Location: Rodney Bay, St. Lucia
After a great 24 hour passage, with lots of sailing, and today being over 20 days of program. It was time for a boat appreciation day. A day we spent cleaning and appreciating the boat. My valiant watch team 3 fought hard, and rail watch watched those rails diligently to get us here. But before I talk about what we did to appreciate our wonderful vessel, I must divulge in you the reader what we ate today, as this info is all my mother really reads these blogs for. Our chef of the day, Annika, along with her two sous chefs, Calum and Lomax, made us a delicious breakfast of coffee bread, topped with almonds and granola, served with a side of sliced pears. Even for someone who doesn’t like coffee, I thought her breakfast was very tasty (sorry, I didn’t get a picture of breakfast, mom). After breakfast, We departed our anchor spot for IGY Marina, a place I have been once before as a student on Argo in 2018. We then split off to class, where I gave the VHF exam after teaching the VHF class yesterday. After that, Annika made us lunch, she made us some wonderful chickpea tacos. Very spicy, some thought. Just right, I thought myself (sorry I didn’t get a picture of lunch, mom).
Now for the boat appreciation. Half the crew started out doing a deck wash, while the other half started down below, cleaning and scrubbing every surface. A small group of the crew hopped into Tia and began cleaning and waxing the starboard hull. After helping down below, I went forward to help Calum clean the standing water out of the anchor locker bilge. Twas a full afternoon of cleaning, scrubbing, and beautifying our beloved Vela. We ended the day with an awesome sunset with lots of fiery colors. Annika treated us to some chicken curry over rice noodles, and for dessert, some chocolate chip cookies, To celebrate Sydnei’s birthday! (pictures below, mom). I ended dinner with the squeeze question, “If you were a part of the boat, what would you be?”. A question that Dylan came up with for me, as I am terrible at thinking of squeeze questions. We then started clean up, followed by an impromptu on-deck dance partyall in all, another great day on S/Y Vela.