Location: Tobago Cays
Today started off with an excellent pineapple upside-down cake for our crewmate Talia’s 18th birthday!! After we stuffed our faces, we headed off in the dinghies to our challenge course. We split into the three teams, blue, yellow, and pink. I was on the blue team and I immediately got into my competitive mindset. Our first task was to search for four bottles filled with sand underwater with our snorkels which Sylver found all four, I was distracted by all the coral and marine life passing by. Our second task was to find our way to the top of the island using a compass. Once we reached the top of the island, we were greeted by Meg, who presented our next obstacle: we had to travel to a rock 20 feet away using three life rafts, which were actually just PFDs. Once we completed that, we headed on to the last challenge, we had to decipher a message in the flag alphabet, but we quickly sorted it out and spelled out “Sail Away” in flag alphabet before hanging the message from a palm tree on the beach. We gathered around for a few tie breakers, and we all had to make our best art by burying a team member. I was buried under a promiscuous, drunken mermaid, but unfortunately, our efforts came up short, and we were still tied. In the last round of a winner-takes-all situation, we had a breath-hold competition; all three teams picked their best free diver to hold their breath. For my team, we had Zac, the pink team had Nini, and the green team had Darien. I took this challenge course very seriously, so I forced Zac underwater until I saw both other competitors surface, and the blue team won!! We then headed back onto the boat for seamanship class and a marine bio exam, followed by our first emergency first responders class, taught by Ben, which was an hour and a half long video, which most of us slept through because we were all so exhausted. To wrap up our day, after dinner, we had passage prep before we set sail to Petite Tabac and Jack Sparrow Island.
P.S. Hey grandma and grandpa and rest of the family, hope you guys are doing as well as I am and are braving the cold, dreary Maine weather well. Ollie, what’s up, brother? Can’t wait to hang as soon as I get back and shoot the bull.