Location: Port St. Charles, Barbados
The day began early on Argo today, with half the crew in the water going for a swim by the time breakfast made its way on deck. We all chowed down on some delicious granola bar bowls with fruit and yogurt made by Meg as the sun made its way over Barbados. Following our meal, Calum told us that we could be visiting Harrison’s Cave today or tomorrow, depending on what the word was from the tour guides, but either way, we were all excited to go on shore today. Everyone completed their cleanup job, and the students went below deck for an eye-opening oceanography class on ocean pollution. Calum told us the news following class that we would not be visiting the caves today so that we would have our choose-your-own-adventure shore time today. We all got prepared for our day ashore, throwing on swimsuits, packing our backpacks, lathering up with sunscreen, getting our spending money, and heading up to the cockpit to get ready to dinghy out. However, Calum came above deck on the phone to inform us that today would, in fact, be our cave day and that we had time for a class before we went to shore.
So, below deck, everyone went to put away our shore gear and grab our marine biology materials for a class on marine mammals. Once class was over, we went above deck to dinghy to shore, hopped in some amazingly air-conditioned taxis, and drove to Harrison’s Cave. We got to the visitor’s center, and everyone immediately went to the gift shop, where there was a freezer full of ice cream. I noticed a small bag of tamarind balls, and just before I was about to try one, Maddy bet that I would hate it. Safe to say I lost 10 big imaginary dollars a few seconds later. Apologies to those who love tamarind balls, but those are certainly not for me.
The time came, and a tour guide brought us down a massive elevator to the gully, or a huge valley between two slopes caused by the cave underneath collapsing, where our cave tour began. We all entered an information room and were given hair bonnets to put on for reasons unknown, but made for some great photos. We were ushered into a small theatre to watch a video about the creation of Barbados ever many million years ago and how the caves we were about to explore were made, too. After the intriguing video, we were ushered out to the tram and learned our hair bonnets were meant as hair protection for the hard hats we wore throughout the tour.
The tram began to roll, and we sped through the winding path below the Earth into the most beautiful stalactite formations I have ever seen. We stopped at some incredible views, including the great hall, an over 50ft tall room full of stalactites and waterfalls, absolutely breathtaking. Another stop was Mirror Pond, a pool of water that looked like it could maybe be the height of the bottom of your shoe but was, in fact, over 4 feet deep! We stopped at a waterfall shortly down the path, where we reached out to touch the underground flowing water.
We breached the surface again and got out to visit the bird sanctuary in the gully. It was incredible to see some beautiful tropical birds like macaws and parakeets and have the opportunity to feed a peacock, but the real fun was feeding the ducks, chickens, and pigeons and picking them up; Nini set the record with two pigeons and a duck. We all got some lunch at the lunch shack in the gully, after the quick meal, it was back to Argo for some preparation for new sails! When the students got back, the main staysail was already down and being scavenged by Kackie, Kiki, and I worked on getting the jib down and cutting it apart for scraps, and Shane, Zac, and Maddy took off the forward staysail. Right as we got all the sails off, flaked, and cut them apart, Meg starting sending up her delicious chili with cornbread, she even made some amazing peanut butter chocolate bars for dessert!
Post-meal and cleanup, our dinghy was sent out with Calum, Nini, and Eli to retrieve our new sails. It returned later with three sail bags and a new face, Skip. Skip is the CEO of Doyle Caribbean (the company that makes our sails) and came aboard to give us some information about our old torn sails and the new shiny ones we were about to put up. He explained the sails are made in Barbados and are some of the highest quality in the world, made from dacron material, and can take over 30,000lb of weight from the wind! For sail change, Darien, Nini, and Sylver worked on putting the jib up, Shane, Zac, Benny, Maddy, Kara, and I worked on the forward staysail, and Kackie, Olympus, Eli, Ben, Cecily, Talia, Kiki, Meg, and Calum got the main staysail on. Following lots of unbagging, mermaid line tying, soft-shackling, and sail covering, the new sails were officially on Argo. After the sail change, everyone washed up and went to bed as soon as they could, all excited for the big day ahead tomorrow!