Location: 37º14.999’N, 32º42.244’W
Heyyyy. Today, watch team 3 (my watch team) was woken up at 11:30 am for the 12-4 shift, to the news that we were finally sailing, and we are absolutely flying! When we came up on deck, the sky was really dark, and big waves were crashing over the boat onto us, and immediately got us soaked. There were 35 knots of wind hitting the sails, and we were holding over 9 knots of boat speed, which was very cool. We had to be sure we were clipped onto the high side the whole time we were up there. I had to hold onto the seating area really hard because I kept falling into the cockpit, but it was funny. Anyways, we went to bed at 4 am and woke up to eat such a good lunch, which was chickpea curry with naan bread. Our chefs, Peyton, Lana, and Andrew, did an amazing job (and Maya, who made the naan!) After lunch, we did some sail handling. To prepare to shake the second reef, our watch team struck the jib. Macie and Nicole got drenched in the freezing water, and on the bowsprit, flaking the sail. For the mainsail raise, Greyson and I took in on the main halyard while Avery, Maya, and Mimi took in on the jigger.
I took lots of action shots, which I’ll be sure to include here. When all the sails were set, we had leadership class and finished watching a movie that we then had to connect back to what we were learning in class. After class, we had an optional seamanship study for the exam in 3-4 days. Many people partook in that, but others listened to Sadie’s music. The first song that was played was obviously “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” in honor of the 4th. Afterwards, while the chefs cooked, quite a few people took naps. Personally, I had the best nap of my life.
Brady also took a nap in the salon, and he used a bag of sugar as his pillow. While we were all napping, Ella, Mina, and Emily made us a special holiday treat of chocolate chip cookies for us to eat at dinner. They had chia seeds in them as an egg replacement, which I thought would be weird, but it was actually very good. Meanwhile, Alex from watch team two got his helmsona, meaning he helmed for four straight hours. For dinner, we had chicken wings with potatoes. All the food today was amazing, and the chefs did a great job. While we ate, Nick lit an expired flare since we didn’t have fireworks, and the flare was the next best thing. We sang some patriotic music while the flare was going, and then we ate cookies. Brig ate his cookie with a fork because he said he wanted to be a gentleman. After that was a squeeze. My question was if you could have one tattoo, what would it be? Hays said he wants a tree above his right kneecap, which was rather interesting.
The last thing before clean up was Meg playing the King of Time song because the time changed again! This is the fourth time change, and we all did the dance this time. That means watch team three has a three-hour shift instead of four hours yayyyyy 🙂 (I love my watch team and we all love Nicole and Charlie.) Alexis is doing a boat check while I am writing this right now. Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Hello to my family and my friends, and Cannon; I miss y’all ;). Also, tomorrow is our last full day of passage, so we should be able to talk to everyone in two days. yayyyyy!