Location: Vitiaz Straight & Bismarck Sea
Watch team 2 (Juliet, Sadie, Shay, Kennedy, Amy, Max, Julian, and Faith) had an early morning with watch starting at 4 am. If you don’t know, Emma, our watch team leader, decided to create a workout challenge for us. For every nautical mile we sail, we have to do one workout (push-ups, sit-ups, squats, etc.). This has kept us quite busy during watch (but also very sore). As the sun started to rise and the soreness started to creep in, our job was to drop the mainsail. During that time, we also did a little photoshoot with Juliet, taking photos with my camera while also sharing mini M&M’s throughout the group. As watch team 3 stumbled out of bed at 8 am, watch team 2 had a bit of a sugar rush but ended up sleeping it off soon after. When watch team 3’s morning tiredness wore off (Skye, Sophie, Isaac, Rhianna, Ella, Everett, Holland, and Catherine), I gave them my camera to take some pictures during their watch, and ended up with over 350 photos. They definitely had a more intense photoshoot compared to us. I then woke everyone up for our wonderful chef’s lunch. Emily, our head chef, Sophie, and Noelle made some delicious pasta salad that was immediately gone by the end of the meal. We then had our two classes, Marine Biology and Seamanship, but we had an unexpected surprise in the beginning. We had another EFR scenario! Jack had “fainted” first, while Rachel “stabbed” Shane with a spork, and lastly, Jen had “cut her leg” but was also in shock. Although we did a lot better than our first attempt, we didn’t pass this one either. Maybe 3rd times the charm! In Seamanship, we had Navmaster (shocker!), and Charlie informed us that our exam got moved up a day, so most of the boat is a little nervous. As we all had time after our class, we saw a huge volcano next to us, which quickly made us less nervous about our upcoming exam and excited to see some visible land for once. We 80-dayers then had Marine bio with Jen and had finished class just in time for dinner! Our chefs cooked us breakfast for dinner, which is everyone’s favorite (you could tell due to the line of people waiting to rush and get food). As our day 28 came to an end, my squeeze question was “What color is your mermaid tail and what power would you have?” Many had very interesting answers, especially Shane, who had to break the squeeze circle to show us how his tail would look.
To my mom and dad, I love and miss you! Can’t wait to call you when I arrive in Palau!