First full day underway

We woke up to a beautiful sunny sky this morning and a light breeze, perfect for another couple rounds of orientation station rotations! The orientations included reviewing line handing, details of standing a deck watch, and how to manipulate scientific gear using the hydrowinch. After snack we rolled into safety and emergency training, discussing our response to the three main emergencies we might encounter - man overboard, fire/emergency, and prepare to abandon ship - and then walking through drills for those scenarios, as required by the USCG. It was a lot of information to digest in the morning, but it is all skills and knowledge that we'll use often at sea.

After lunch we set the reefed mains'l and the jib and in addition to the stays'ls that were already set, we went sailing! We did some gybing practice during afternoon class to get everyone's hands on lines and finished up with a science deployment of the hydrocast to gather water samples for our data collection. Josiane and Sayzie prepared some really delicious local snacks in the afternoon as well - dried bananas, mape (Tahitian chestnut) with coconut cream, and uto bread (made with coconut sprout). Delicious!

The ship was filled with happy, smiling students and staff all day and then we had the glorious treat of a really spectacular starry sky for the night.

You can feel the energy and excitement on the ship! Here's to more days at sea and continuing our amazing voyage in French Polynesia.

Captain Allison Taylor (S186)