Location: Saba
Egads! The staff of Ocean Star must have eaten some strange cheese in Franceland because they mysteriously all completely forgot how to sail today! Luckily, we had nothing to worry about in terms of getting our boat from St Barths to Saba, as our ten stellar crewmates had accumulated enough knowledge by now that they were able to conduct an entire student-led voyage: passage prep, raising sails, navigating without a GPS, trimming sails and even having to reteach the staff how the boat works were all expertly done.
We’ve found ourselves hanging off a mooring on beautiful Saba, an island that is nothing like any we’ve seen so far. There are sheer cliffs rising hundreds of feet straight from the ocean, surrounding the entire near-circular shaped island, and there are (seemingly) teeny tiny European-style houses almost impossibly perched amongst the cliffs. Even on our 88ft ship, we’re feeling a little bit dwarfed by this place!
Once we got the sails down and the staff regained some boating knowledge, we started a bit of Boat Appreciation, cleaning the dinghies, oiling the cap rails, and waxing… Ocean Star is looking mighty fine.
Later this afternoon, Dana gave us all a baking lesson! She spent a couple of hours teaching us how to make double-baked biscotti, which are Italian tea biscuits. Everybody had a lot of fun being up to their elbows in flour, and if the dough was any indication of how delicious the finished products will be, then we have a lot to look forward to tonight when they finish baking.
It’s getting pretty close to the end of our journey, but we’re all making the most out of our remaining adventures.
Sending lots of love from Ocean Star to our friends and famjams!
Cayley