Location: Rosseau, Dominica
After waking up at the regular time to some jams, the crew had breakfast and quickly went into passage prep to finally get underway to Dominica – an island a few of us have been looking really forward to. After talking about its nine volcanoes a million and three times in and out of class, we were all pretty antsy to get here and actually see the island. And after last night’s Halloween festivities, we were all in high spirits for passage prep. I was so pleased with how quickly passage prep went and how smoothly everything ran.
Our passage started incredibly strong with the fastest sail raise our crew has seen so far. Ten minutes and fifteen seconds!!! That’s incredible, considering our last time was something like eighteen minutes. I’m so glad I was at the helm to see everyone working hard at their jobs and being so on top of everything. It’s incredible to see how far we’ve come from the first passage. We only had four people on the mainsail. At the beginning of the trip topping, the mainsail took nearly all sixteen of us students. Then, despite a couple of scattered rain showers, we were on a beautiful passage to Rosseau, Dominica.
Other than getting the sails up in record time, the beginning of the passage was pretty uneventful. Mostly, we just hung out and talked as we did watch, something that is always nice to do. I love hanging out in the cockpit with anyone and everyone. Somehow, I always hear the funniest stories while in the cockpit. Then, finally, Nick caught a Mahi on one of our fishing lines!! It was so exciting. I was up on bow watch during cleanup when I heard them shouting about it and was so stoked when I got to go back and see it up close. The colors were absolutely incredible. Next up on the fishing list is to catch one on the Ugly Stick. I really hope I’m around for that event.
Finally, we arrived in Dominica this afternoon, but not before Carolyn, after quite a long time of the game going on, won our game of CLUE! Or rather assassin since we did it wrong. Either way, she won. Poor Yi got ‘killed’ with some hand sanitizer while on the bowsprit. So funny and so much fun.
Then we arrived in Rosseau and had a little bit of time to give the deck a nice wash before we all had shower time. Finally, the day ended with an absolutely delicious meal of pizza made by head chef Morgana and her sous chefs. I know all of us were really happy with it. Even Nick M., who never likes boat pizza, liked it for the second time. Clearly, our crew is full of great chefs. Once we have our brief scheduling meeting, I know we’re all looking forward to the movie night we have planned. I think it’s mostly in anticipation of the popcorn Carolyn always makes. Glad we’re ending the day on a delicious note.