Programs Blog

Cynthia Sopata, 2nd Mate

Ship’s Log

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan
Mainsail is furled, and prepped with a short reef, prepared for continued South Seasterly strong, cool winds, force 4; 6/8 St and Cu

Description of location
Anchored inside the Rangiroa Atoll

Souls on Board

All blogs from S-308

The ship’s company began the day with the galley ringing the triangle to announce breakfast throughout the ship.   The air is lovely and cool andovercast skies; making meals on deck a treat.

The 2nd Mate, Mates in Training, and Engineering team taught topics in 45-minute rotations this morning.  Students and deckhands improved their bosunry skills eye splicing 3 strand line, round seizing, and learning engine and generator inner workings.

The watches on deck continued to play the game of “it’s raining, shut the hatches! ..it’s stopped raining; open the hatches for air flow!  And. “is my laundry on the line dry?  Oh, it squalled again, extra freshwater rinse!”

I was so proud of our C – Watch members.   They were eager to learn more items from their skills checklist today; demonstrating thorough knowledge of the different duties they are responsible for on deck watches, the emergency man overboard pole and how to deploy it, and learned how to calculate the true wind from ships heading/speed, and apparent wind/ speed.  Much progress is being made learning how to set and strike sails and where all the unlabeled lines are on the pin rail.  It is wonderful to see students and staff work on this together.

The winds were too high to put the sailing dory GENE in the water today, but we still managed a swim call to rinse off the day.   Ship’s company soaped up, jumped in, soaped up, jumped in, freshwater rinse.   Some even jumping in off the bow sprit, though no one made the climb UP the bobstay from sea today.  All then happily helped haul the rescue boat from the water, still in our swimsuits.  Ahhhh, French Polynesia.

After dinner and muster, we set up the “squid jigger” light to attract the lagoon marine life to look at. Even in daylight we have already observed Remoras (sucker fish), banded sea snakes, sea birds including storm petrels, and jumping schools of fish evading predators.  Games of “fish-Pictionary” are planned using the fish we have observed on our reef dives, and we watch the lightning show in the distance.  A beautiful evening!

Cynthia Sopata, 2nd Mate