Location: Bequia
After an amazing start of the day with breakfast burritos, we all felt strong and ready to tackle our ‘Boat Appreciation’ time; everybody contributed to an intense boat clean up and organization of our common space. Our boat Ocean Star takes care of us, so we also need to take care of her, as our captain likes to say! From bow to stern and bunks to lazarette, we worked on getting everything in perfect shape.
Our next activity was onshore; we went to a sea turtle hatchery where sea turtles are raised and, later on, released into the wild; a benefit of this is giving young turtles a better chance of survival until they are a larger size, as well as the education of the public. We all enjoyed getting to see these animals close up after having learned about them in marine biology class. In the afternoon, we had time to explore the island, eat ice cream and pizza, drink fresh, exotic fruit juices, shop, explore the local beaches, and get to know the locals, which we accomplished in a couple of happy hours.
Once back on the boat, we had Willy come over, a local artist who carved jewelry out of whale bones and a type of wooden-like coral. Bequia is officially permitted to hunt whales with a quota of four individuals per year. Luckily, they have only killed one this year, and they try to use every single part of it, partly as jewelry.
After another terrific sunset on the water, we had dinner and got ready for our sailing class in the evening, where Nick and Tor taught us about navigational markers.