Location: UW to Grenada
Yet again, another beautiful day here on Ocean Star, except the only difference about today is that rather than being anchored, we have been underway! It has definitely been an adventure getting through the day today, but let me take you through it little by little. To begin the day, I woke everyone up with coffee and tea, and then we all met for breakfast, where we had yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, granola, etc. After breakfast, we did our usual cleanup, and then we quickly took our last ocean shower since, while we were underway, we were not going to be able to shower at all. Our passage will be about 2-3 days, by the way… yeah… we’re all going to STINK so bad, but it’ll be worth it. After being anchored in Nevis for about four nights, we were finally able to set sail, and I was able to drive the boat for a little while at the beginning of the passage, which was so awesome! The waves were pretty high once we finally made it further out past the anchoring site in Nevis. While we were sailing, there were actually these swells that were so high that the starboard (right) side of the deck was hitting the water, causing a bunch of water to wash onto the boat on one side and out through the other side. It was honestly the coolest thing ever. Being in conditions like this while underway is like being on a constant rollercoaster, it’s great, and we truly are being challenged past our comfort zones! Everyone is staying so strong, though, despite how hard it is to get literally anything done.
You can’t even walk to two feet without being slammed into the nearest person or thing. We actually attempted to have class while we were underway, which surprisingly worked out a lot better than I thought it was going to. Thankfully Heather and Ash let us have class on deck rather than being down in the salon. However, the only bad thing about having class on the deck while underway is that you are going to get splashed. KK (Casey) and David were the first students to present their chapter for the leadership class, and while they were reading through their notes, this huge wave crashed into the boat and got their notes soaking wet. Now you may be thinking that that would be horrible, but honestly, we couldn’t stop laughing! During Heather’s class, we actually ran into a squall, which is basically this big rain cloud, but that didn’t stop us from learning. There is never going to be another point in time where we will get the opportunity to be able to say that yes, we had a class on a sailboat in the middle of the storm. We truly are one spectacular bunch of people, that I can say for certain. This crew is great, and it is so amazing to watch how well everyone is interacting with one another and how we are all using our strengths and weaknesses to build one another up. Oh, and one more thing that was super funny that I forgot to mention is that during our lunch and dinner times, it was super fun watching people trying to eat their food with the wind speeds being so high. Every time that they tried to take a bite, the food would just fly right off of their fork! We also started our first watch, which is basically when a group of people is sitting up on deck while everyone else is resting. We are looking out for anything that could be of danger to us, such as another squall, another boat, etc. My favorite thing about watch, though, especially during the 12-3 watch, is how peaceful it is while looking up at the hundreds of stars and how clear they are. And just to top it off, the bioluminescence makes it one thousand times better! This trip is so breathtakingly beautiful! P.s. To anyone back at home reading this, I love and miss you so much <3
-Sara C.