After six weeks spent in the yard at the Antigua Slipway over the Christmas holidays, Argo and her crew are more than ready to welcome our spring 2016 shipmates aboard. We've sanded, varnished, painted, scrubbed, reorganized, and prepped for weeks anticipating the start of the semester and are all excited that Day 1 is finally here.
Following many long hours of travel battling long layovers and snowed-out airports, our students arrived safe and sound this afternoon. They started learning the boat right away, unpacking and getting in the habit of replacing words like 'head' for 'toilet' and 'galley' for 'kitchen.' After a dinner of pesto pasta and salad, we all came together in the salon for the first of our introductory chats to boat life. After a quick talk about general roles and responsibilities (and Captain Ben's memorable 'how to use a marine head' demonstration), the students headed ashore to contact home and get some dessert at a restaurant down the dock.
Tomorrow we hit the ground running: moving to drop anchor in Falmouth Harbor, hiking one of English Harbor's famous trails, and getting started on scuba training. Looking at tomorrow (and beyond), I can't help but get excited for all of the amazing adventures we have coming our way: getting our new divers certified while hopping down the Leeward islands, hiking the world's only remaining boiling lake, experiencing hands-on science with plankton trawls and tidal pool explorations, going on world-class dives in Bonaire, Cayman, and the BVI, exploring the unique cultural history of Jamaica and Cuba, racing during classics week back home in Antigua at the end of the trip... the list goes on. Stay tuned into Argo's blog and follow along with us as we experience all the wider Caribbean basin has to offer!
