Location: Mallory R.
Day 8 of this 70-day-long voyage has been just as action-packed as the past week and officially marks seven full days aboard Vela! We started off the morning with… you guessed it… more scuba diving! Today the focus was Peak Performance Buoyancy, which is just fancy talk for playing games underwater. Some notable game stations were limbo and flips, but word on the street is some great bubble tricks started making an appearance during safety stops, which is just as cool. As one of the few students not diving (very sad, I know. I am on a brief medical sabbatical), I got a chance to help out wherever I was needed without rushing to get my own kit ready and being accused of “faffing,” or dilly-dallying too much. I was more than happy to get involved in diving in the small ways I still could (being someone’s buddy or grabbing everyone’s fins as they came up the ladder), and everyone seemed appreciative of the extra set of hands on the surface support. It’s clear to me already that this voyage will be extremely tough, but going through it with a bunch of friends, and especially people you know you can ask for help when you need it, will surely make all the difference.
After dinner tonight, we went through the Station Bill, which is essentially the standing orders in case of an emergency on board. It was very easy when clicking through the Seamester website to forget about the risks associated with such an unconventional class setting and get caught up in all the awesome perks of such a cool study abroad experience. I remember my older sister being my only close family member who was scared that I would get lost at sea or worse. Hearing the procedures tonight for what to do in case of a fire, man overboard, collision, or abandon ship scenario made it feel suddenly very real. While I am a bit homesick, I’m already starting to think of Vela as a home, and the prospect of leaving her behind in the worst case is very sad, to put it lightly.
I am looking forward to getting to know the vessel a lot better, though, as the next four days will be a crash course in emergency drills and actually hoisting the sails on this beast of a sailboat.
While it’s technically been seven full days, “one week” doesn’t quite describe what my fellow crew members and I seem to all be feeling. I feel like I’ve known some of these people for a lifetime, yet the time has been flying by like crazy. If you blink, you really will miss something. Despite the FOMO that entails, I’ve noticed that at this week’s one mark, people seem to be settling into taking time for themselves when needed, whether that be naps on the chart house or individual studying in the salon. It’s been great as skipper of the day to take a step back from our daily chores and really look at and have the chance to check in on how people are handling this drastic change in lifestyle. We’ve had tons of laughs while cutting cheese or blowing bubbles with sink suds, but everyone needs some time to themselves as we start to notice the drain on our social batteries. It’s been cool today to see everyone begin to settle into a new normal, and I look forward to how that changes in the weeks ahead.