Location: Barbuda
Waves and anxious excitement filled the classroom this morning as we started off the day with an OCE class learning about waves and tides. Most of the class was spent connecting the material we learned to surf! With surf day in St. Barth’s rapidly approaching, the crew is getting more and more anxious by the minute!! After discussing plunging and spilling wave breaks (the best waves for surfing) and picking Lori’s brain about surf day, we got ready for our science lab! YAY SCIENCE! Today, we got to see a Frigate Bird sanctuary. It’s safe to say I have never seen so many birds in one place! It was amazing to be so up close to that many wild birds. I have to admit, at one point,t I felt like I was in Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” Huge black birds circling all around us, Yikes! It also reminded us of when we saw the mass amounts of Frigate birds flying around Dragon Island earlier in the trip! We ate our packed lunches on the boat ride back and fought over which boat got the Pringles (typical!). When are we not being greedy snack monsters?! Haha.
Back at the beach, we collected sea shells and played Ultimate Frisbee! The Rescue Divers and Dive Masters went back to the boat to continue with the Rescue class. The rest of us stayed on the beach, helping to collect wood for the bonfire and soaking up the sun! Jake and I caught the first perfect wave, which set in motion some serious body surfing (in preparation for surf day, of course!) We all played in the waves, applying what we had learned in OCE this morning. As we were wading in the water, looking for the next wave set, Matty dropped in on the windsurf and took me out for my first windsurfing lesson! You really experience something new every day here on Seamester! Windsurfing is a blast! Matty and I also attempted some tandem surfing. He controlled the sail, and I surfed on the back, trying not to fall off and have both of us come crashing down!
Back on O Star, the rescue divers continued with class and demonstrated some practical skills. They practiced how to rescue panicked and unresponsive divers, a very demanding procedure, which left them feeling pretty tired but rather accomplished! After shower time, we squeezed and dove into Mexican Fiesta! With bellies full of burritos, we loaded up the dinghies and headed to the beach! Once the bonfire was lit, Kevin led us through the Pirates game! Playing Pirates is an Ocean Star tradition and a perfect game to play around a bonfire in the Caribbean! The game of Pirates is essentially a mystery game that puts your bluffing skills to the test! After two rounds of Pirates, the bonfire began to die out, so we headed back to O Star, thinking “A Pirates Life For Me” had truly become our reality!