Location: Underway to Antigua
Today’s tallies:
outfit changes due to drenched clothes (salt than fresh): 2
pot pie pans on the galley floor: 5
squalls that gave us the wind angle we needed: 1
times we sunk the cap rail: infinite
But we made it to Antigua!
My day started off just like any other day on passa. Amanda woke me up at 530 am for watch team 3’s 6-9 watch. We caught the tail end of the sunrise, talked about everyone’s love lives, and continued to sail past Redonda en route to Antigua just like we had the night before on our 9 pm to midnight watch. After morning watch, we all went back to sleep for a nap before lunch. Hayley and Drew woke back up at 10 to start making lunch and veggie pot pie, and I was quickly awoken around 1145 by Kristy saying we needed more hands up on deck. I came up on deck to higher wind speeds and bigger waves than I had fallen asleep to, so Amanda, Aidan, and Daniel were up forward trying to get the jib down.
On top of that, because of the big waves, the port anchor had come slightly out of its brackets. My first task was to lash that down, done quickly and successfully, and then move over to helping the jib team. We finally got the sail down, and Amanda went out onto the bow sprit to try to lash it down. She, myself, and Aidan were all clipped to the boat. Amanda was on the bow sprit, I was holding onto her, and Aidan was holding onto me as we wrangled the jib to the bow sprit and got some sail ties around her, all the while being dunked in the water, drenched by big waves, and having a ridiculously fun time. Right, when we had finished up with the jib, we tacked and started heeling the opposite way, which was soon followed by Hayley coming up on deck, informing Amanda and me that all of the lunch had just sloshed out of the pans and onto the galley floor. We controlled our laughter and opted for a Ramen and leftovers lunch. All snuggled in the cockpit together, giggled about the morning and whatever had gone on in the galley thus far.
After lunch and a quick nap, mine and Drew’s watch team were back on from 3 to 6 pm. Where we were so close but so far from Antigua because the wind was coming from the exact direction we wanted to go, so we had to tack many times to get ourselves closer and closer. Just as we turned up into the wind and were about to drop sails, a large squall rolled over us, and instead, we eased the sails back out, got drenched by the rain, and waited for it to pass. Throughout the squall, just like in the morning with the jib, people couldn’t stop laughing and saying how much they were enjoying themselves despite being soaked and cold. Finally, the rain and wind let up and allowed us to come into Freemans Bay and anchor right in front of Galleon Beach. The staff is especially excited to be back in Antigua because it is like a second home to all of us, even though she did not give us the warm welcome we were hoping for. Once at anchor, we all sat down to a warm and comforting spaghetti and meatball dinner, followed by a classic squeeze question of “Overrated? Underrated?”. I think Aidan said it best at dinner. No one else had quite the Friday that we did. Everyone is now giving Ostar a well-deserved clean after dinner, which will be followed by a Seamanship class with Smash. There are even rumors that Amanda is making hot cocoa and cake tonight too (:
PS. Because our day was so crazy, we only managed to take one photo of Drew cutting onions with a mask on, which for some reason, I feel is quite fitting for today, so I hope you enjoy!