Thursday, May 25, 2017

Early departure from Rarotonga

It's Wednesday or Thursday, I'm not really sure anymore, but as I come back to the Bobby C. after a day of wondering around Rarotonga and drinking nice coffee I learn that our ship must leave the harbor earlier than was planned.

The reason was that our masts are too tall and they could disrupt the path of the airplanes coming in. This news was pretty startling, since most of our group was still wondering around the island; we were supposed to have two more hours on shore. But we get straight to work, prepare to leave, and miraculously everyone makes it back on shore. We leave right on time, with Captain Pamela shouting out orders of which angles to steer the ruder at.


We now begin what is called phase two of the program, which is pretty hard to believe. A week and a half ago we were barely able to make it through a watch without tripping, messing something up, or having a second meeting with our dinner. Now we are a slightly more coordinated group who can successfully switch between steering at the helm, keeping lookout, and checking the boat every hour on the hour. It's crazy that the crew trusts us enough to give us more responsibility with everything that's happening with the ship. As part of the second phase we get to shadow our watch officer, the mate that is in command during the time we stand watch. I was the first in my watch to give it a try, and followed Allison around during dawn watch, from 1-7 in the morning. I met with captain Pamela at the beginning and filled her in in what was happening with the ship and the weather, and got to learn the millions of things our mates have to think about when they are in charge of the deck. You have to make sure students are rotating, monitor radars, radios, and all sorts of equipment I didn't know our ship had, and plan how the sails are going to come up and down. All with the winds shifting, swells that constantly rock the ship side to side, and splashes of rain. It was a great opportunity to get a new perspective on how our ship works, and everything went pretty smoothly. You just have to keep working, and roll with the changing plans.

-Andrea Contreras

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