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Frankie Ostensen, Wesleyan University

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Hello dear reader,

This is Frankie. Today is my mom’s birthday and although it was hard to be missing her on her special day, I felt like I was honoring her today because it was my day in the galley. Cooking is one of the activities I enjoy doing with my mom and as the stu (student) stu for the day I sure did a lot of cooking. So today you’ll get my perspective from the galley on the activities of the day.

The day began with an explosion.

One of our assignments for our Sense of Place class is to bring a meal to the ship community which has special significance to us. My meal was pancakes and my idea was to bring some of my family’s maple syrup which we collect and process ourselves at my family farm-Smilin’ Trees- in Maine. I brought a bottle of the syrup thousands of miles-farther than any of that syrup has traveled before in known history- to be eaten in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A little piece of home in the deep blue sea. So today was my big day. I woke up at the crack of dawn and was in the kitchen flipping pancakes before the sun was up. I brought my maple syrup, labeled it so everyone knew it was special, and put it on the counter in the kitchen.

Sayzie and I were both turned away from it working on pancake production when.Bam! It exploded. Glass flying in all directions and syrup sloshing into the galley mats. We may never know what caused this to spontaneously occur.something about taking it on the airplane or the heat in the galley compared to frigid Maine. Maybe even the ghost on the ship. No one was hurt but the syrup was unfortunately unsalvageable.

After pancakes with the help of Josiane and Sayzie we began prepping the lagoon fish we had bought at the market in Papeete. The fish were so beautiful, like the whole ecosystem around the coral reefs, a rainbow of colors. Josiane taught us how to gut and scale the fish and then we baked them in the oven until they were ready to serve. It was an awesome experience getting to prep the fish with Josiane as she has been doing this her whole life and her knowledge is so extensive.

Papeete market where we bought our fish

For class this afternoon there was a pin rail chase. Where we all had to learn all the lines of the boat and do a relay race. C watch wearing ridiculous wigs and glasses (my watch) brought home the win! After class, not a moment of rest and we’re making dinner in the galley. A very ambitious and involved meal of fish/tofu dumplings. Some of the mix ended up on the floor -tofu toes!!– but such are the trials of cooking on a moving sailboat in the swells of the open ocean. By the time dinner was done I was completely wiped out and it was all I could do to steer the boat for a few hours in the moonlight and crawl into bed completely exhausted at the activities of the day but happy everyone’s tummy’s were full. Shout out to Sayzie for doing this grind every day! We are all amazed and grateful for your superhuman abilities.

Also, shoutout to my mom, truly one of the world’s most amazing human beings, I am so lucky to know and love you. I was thinking of you today and miss you so much!

Frankie Ostensen, Wesleyan University