Programs Blog

Julia Wolf, C-Watch, Mount Holyoke College

Ship’s Log

Noon Position
28° 32.4’N 79° 54.7’W

Ship Heading
160°

Ship Speed
3 knots

Taffrail Log
1007 nm

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan
Wind and current coming from ~NE. Wind was high (Beaufort 4/5). Very sunny with lots of cumulus clouds. Currently sailing NE along the Gulf Stream.

Description of location
North Atlantic Florida Coast

Souls on Board

Today was a fun but weird day for C-Watch! It was announced that watch officers would be rotating starting tonight. It has been about two weeks since we have been aboard the Cramer, and for the last two weeks, C-watch has been under the guidance of Anna (1st scientist) and Sara (3rd mate). Tomorrow morning C-watch starts watch with Carolyn (2nd mate) and Jordan (2nd scientist).

Julia, Alex, Elena, and Ariana furling the jib.

Due to watch rotations, C-watch’s afternoon was led by Captain Allison and Chief Scientist Jeff. I was on deck today, so I spent my afternoon with Allison. We did all the usual watch things like boat checks, weather observations, plotting our position, and steering.

Ariana, Alex, Lucy, Izzy, and I were on deck, and we were able to ask questions about her time sailing. Alex ended up asking what the highest seas she has been in. The answer was 30 feet! Science spent their day processing sargassum, doing hourly observations, and processing a surface station.

Because we have been on the boat for two weeks, we start the next step in our junior watch officer curriculum. For the first two weeks, we are learning and soaking up all the new information. These next two weeks are shadowing weeks. We will shadow both our deck watch officer and our science watch officer. Shadowing will help us to pick up more information but to also get us ready for the last two weeks. For the last two weeks, we will become full junior watch officers. This means we will lead in the science lab and on deck. We might be calling gybes or calling science deployments. We will need to hone in our leadership skills and practice what we have been learning for the past 4 weeks.

Very pretty sunset from yesterday. Lots of people like coming up on deck to watercolor it.

Besides this big change, we continue to have fun and eat good food! Tonight we had avocado sushi and rice bowls. There has been lots of drawing, watercolors, reading, and school work, but it seems like there are always people gathered on the high side to watch the sunset and moon rising. Tomorrow we will see the full moon! I am very excited for it because it makes night lookout so much easier when there is a lot of light in the sky. One of my favorite things this whole trip is seeing all the stars in the sky!

– Julia Wolf, C-Watch, Mount Holyoke College