Location: Underway Dominica to Antigua
Just like my other skipper days, I got up a little before 7 to wake everyone else up. Luckily for me, most people were already up and about making coffee, doing homework, and just enjoying their morning. After a classic breakfast of yogurt and granola with the addition of English muffins, we all headed to seamanship to take practice tests for our upcoming nav master exams. Those of us who knew what they were doing either helped the strugglers or took it by themselves with the chance of getting their certification a few days early. The rest of us learned a lot and are much more prepared. Afterward, we shifted our focus to passage prep, where we secured the dinghies, removed sail covers, put away dive bags, and much more. We moved on to a quick lunch and cleanup so people would have time to shower before we set way for Antigua. Once feeling fresh, we raised anchors and headed to marine biology class, where we learned about marine mammals. This was one of my personal favorites, especially after seeing sperm whales the other day. It really makes you realize how amazing ocean creatures are. With class over, we topped the booms and got together to raise the sails.
As we started to do so, I took a moment to think about all that’s changed since we’ve left the place that we’re now traveling back to. For starters, we used to take an hour to raise the sails. While I don’t know the exact time that we did it today, I know that we were much faster, coordinated, and knowledgeable about what we were actually doing despite the rain that decided to start pouring on us. (Shoutout to Alexis for helping it run smoothly!) We came here knowing next to nothing about living on a boat, yet here we are on a fully student-led passage. We’ve learned so much about the environment around us and how important it is to protect it. We’ve learned how to live and function in a small space and deal with the challenges that come with it. We’ve learned so many new words here and applied them without thought. There’s no longer such a thing as a bathroom and kitchen, only the head and the galley. The last time I was in Antigua, I didn’t even know what to call the little room that I sleep in. Now I say fo’c’sle multiple times a day (although we’ve rebranded it as the hobbit hole).
We’ve all made our place here, and I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else. We’re such different people from the ones that came here and the ones that thought we knew what we were doing in the first week. I don’t know what we’re all going to do with the roles we’ve made for ourselves here once we get home, but I know we’ll find a way to function back in regular society again just as we found our way to function here.
For everyone keeping up with the blogs, this is the last you’ll be seeing of me, and I’m happy to report Exy has been working.
Photos:
1. Tate as the flaker
2. Lucia making a necklace
3. Quinn and Asta raising anchors
4. Alexis leading the anchor raise
5. Darwin (Sam’s chia seed pet)
6. Tate doing backflips
7. The regular whiteboard nonsense
8. Maxime balancing the deckie brush
9. Eamon filling up the salty pit
10. Lucia filling the freshie pit
11. Quinn and Lucy practicing nav master
12. Lucia and Logan practicing nav master