Location: St. Barths
Back in Minnesota, one of my good friends and I have a ritual of listening to the “sunscreen song.” In the song, the artist urges the listener to wear sunscreen, among other things. I have fully taken his advice on the sunscreen part, but today, the other word of advice I took from him was to “do one thing every day that scares you.” The day began at 5:30 am when Lindsey, Rob, Marvin, Mike, Matt, Kevin, and I woke up to go cliff jumping at sunrise. As we were walking to Shell Beach, Lindsey and I learned that not only did we have to swim around the point to get to these cliffs, but we also had to climb a rope! We were a little nervous, to say the least. As we swam towards the cliffs, I realized just how big of a jump this was going to be; it was at least a thirty-foot drop off into the beautiful blue water. Once we had all made our way to the top of the boulders, we chose our designated jumping spots. Even though it took some of us a few minutes to work up the courage, one by one, we started to jump. I will admit, I was pretty terrified! With shaky legs and adrenaline rushes, we each took multiple plunges. The sunrise cliff jumping turned out to be one of the most thrilling things I did on this trip. After making it back to Ostar just in time to wake the crew, we ate breakfast, prepped for passage, and sailed to Statia. During the sail, we experienced some heavy winds and massive rollers. Ostar hit 10 knots, the fastest she’s gone so far this trip! We will all miss the delicious bread and chocolate of Franceland, but we are very excited to be back in a place where a Coke doesn’t cost eight dollars, and no one cares whether or not you wear shoes!