Programs Blog

Author: Lexi Wagner, A Watch, Roger Williams University

Ship’s Log

Position

29° 59.7’ N/123° 30.24’ W

Heading

255° T

Speed

5.5kn

Weather

Cloudy, but slightly warmer than it has been

Wind

Beaufort Force 3, NWxW

Description of location

In the edge of the Gyre

Souls on Board

A week into our trip and things are going well. I never got seasick at all, and I sleep much better in my bunk than I expected. I’m not sure how I’m going to go back to sleep without the rocking motion of the boat, but maybe it’s just because of how exhausted I am after watches. Today A watch (AKA Scott Watch) had dawn watch, and we will have night watch tonight.

It didn’t happen today sadly, but on lookout the other day there was a pod of dolphins following us for about an hour. I counted six of them, and they were riding our bow for about ten minutes before leaving and returning a few minutes later. Seemingly the same pod kept reappearing time after time for my entire hour of watch, and the person who relieved me saw them too. On a different watch two Mola Mola (ocean sunfish) visited me at the bow, and one of them hung around for about an hour! (the photo from July 1st blog is the Mola Mola I saw) They were about as long as my arm, so we think they were babies but they were super cute. We have been seeing a lot of marine life around the boat, and somehow I get very lucky with being on lookout a lot of the time when they show up! I was steering on the helm recently when there was a whale nearby, and Ava our watch leader took the helm and told me to go see the whales. Cap’n was up in the rigging and identified them to be finback whales.

While we’ve seen lots of action in the sea, unfortunately the sky has been grey for pretty much the whole time we’ve been out here, and I definitely packed way too warm. We didn’t have enough wind to sail without the motor for the first few days, but we are sailing now, and we set the fisherman sail yesterday! After we set that sail our speed increased by a little over one knot pretty much instantly, it was epic.

Our cook Cookie is amazing, and things are going pretty well out here. My body is having a hard time keeping up with all the work it takes to sail, but when I am not asleep I’m having a great time sailing and looking at colorful copepods under a microscope.

– Lexi Wagner, Roger Williams University/A Watch

Happy Birthday tomorrow to my little brother Brett, and Hi to Mom, Dad, and Brian<3

Happy birthday Bitsy and Lynn!! I hope your birthdays are awesome, I can’t wait to celebrate in August ? -Soph

Happy Birthday Uncle Gary! Don’t forget that all of the fireworks tonight are for you!  – Payton

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