Location: Langkawi
If there are three tenets of Sea|mester, they would be as follows: 1. Get there under sail. 2. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. 3. Happiness comes from long days of work and play. Today, we worked hard at achieving all three of these goals. The shipmates ran their first sail, organizing and implementing the entire passage from Pulau Payar to Langkawi; all the details were accounted for as they calculated tidal currents, wind direction, speed underway, and position, all with only the use of traditional sailing tools and without the use of modern technology such as GPS or map plotting software. And so the staff became deckhand, and the shipmates skippered the vessel smoothly and professionally into new waters. The fun did not end there. As we approached our next stop, the boat became a hive of activity as we cleaned Argo from top to bottom till everything from the fridge to the gunnels gleamed, and the air was permeated with the smell of polish and bleach. Such a day could only be rounded off properly with a night out, and so we set forth in the dinghies to hit the shore and explore what Langkawi had to offer. As one shipmate said subsequently, “It was the best night out yet.” But as we enter the last third of our trip, there has definitely been talking of home and a feeling of thankfulness to the people who have facilitated our being here or supported us over the course of our travels. One thing is for sure: without the important people at home, we would not be smiling and happy in Langkawi! Before I end this entry, I would like to take the opportunity to reveal the man behind the mask, so to speak. Chris works tirelessly to produce blogs, upload pictures, and provide news about us and our antics. If he were English, I might call him a Borrower (a little man that lives under the floorboards in the UK and comes out at night to clean the house and do all the hard work) because you never see him in the photos. You just get to see the results of his hard work. So today, I would like to thank him for keeping my parents informed on a daily basis of my whereabouts and for generally putting minds at ease across the States.