Location: Underway to Antigua
As the final days on Vela tick down, we have our lasts of everything weve done the past 3 months. These final days of the program are even more extreme for some of us, such as Tom and I, who have been here for 4 and 6 years, respectively. We woke up and raised anchor to go to a small town named Deshaies to clear out of Guadeloupe. Once we navigated through all the small fishing pots, we dropped anchor there and completed passage prep while Tom cleared us out one final time. Once he was back, we got underway while the students completed their final oceanography class, during which they presented their research projects. While the students were down below, Claire, Emma, Tom, and Mac raised the mainsail. We used the wind shadow from the large island so we could get the main up in relative calm before the students came up. When they finished their presentations, we then got teams on the main staysail, forward staysail, and the jib (formally known as the flying jib). We put the boat on a beam reach, adjusting the sails and attaching the preventors. Once away from the island, the true wind picked up, and Tom put us on a close haul, so we removed the preventors and sheeted all the sails in. It was a lovely sail, cruising around 7 knots past Monserrat and towards our second home, Antigua.
We got slowed by a couple of small squalls, but the little bit of rain could not damper our fun. We listened to tunes, we took some photos, all in all it was a beautiful last sail. Watson, Grace C., Tom, and I were all very excited to take our last stints on the helm, as the boat was well-balanced, and it was a cakewalk. After a delicious dinner, we broke into short watches of about two hours so we could have some sleep before we made it in. Watch team 3, consisting of me, Ben, James, Theo, Luke, Cat, Eliza, Grace N., Mac, and Max, took the first watch until 9 pm. We got to tack, a rare occurrence for a boat that generally goes downwind most of the time. Watch team 1 come on after us and continue the lovely sail. Watch team 2 got to strike the sails and bring us into Falmouth. Looming in the channel was a sailing yacht called Black Pearl, which is over 300 feet long and uses solar sails to power the boat. We dropped our anchor around 11:30 pm and broke into anchor watches for the remainder of the night.