Morroco is amazing

The sail to Morocco was beautiful! We had a bit of rough weather at the beginning of the sail (force 6ish) but classes, and life, went on. After those first few rough days it really cleared up for awhile. It got really hot and sunny. Classes started to get a little more stressful because we were getting ready for our midterms, so to lighten the mood we had a toga party at supper time on the 27^th. That was fun :) On the 28^th, when we were crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, I was sitting downstairs when someone ran down to say that there were whales! It wasn’t like the other times that we’ve seen whales though. This time they were riding the bow! It was incredible! They were right underneath us. There was about three of them. They were pilot whales and they were amazing to watch. They knew that we were there because they jumped for us and spun in the water. One turned onto its side and watched us for awhile. It looked like it was smiling at us. It’s in moments like those that I’m so happy to be sailing, though I sometimes forget this when I’m getting soaked by waves and tossed around in a force 7 :)

Speaking of force 7s, we got some really rough weather again on the 30^th. Halloween was probably the roughest day of the sail. No one dressed up because it was too much effort. And if I’m saying that Halloween was too much effort when I’m normally so hardcore about it then that means that it was rough! We were supposed to write our first day of midterms that day but because it was so rough they were postponed. So we got the day to study. The next day we had midterms even though it was still bad. The winds shifted that afternoon though so we could finally sail. We started going really fast because the wind was so strong so we furled all the sails and didn’t turn back on the motor but even then we were sailing using only the rigging and still making 6 knots! This happened when we were trying to slow down so that we wouldn’t get into port early. It was crazy how strong the wind was!

We got into Morocco on the morning of the 3^rd. I didn’t see us docking because I was writing a midterm. I finally emerged around lunch time and set foot on Africa for the first time! We’re docked in the main commercial port so it’s about a 20 minute cab ride away from Agadir. This is too bad because we all have to catch cabs just to get into town. We got shore leave around 5:00 pm after the boat had been completely brassed and cleaned. In Africa we have to travel in groups with at least one guy. I ended up being in a group of 12 because all the guys left in one big group so there was only one guy for all 11 of us girls. It was crazy having to figure out cabs for a group this big! The cab ride into town was probably the craziest cab ride of my life! They drove so fast and the drivers kept their windows rolled down so that they could yell instructions at each other. It was so different from anything that I’m used to. Also, on the way back to the ship, we called two big cabs instead of 4 small ones. Big cabs turned out to be the same size as the small ones; they just let you squish 6 people in instead of 4! I’m leaving tomorrow for a four day port program. We’re going to go camping in the Sahara! I can’t wait!