Napoleon Has Escaped!
Location: Elba, Italy
I am Wyatt, and I had the honor of being student skipper aboard Vela today. We started our day today by motoring to Portoferrario, the port town where Napoleon spent most of his time during his first exile. While underway, we dove deeper into classes with our second marine biology lecture and our first on seamanship. We all enjoyed learning boat terminology from our British seamanship instructor Tom. I found myself saying bits and bollards in my head multiple times throughout the day. After class, we got a quick Napoleon history lesson from Captain Mac and hopped in the dinghies to tour the house Napoleon lived in during exile and the rest of Portoferrario. To our surprise, we found that the gate to Napoleon’s house was locked and nobody was home!
Watch out, Europe; he might be on his way back! The rest of our afternoon was spent enjoying gelato, shopping, chatting, and completing our first reprovisioning. We are starting to run like a well-oiled machine and were able to unload 380 eggs, 100 lbs of meat, 200 individual fruits, and a total of 8 shopping carts worth of food into their proper place on the boat in under an hour. As we settle into our lives on board, we are learning more about ourselves and our crewmates. Each day brings countless opportunities to laugh together, lend a hand, or have a dance party. While we all do miss our friends and family back home, we are doing our best to stay in the present and make the most of this incredible time in our lives. Thank you for believing in us and encouraging us to go on this wild adventure. Sending lots of love to Mom, Dad, and Clay ❤️. I promise to call you guys this weekend.
Signing off,
Wyatt