Programs Blog

Sunday, 8 June 2025
Noon Position: 42deg 35.5’N x 070deg 40.1’W
Ship Heading (degrees): 107
Ship Speed (knots): 6
Log (nm): 311.7
Weather / Wind / Sail Plan (from 1300 Watch Change): ENE Force B 4, Getting underway using main engine from Gloucester.
Description of Location: Exiting Stellwagon Bank, heading into Cape Cod Bay

Greetings land family! This is C-watch, coming to you live at 21:40 on evening watch. This morning we were blessed with four extra hours of sleep, as we were anchored for our dawn watch (In Gloucester). The sun rose around 0500, creeping up out of the horizon as a bright PINK orb! Since we had some extra downtime, we wrote a C-watch sea shanty! Special thanks to Grace, who is not writing the blog today. We also started working on our final projects, we chose to find Phytoplankton city! We kinda big backed at lunch (and snack), the lovely galley stewards made homemade pitas, hummus, tzatziki, eggplant, and other veggies! Grace, Callista, and Mae took the opportunity to enjoy the view of Gloucester from the headrig before we left. We absolutely adore the quaint, colonial fishing town that is Gloucester, but we are happy to be back underway! Thankfully our friends got all the medical care they needed, and yesterday’s fog cleared into a beautiful, chilly and sunny day. In class we played Jeopardy/Charades/Pictionary to review some lab terms; needless to say, it got pretty heated, but B watch robbed us of our victory at the final jeopardy. (B)lessed-watch got to test out the hydrophone on their afternoon watch. Right after we started sailing again, we had all hands to set the jib!

Not long after, some of the lovely ladies of C watch had a moment on the headrig, whilst furling the jib. As the boat see-sawed up and down over the waves, we kept our balance as we gazed back at the sunset. Up near the quarterdeck, we found Lien and Jack playing saxophone, such lovely ambiance! We recognized one of the guys playing ⌠Bad Romance. Intermission here- we had to take a blogging break to dump slops overboard and wash buckets. C watch is tough like that, although a bit peeved because we just got to our new pants after shower day yesterday. After washing our hands surgically, we treated ourselves to tonight’s midrats- peanut butter coconut balls. Yummy. We are in good spirits, looking forward to deploying the Neuston net in a couple minutes here tonight, hopefully we find some cool plankton! Update- Mae here at 0:04! We just heard whales chuffing off the stern end! It sounds like darth vader breathing on our boat LOL. Us labbies also got to see bioluminescence as we rinsed the neuston net! The plankton lit up like sparks when we sprayed the net. Super cool. As night watch wraps up we sail on by the pilgrim monument and prepare to wake up A watch.

Mae Toppino and Callista Palagi, C Watch

Notes for family:
Hi Mom, Dad, pj, Layla, Kim, Courtney, Alfie, friends, idk anyone who might be reading this; I am in fact alive, pirating of course, and sleeping more than many of my peers. Spirits are high, bellies are full, and science is sciencing!! Miss yall but I’m experiencing some crazy things I could only dream of and I’ll be home soon. BYEEE

Sleep is hard after dawn watch, but we thugged it out – Callista

PPS  Every day is World Ocean Day at SEA!