Programs Blog

Hello world, from A watch!

July 31, 2023
A watch lined up at the rail

July 29, 2023

A Watch

Ship’s Log

Noon Position
42deg 57.2’N x 070deg 06.2’W

Ship Heading
 195 degrees

Ship Speed 
1.1 kts

Log (nm)
218.7

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan
Skies cloudy / SE x S Beaufort Force 2 / Stays’ls and tops’l

Description of location
Gulf of Maine

All blogs from C-308G

Hello world, from A watch!

We had lox bagels before watch. We trudged up to watch, tired after a few days at sea in the watch rotation. The weather was a bit overcast and hazy, with lighter winds, so it made the 6-hour watch comfortable until the sun (evil day star!) came out and wind died at the end and it got warm. We were all tired and ready for lunch by 1300.
First, we came down and did chores. The soles, heads and surfaces are very clean! The ladders get surprisingly dirty for them getting cleaned every day. After we got back to deck, we spotted a fin far off in the water. It stayed at the surface and kept moving around, then it breached with a big splash. We saw more shark fins shortly after and Kelsey and Ryan decided to turn the boat around to investigate. They think we were seeing basking sharks from the size of the fins and the behavior. So, to stop the boat, A watch went up to the foredeck and struck the tops’l with a speed and efficiency that impressed the whole ship. There was lots of charismatic megafauna all around, because at the end of the watch we saw a mola mola.

Riley, Ava and Eliza furled the forestay’sl on their own, with no support from the staff. Lance manned the helm with no supervision from staff. All around, the whole watch is feeling like they’re getting much more confident and skilled. Lance made friends and sang show tunes (Hamilton, anyone?) to a poor little sand piper that had gotten blown offshore and was seeking refuge on the ship.

In science, we deployed the Secchi disk, phytoplankton net and free CTD. We found a dragonfly perched on the phytoplankton line when we went to retrieve it. Ruthie got to drive the hydrowire and had to adjust speeds and call out depths. She loved it! She wants to live on a boat forever.P.S. – Happy Birthday from Ruthie to Sean!We’re off for a nap!A Watch

Lance taking a selfie on the quarterdeck