Location: English Harbor, Antigua
Day 23
This morning’s 6:00 am wake-up call went very smoothly. I woke everyone up by playing Cheerleader by OMI; lots of happy faces emerged from bed. Once everyone was awake, we shuttled ourselves across English Harbor around 6:30 am to start our morning hike. Even though there were still some sleepy faces, we began our hike on the Carpenter trail. During the hike, we observed waves crashing on pillars, an old fortress that once protected the English Navy from intruders entering English Harbor, and, of course, the best view on the island. After our two-hour hike, we came back to homemade grits for breakfast, which filled our hungry stomachs.
When breakfast ended, we had a Maritime Training and Excellence class on charts and navigation. After MTE, everyone happily dragged all of their dirty clothes through town to Sam & Dave’s Laundromat. For lunch, the crew had the option of eating on board or eating out in town on their own. Once lunch was over, the OCE research group was given the opportunity to go snorkel/scuba dive and collect data. From 1:30 to around 5:00 pm, students were either using their free time to study, scuba dive, or just shop in town.
Throughout the day, everyone was looking forward to our evening activities. At around 6:00 pm, everyone was shuttled to the beach to enjoy our BBQ night. There was swimming, paddle boarding, music, dancing, and best of all, there were cheeseburgers. After our BBQ, we quickly made our way back to the boat and took a hasty shower so we could go back out again to have Nutella pizza and tiramisu, which was delicious, by the way. All I can say about our evening activities is that it was a blast! All night, I was surrounded by happy faces.