Location: Petie Byhaut, St Vincent
First off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRADY!!!! It’s Grady’s birthday, so this blog will be Grady-focused. The day started with some very mellow music – so mellow, in fact, that some said it was actually putting them to sleep instead of waking them up. Nonetheless, Grady gave me a good ol’ OK sign to let me know he was awake, and boom, his birthday celebration had begun!!!! First up, we had a breakfast of cereal, granola, yogurt, and fruit, complete with a personal bag of Captain Crunch, all for Grady. Then, we promptly got the boat ready for passage – we attached the quarter lifts, made sure the dinghies were ratcheted, cleared the lifelines, 40/40ed the saloon, pulled up the anchors, took down the anchor ball, topped the booms, and away we went! Watch Team 3 started on watch, and surprise, that’s Grady’s team!!!! He took the birthday honor of helming for the entire watch (two hours), and not once did he sit/touch the wheelhouse. What a guy. This is particularly impressive considering the commotion that ensued – Liam caught a fish!!!!! And when I say Liam caught a fish, I mean the line that Henry was on caught a fish, he promptly told Liam, and then jumped out of the way so Liam could haul it in and do all the work. Turns out, today is the day Liam has been waiting for all semester (he fishes almost any chance he gets). Once on board, we took the opportunity to have an impromptu marine bio class and dissected the fish (sort of) – Liam filleted it. While he cut it up, I pointed out different body parts I recognized. We opened up the stomach and found two flying fish! Turns out our Wahoo had just had its own lunch – Yum! We also looked for the otoliths – ear bones located somewhere in the fish’s skull. Similar to tree trunks, you can count the rings of an otolith to determine a fish’s age! How cool is that?! The answer is pretty cool. What’s less cool is that we did not find the otoliths. Oh well.
Once all the commotion had died down, everyone went back to normal passage activities, which for most (except the people in watch, of course), meant sleeping (see pictures). A few hours later, we arrived back at the bat cave. We have yet to see Batman, though if he’s any good, I suppose we wouldn’t find him. Now that I think of it, I don’t think anyone’s actually seen any bats either. We have seen the cave, though. So that’s a win. There’s also a big superyacht anchored next to us in quarantine. They were looking at us during dinner, thinking, “Wow, I wish I could eat dinner over there. They have freshly caught fish and brownies.” That’s right. We cooked up the Wahoo and had a fantastic dinner of fish and stir fry, followed by birthday brownies!!! Grady thought all were delicious. So much so that when Ash asked if he wanted to be up or down gopher, he responded with, “Two thumbs up for everything!!”
So moral of the story, it was a fantastic day, and we are all really, really glad Grady was born. Yay Grady!!!
Have fun out there,
Sam
Photo 1: Birthday Boy helming
Photo 2: Birthday Boy leading the mainsail raise
Photo 3: Johnny. That’s all
Photo 4: Celia and her patched sail!
Photo 5: Liam and his fish!!!!!!!
Photo 6: Eventful watch part 1
Photo 7: Eventful watch part 2
Photo 8: Eventful watch part 3
Photo 9: Johnny looking for the otoliths
Photo 10 and 11: Dissection/Fillet Sesh
Photo 12: Fresh Fish Tacos!!!
Photo 13: Classic sunset
Photo 14: Classic dinner faces with a classic sunset
Photo 15: Birthday Boy and his Birthday Brownies!!!