A Short Trip and a Change of Scenery

Location: Falmouth, Antigua

To those that are interested,

At 7 o’clock this morning, the students woke up to the sounds of Russian Hardbass. Breakfast consisted of fruit, granola, and yogurt. Soon after breakfast, we began to prepare to move off of the dock. We raised the anchor, and Rob volunteered to manage the chain. Unfortunately, the chain had been in the water for a while, and he was covered in ocean grime by the time we were done. Shortly after raising the anchor and untying the lines, Ocean Star started moving for the first time this trip. We made a stop at the fuel dock to refill the tanks with diesel. The students all helped keep the ship on the dock and get the ship ready for our journey. After our quick stop, we were on our way to our new destination. We were moving for about 45 minutes before we reached our destination, Falmouth Harbor. It was around the corner from the dockyard, but it was a good change of scenery. Lunch was pita pockets, and afterward, we had a lesson on tying knots and tying off lines across the boat. We then had our first jump-in showers. Everyone had fun jumping off of the boat into the warm ocean waters. Definitely, a very fun way to shower. If you have a large body of water that you can shower in, I suggest you try it for yourself. We then went ashore to meet the crew of Maiden, the all-female racing boat. We watched a film about their boat for class a few nights ago, and we were left feeling very inspired. We got to walk around the boat and see what it was like inside. We also got to put our handprints on their spinnaker sail that they are decorating every place they go. It was really cool to see the boat after watching the documentary the other day. They joined us for dinner aboard Ocean Star, and we enjoyed some great conversations as well as the chicken, mashed potatoes, and stuffing for dinner. After writing this blog post, we have class, and some of us are on anchor watch for the first time tonight.

Until next time,
Matthew