the 4-8 and then the 12-4, so I got to take part in both movie watchings. White Squall is about a ship just like ours, a school ship, Albatross, that sailed 12,000 miles in 1960 with a crew of a group of boys all our age. Awesome movie, scary for some. Unfortunately for The Albatross, a white squall came upon them, overpowering the ship and leading them to sink. Best choice of movie you could watch while crossing the Atlantic if you ask me.
Today was another repeat of the simulation, night watch, wake up at 12, eat lunch, clean up, class, dinner, clean up, watch, repeat. You can’t beat it. For lunch, Matt Matt made delicious pumpkin soup and bread with garlic butter. Today we had Seamanship on deck and then Oceanography. I might’ve fallen asleep for a minute or two during oceanography. Joel and Max proceeded to put a booger in my hair while snoozing. They don’t know what’s coming for them. After this, I slipped into the time warp and have no clue what I did till dinner. Before dinner, Callum solved a Rubik’s cube in 2 minutes and 32 seconds, very impressive. Dinner was glorious; Big Matt presented us with some chicken pasta type thang with more bread and more garlic butter! So hearty and delicious; thank you, Matt. For squeeze, I asked for everyone’s appreciation of the day and what they were thankful for because it’s Thanksgiving, of course. I hope that everyone at home has a lovely Thanksgiving! It was great to hear what everyone is thankful for.
After dinner, we all appreciated the beautiful sunset together, exchanging hugs and our love for each other. Sunsets on the Atlantic are absolutely incredible. I then meandered my way to the cockpit before writing this to find all three JBL speakers connected, forming a beautiful surround sound experience. I hung out for a minute, appreciating the 360-degree listening of live Sweet Child of Mine and the ending of the sunset. Now here I am writing the blog about to go to PSCT class; it was another great day on passage.
Love and miss all of my friends and family at home! Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Hendo