Bali to South Africa – Fall 2025

After a late sign-out night, I had to wake everyone up with some exquisite music. Some might say otherwise, but they are just wrong. Slowly but surely, they rise out of their bunks to head up for some incredible breakfast made by Vera and Emma. As we sit in the brisk cold Cape Town air, we all sit knowing what lies ahead. That is indeed MESSY BA. If you’re asking what is Messy BA, it is the act of Vela puking all of her guts out on the deck and that floors. What this actually means is we pull everything out of the laz, anchor locker, all the bilges, and below all bunks.

After we clean everything, rust stain, black stain, and soap everywhere, we then thoroughly wash with water. Then we clean, organize, inventory, and repack everything that was in said compartments. So after the clean up, we get right to it. Maia, Thaxton, Kyler, and I were assigned to the laz under Riley’s leadership. If you don’t know what the laz is, it is an enormous compartment in the stern of the boat. It’s full of dive gear, tanks, all extra lines, tarps, sail covers, and just anything that needs a home. So we took it all out and sort of organized it. We cleaned something, and then lunch had already come.

While we were doing all of that, there were teams of people diving into the depths of Vela. There were people deep in the anchor locker organizing and cleaning what needed to be cleaned. Teams in the salon bilges are pulling out all the extra oil and waste that is stored down there. They then clean everything in and around the bilge, including the bilge. There are also people in the bunks pulling out the food storage and whatever was below those bins. Sorry I don’t know I was deep in the laz at this point. Lunch came and went with some awesome veg pita wraps. We then all head back to our teams and fish what we started. The bunk peps crawl back into the deep depths of whatever was down there. Salon people kept washing all the larger bilges in the salon, galley, and can hallways. Few people float around on deck doing miscellaneous jobs. Riley and I are back in the laz with a gas mask, removing every bit of rust and almost all back stains that have accumulated down there. It was a lot!

Thaxton and Kyler swap with us to scrub everything with soap and water. We then do some last touches and dry it all down. We organize everything and re-pack it all back in. People down below are doing the same thing, just repacking everything that was taken out. While all of this was going on, Zoe and Payton were scrubbing all the grime off every pot and pan we have. It took 5 hours, believe it or not. We all wrap up strong as a whole. To soon enjoy Vera’s lasagna, which was appreciated by many people. It was a quick shower to bed after that long day. The next morning was an early one, so we needed some rest.