Location: Ceram Sea
Today was a chill but awesome day. For me, it started with the 12 am to 4 am watch. I spent the entire time talking to Claire and Max about genealogy, one of my favorite topics. It was such an interesting conversation, and I loved learning more about my fellow Argonauts. I was so wrapped up in the conversation that I didn’t even have time to recite Harry Potter scenes for my watch team (I discovered this niche talent on Argo), but it’s ok, I’ll restart tonight. Anyway, after watch I went back to bed and slept amazingly until 11:30, when I woke up naturally and got ready to start waking everyone else up. Shay and Nacho were in the kitchen making an amazing lunch of pasta and meatballs, and around 11:30 it was time to get everyone up. Some people got up really easily and were ready to greet the day. Others, not so much, and I had to make them literally stand up out of bed to make sure they got up. Eventually, I managed to get all 32 of us in the cockpit, where we enjoyed a beautiful lunch. After eating, it was time to be academic weapons and start class. We 80-dayers went down to the salon to take our marine biology ID quiz. There were some really cool creatures on this one, including the Wobbegong shark, which I’d never heard of, and the mandarinfish (Amphiprion perideraion), which we actually saw back in Palau. After our quiz, it was time for the first 5 40B-ers to take their navmaster exams. They have studied so long and hard, and we were all so proud of them.
Meanwhile, we 80-dayers were having a marine bio class with Jen on deck. We started at midships with a canister of potato chip fries provided by Skye and Jen’s computer, but eventually the waves got rougher, and we were forced to move to the stern to save Jen’s laptop. Today’s lesson was about marine mammals, including seals, otters, and WHALES. After class we had faffing time, so I went to bed. Now get this: remember how we just learned about whales today? An hour into my nap, Shane woke me up because the watch team doing the 2-6 had seen actual whales!!!! I didn’t make it up on deck on time to see them, but it was still the highlight of my day.
Afterward, I spent some time working on and getting murdered by my marine bio paper before our next shock of the day. I’m sitting in the salon, waiting for dinner to be ready to go and to gather people, when all of a sudden I hear a commotion coming from on deck. Then Julian comes running down the companionway screaming about how Shane was in the water (he only clarified after the fact that Shane was in the water on purpose). It turns out that one of our fishing lines got caught on the propeller, and we had to drop all the sails, and Shane had to jump in with a snorkel and a knife at a depth of like 5000 meters. RIP his marlin spike tool that is probably still sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Anyway, Shane was quick to fix the problem, and in no time, we had all hands on deck raising the sails back up. We did an awesome job, and by the time we were done, food was already up on deck for dinner. We had a delicious meal of fried rice and watched the sunset (unfortunately no green flash, but we did look), and then it was time for squeeze. For my question, I asked people what their favorite or funniest memory is with the person on their left. It was so awesome to hear everyone’s stories, and I’m so excited to make more memories and hear more stories in our last few weeks. Now I’m here writing this blog before going on the 8 pm-12 am, the stealer of sleep and my mortal enemy. That’s a wrap on another great day on Argo!
To my family, I’m so excited to see you soon. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. Love you!