Diving and Dinghy Shenanigans
Location: Antigua
Today we woke up to a very popular breakfast prepared by Kackie. Avo toast with lovely toppings, eggs boiled to perfection, and some lovely garnishes. Feeling fully nourished, Argo’s crew prepared for a morning of some lovely diving. The dinghy ride out to the dive site took us to the mouth of Falmouth Harbour through the largest conglomeration of beautiful sailing yachts that this mariner has ever seen. I myself was sitting on the surface support for our divers. Just as group three was preparing to go down for their dive, a horn signalling the start of a regatta sounded not 300 meters from the mouth of the bay.
The timing of this program’s end closely coincides with Classics, the Caribbean’s premier sailing regatta. During a moment of woolgathering today, I reflected upon the amount of sailing knowledge gathered on this one island. The total number of years of experience on the water, all concentrated in one place, must be a huge figure. I’m glad that the students are able to end their journey here and feel the regatta energy.
After returning to the boat with dive group three, and a nice salad for lunch, the students headed off once more for possibly the most fun excursion of the trip thus far: Dinghy sailing! I wanted to add a coat of varnish to some of our grab rails so I initialy didn’t join the fun, but soon after I had finished the coat Kiki sailed up to Argo and invited me to join for a sail. I, of course, leapt off Argo’s stern and clamoured on board. Sailing dinghies is quite a different sport when compared to sailing a 130-ton yacht. Every small movement of the tiller, your sails, and the weight distribution on the tiny boat has immediate effects on performance. Weaving in and out of the gorgeous yachts in the harbor, Kiki and I had the time of our lives seeing what our little dinghy could do.
Finally, after a super fun day in the Caribbean sun, we rounded out the day and restored our energy with another delicious meal (chicken caprese).