Location: Roseau, Dominica
Today started at 1 am for watch team 2 (Amy, Evan, Bella, Owen, Graydon, Brandon, and myself) as we came up weary-eyed but ready for our stint of guiding Ocean Star towards our most southerly point of the trip, Roseau, Dominica. To the joy of everyone, we came on deck to much calmer sea states than we experienced on our first passage down to Nevis. As time passed on watch, we started staring up at the stars and discussing all sorts of various topics, such as an extremely detailed breakdown into the technicalities of what makes a sandwich a sandwich and why do lights onshore twinkle so much (we still don’t know). We discovered that “twinkle” is an extremely fun word to say after a while at 3:30 am. It’s highly recommended to try. Fortunately for us, watch team 3 (Tom, Sage, Lina, Cullen, Trey, and Carter) came to dismiss us to give us our precious beauty sleep.
Our watch team had our second waking of the day to relieve watch team 1 (Steve, Eric, Michael, Peyton, Mariah, and Eliza). As we came on deck, we heard stories of multiple Sperm Whale sightings, just 50 meters off our stern a mere half-hour earlier. As we looked around over the glassy flat water hoping for a second sighting (we weren’t so lucky), we set our eyes on Dominica for the first time up close and saw how vibrantly green here is compared to both the BVI and Nevis. The reason for Dominica being so green is due to the orographic rain it receives as the clouds form over the highly impressive volcano that this country boasts (to give spoilers as to what will be in my upcoming lectures in the next few weeks, and if you yourself as our avid readers are curious as to what orographic rain is you can always ask your beloved children at the end of the trip to see if, in fact, they were listening during my classes).
After arriving at Roseau, we started our second BA (Boat Appreciation) of the trip. In this, we cleaned every inch of our lovely home, from scrubbing the floors and walls down below through to making the gunnels sparkly white on deck. In doing so, we are giving back to Ocean Star for all the hard work and protection that she provides us every day. Once BA was completed, we moved onto class, a double feature of Oceanography all about water and seawater. Yes, at seamester we can talk water for 2 hours, such is the amazingness of water and the quirky properties it possesses. Following this true life-altering and inspiring class, everyone moved on to the revolutionary EFR class with Amy (a class about first aid, not how to host a revolution). They learned how to deal with serious bleeding and the recovery position.
This evening brings a much-needed section of downtime for everyone allowing them to do as they please after dinner (on a personal level, I hope it’s writing the literature reviews that are due for my class, but I suppose having an evening to relax is also fine).