WRITTEN BY GUEST CREW ON BOARD
ON LEG ONE FROM PLYMOUTH TO AZORES WITH ROTHY’S
We had a birthday! We are out of eggs thanks to the smashing around that’s been going on, and so there ensued lots of secret discussions amongst the various watch crews on how they were going to manage a cake without eggs or egg substitutes. Thanks to the ingenuity of Emily, resourcefulness of a very very generous crew, Aarathi got herself a rice crispy chocolate cake – complete with dollops of chocolate icing. And that certainly was quite the treat and end to a very, very eventful day.
The day started out beautifully with the weather turning for the better, and we woke up to a day of blue skies, fluffy white clouds and a gorgeous sunrise. The professional crew also thought this would be a prime time to re-hoist the main sail in time for the lovely breezes that followed during the day to help with some decent sailing.
Sailing our way forward is quite key right now to make some much needed headway, as the past two days of sailing up into the wind has meant delay in our schedule.
Also, excitingly, today’s weather allowed for Science Wednesday to present itself to the crew. The manta trawl went in twice again today to pull up two samples, which will be analysed later in the week. It is still astounding how much plastic fragments we are finding this far out in the ocean – where there is really no one else about but us, and some very friendly birds that look a little like penguins with large wings.
The guest crew then sat down for a workshop with Emily to discuss the problems at hand and some actionable solutions that we could all think off, at different levels of society and community that we could all get involved in. The exercise was useful in showing everyone how and where their involvement could extend to, and to also potentially see some collaborations that might eventually ensue in the work that we all do.
We ended the evening with the last two of the personal stories from Sonja and Marcia and the lovely sunset that was quite the lovely end to a day, that was, for once in many days, the calmest that we have had on the boat.
Looking forward to a few more days of science as we head directly toward the Azores, fingers crossed without any major unexpected weather changes.
Photo credit: Nomad Mnemonics & eXXpedition
