Location: Pigeon Island
It was an awesome day of sailing today after we left Pain De Sucre within Les Saintes. After breakfast clean-up, we began to raise both starboard and port anchors while a “stern line strike team” took Irv to untie the stern line. Once off the anchor, we set the foresail, staysail, and jib and set sail for Pigeon Island, home to the well-known Jacques Cousteau dive site and a bust of the man himself. We made an attempt at raising the storm trysail instead of the mainsail, but the condition of the sail’s cars and the condition of the track on the mast wouldn’t allow it. Instead, we flew the fisherman sail and used it to practice our jibing. Teams were assembled for jibing: a head-sails team, a foresail team, and a fisherman team, each responsible for making the jibe able to happen. The most energetic team was the fisherman’s sail team, which had to drop and raise the fisherman before and after every jibe. Ocean Star must have jibed at least eight times, giving us plenty of practice at sheeting in and raising sails. With this practice, we were able to lower and raise the fisherman’s sail in four minutes, a great increase in ability since our first few jibes. Once jibing was complete, watch teams set off to start running fixes, in which we were to decipher our position on a chart using two bearings taken in fifteen-minute intervals. Today was a great day of navigating and an even greater day of sailing.