Location: Salt Island to Peter Island, BVI
Today is the first of December. Therefore, in true festive spirit, the crew of Ocean Star listened and sang along to Christmas songs throughout breakfast, bringing smiles to sleepy faces. The first order of business today was to explore the wreck of the RMS Rhone. In a Royal Mail steamship in the 1860s, a series of bad luck and bad decisions during a hurricane led to the ship sinking after dropping its anchor, hitting both Blonde Rock. The Can Opener Rock and exploded when cold seawater reached the boiler room. Today, it is a world-famous dive site and national park surrounded by abundant life and plenty of interesting nooks and crannies to investigate. Our two budding Dive Master candidates completed more of their training by setting up the dive site, briefing, and guiding the students around and through parts of the wreck. They did an excellent job under the watchful eye of Tor, our resident dive queen.
Bubbling with excitement (pun intended), the students returned to Ocean Star to regale Matty (marine biologist extraordinaire) about all of the fish and critters they could identify. After a delightful lunch, we weighed anchor and headed off for GHP, which was quite a dj vu as we moored here right at the beginning of the trip. The afternoon was filled with MTE sailing course practice fun in preparation for the first of our final exams, starting tomorrow. With Captain Dragon teaching, many a light bulb flickered on over the heads pouring over the charts. The squeeze tonight resulted in many bursts of laughter as everyone told of funny childhood stories and mishaps. The truly delicious meal (I think that many parents will be pleasantly surprised by how well their offspring can now cook for 15 people!) was accompanied by the students pressing Kevin for funny stories and discussing the merits of dodgeball as an Olympic sport. Tonight is free for everyone to work on schoolwork in preparation for the next few days of finals. With only just over a week left, the trip is rapidly coming to an end, and it is clear that everyone wants to make the most of the last few days as a family. As it is my last blog, I’d like to be a little audacious and give a shout-out to my mum because she is awesome! set date: 2012-12-01