Location: Fernando de Noronha
After waking up this morning for our 8 am watch by a sopping wet Del sternly informing us that wearing our foulies is a good idea, the rest of watch team two and I stumbled out of bed too and made our way on deck. It was apparent to me that clearly, the curse of watch team one still continued on as rain stormed down on us during our briefing. Now, knowing that we were only six nautical miles from the Island of Fernando de Noronha, we expected to see it looming off in the distance. Instead, the visibility was decreased immensely as we were welcomed to our next location with this downpour. Even though most of the crew would say it was a fun experience, it was definitely no match for our last welcome to St. Helena by the group of whale sharks. I don’t think there is any way to describe the feeling of seeing land once again after 10+ days of constant blue scenery with only water for as far as you can see. I think everyone is very excited to get ashore tomorrow and have a quick change of scenery.
Luckily, when we finally anchored, the rain and wind decided to leave us alone for the rest of our morning and afternoon of Boat Appreciation; after a long passage like that, Argo definitely needed a nice cleaning to keep her looking beautiful. After Boat Appreciation, as a group, we decided to get the second and last EFR (Emergency First Responder) class done to free up our morning tomorrow. It’s nice to know that now everyone aboard has the ability to help out in a medical emergency.
I find it amazing to watch how, in the last 34 days, our Argo family has grown so close and continues to as we get farther and farther into our journey together. It’s not often people can say they have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and especially not often that they’ve done so with such an incredible group of people. As I am writing this, we are all cleaning up after dinner and are going to do another class of OCE (Oceanography) and then probably off to bed for most of us. I think everyone is excited to get a full night’s sleep tonight, and although we love our nice 3 am bow-watch chats, it’ll be refreshing to actually sleep.