Ahoy! This morning I woke up after a full(er) night of sleep
and could feel a slight ache in every muscle in my body. Every action we do on
the ship has our bodies working, whether it's walking across the deck or even
sitting to read. After a week though our bodies feel stronger and our balance
is better. No wonder we are so ravenous all the time. But, as Captain Pamela
says, the sweetest nectar a sailor can get is sleep. Between the swaying of the
ship and anchor drops, I think I can now sleep through anything!
With the 18-hour watch schedule, our sleeping patterns
are always in flux, but it's allowed us to appreciate all times of day. Being
on watch during the morning and afternoon when you can clearly see Robby C, the
ocean, and the sunset is fantastic. We are completely surrounded by water, with
nothing but the puffy clouds and occasional tropic bird over our heads, the sun
baking our skin to nice golden browns (or some tomato reds), a few sea
creatures jumping out of the ocean, and the entire crew busy at work aboard the
Robby C. In my opinion however, the evening and dawn watch hours bring about
the true magic: the stars. Clear skies sprinkled with brilliant stars is a
truly spectacular site. The Milky Way will stretch over our heads, Scorpio
flies through the sky, the Southern Cross helps us with navigation, Jupiter
shines bright behind us, and once in a while a shooting star or satellite will
dance through the celestial realm. Our TA Ben pointed out that every time the
ship rolls upward it feels like we are going to launch into space. Sometimes I
feel like Peter Pan about to jump into another adventure-"Second star on
the right and straight off to Neverland!" Even better is when we see
speckles of green-blue bioluminescence in the wake of the ship; it's as though
the stars are both high above us and in the watery realm below.
That's not to say the evening watches can't be a little
rough. We spent a couple days in a squall before reaching Isle Maria, which
really keeps you on your toes at night. I've never felt more like a salty
sailor than when I was at the helm at 0400, steering through rainy Beaufort 6,
gusting 7, winds and 10 foot waves. It's nerve racking because you can't see
well but also exhilarating getting a taste of both the wind and ocean's great
strength. And with Watch C diligently handling the ship and our
mate Rocky calmly and carefully guiding us, it's hard to have any fear of the
weather. As Andrea would say, we all still have salty sweet smiles.
In the meantime, we're steadily approaching Rarotonga,
our second island stop and the first one where we will meet new people. We will
be staying in the harbor for 3 days, and the ship is open to officials who will
come on board to do inspection for any biohazards, as well as the general
public to see what our ship life looks like. In preparation for our guests, we
had our first field day, which is the once-a-week full clean up of the ship.
You could hear several "Swab the deck, Mate-ys!" floating around as
we brought our sea fairing home into ship-shape.
After the 1.5 hour frenzy of everyone cleaning and wiping
and scrubbing every nook and cranny on board, we were met with a special treat:
ice cream and a fire hose shower. The ice cream was the perfect sweet treat to
offset the heat and the showers were appreciably timed to clean off our sweaty
selves. The mates hosed us with seawater on the science deck as the sun began
to dip close to the horizon-talk about great water pressure. Deck showers are
by the far the superior showers, and what makes cleaning even easier is having
less hair (look mom, no hair!)
At this moment, Chris, Mike, Marianne, Sierra, and myself
are the brave few that decided leave traces of our eDNA in the sea via, well,
all our hair. We are sporting exciting 1-inch cuts (in my case, 1/8th of an
inch, I'm basically bald), and everyone looks fabulous. Everyone keeps going
around petting each other's heads to appreciate its new soft, stubbly feel.
These hairstyles also require no maintenance, which allows us to now say 'I
woke up like this.' The feeling of the sun, wind, and rain on your scalp is
truly amazing, as though that skin is experiencing the sense of touch for the
first time. Having almost no hair is also very liberating in its own sense and
it seems like you can really see people's faces because all of their beautiful
features are shining through, unmasked. I'm looking forward to seeing whose
hair walks the plank next!
-Natasha Batista
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