Location: Mayreau
We had an early morning on Vela so that we could move over to a tiny island in the Tobago Cayes, called Petit Tabac, to have breakfast and an early morning snorkel. We prepared to visit this island last night by watching The Pirates of the Caribbean, which Petit Tabac was featured in. Our chef team of Val, Smash, and Max, brought us all some homemade banana bread with ricotta and blueberries to enjoy on the beach. Everyone then had some time to snorkel and look for sharks, figure out how to get some fresh coconuts down to drink/eat and circumnavigate the island. No sharks were spotted on the snorkels, but there were some beautiful corals, big spotted trunkfish, and different types of algae to look at. Dre, Will, Anthony, and Katelyn all were able to crack some coconuts open – there’s nothing better than a fresh coconut on a tiny, tropical island to start the day!
We all then slowly made our way back onto Vela so that we could move her over to a nearby island called Mayreau. After swinging past Ocean Star to say hello, we anchored nearby in Saline Bay. Everyone was able to relax for a bit. At the same time, the chef team prepared another amazing meal of quiche and salad, along with a surprise announcement that the Ocean Star crew would be joining us aboard Vela for dinner. The shipmates then went down into the salon for a full afternoon of classes. They all began the navigation master section of their Seamanship course with Shona for a few hours. In this part of their course, they will all learn how to read charts, plot the ship’s position on a chart, etc., and (hopefully) be able to help us navigate Vela through future parts of our trip. We then ended the afternoon with a Marine Biology class in which they learned about arthropods (crabs, lobsters, shrimp, krill), echinoderms (sea stars, sea urchins, sand dollars), and some invertebrate chordates (lancelets and tunicates).
The shipmates quickly got ready to greet our guests, who all began arriving not too long after classes finished for the day. Excitement was very high to have some new faces around to talk to and get to know as we all sat down for veggie curry with homemade flatbreads along with some delicious falafel and tzatziki sauce made by our Ocean Star buddies. We all had a lovely meal meeting new people and seeing some old friends (for a few of us). We ended the night with a marble cake baked by Katie, an amazing end to a wonderful day on Vela.
Photo 1: Mady, Andrea, and Smash
Photo 2: Meghan, Greg, Hannah, and Anthony getting some coconuts out of the tree on Petit Tabac
Photo 3: Conch graveyard
Photo 4: Our chefs, Val and Smash, getting breakfast on the beach, ready
Photo 5: Petit Tabac
Photo 6: The shipmates exploring Petit Tabac
Photo 7: Greg, Meghan, Mack and Charlie, Sonnet, Katie
Photo 8: Anthony enjoys a coconut
Photo 9: Dinner with Ocean Star people
Photo 10: Smash and Sam reunite
Photo 11: Veggie curry, homemade flatbreads, and falafel with tzatziki for dinner