Location: Savannah Bay, BVI
Today, we woke up from our first night on Vela! It seemed everyone was really eager to wake up and get going. Almost the whole boat was awake by 6:30 this morning. I was supposed to wake everyone at 7:00 this morning but hardly woke anyone up. We spent the next hour hanging out on deck, chatting and still getting to know each other. For breakfast, we had an amazing assortment of food to make breakfast burritos. I loaded mine up with everything.
After breakfast, we spent the rest of the morning taking a more in-depth look around the boat and learning about all the different jobs needed to operate Vela. After that, there was a little more time to run ashore before lunch and check out the local market. We then went over the student handbook together. For lunch, we had acai bowls. I have actually never had one, but they were pretty good.
The next hour was spent learning about the different PFDs aboard. The funniest part was watching Nate struggle to put on and take off the immersion suit. It had everyone laughing, and now we were finally ready to do our first bit of sailing. We left Soper’s Hole to head towards Savannah Bay. Everybody was super excited to finally get moving, and the breeze helped cool everybody down.
While sailing, we learned how to raise our first sail! It took a little while, and we had help from everyone. It felt great to see it finally raised. Once we got to Savannah Bay, we got to go swimming for the first time. This was by far the best part of the day. There was excitement in the air while we got in. We did our swim test, swam around some more, and then took our first ocean showers.
The day ended with a dinner of boat-made Chick-fil-A sandwiches and a question for the group: What two animals would you make into pets?
It’s wild finally being here, sailing, and meeting all these cool people. I can not wait to experience more!
-Will S