Location: Green Island, Antigua
Today was bittersweet. I woke up at 5:45 and joined a few of my diligent crew members to swing my legs off of the dock and finish typing away our first student leadership essays. All too soon, the sun rose, and Jon and I were off to find a cappuccino before breakfast. After sitting back for a thirty-minute cappuccino wait (Antigua swears by Caribbean time), we discussed our leadership essays, the greatest influences of our lives, and whether or not our lax Baristas were going to make us late for breakfast back on board. We received our coffees three minutes before seven-thirty, so, with cappuccinos in hand, it was back to Ocean Star. We ate, did a quick deck clean up, and motored from our Nelson’s Dockyard slip over to the fuel docks. There, we learned what it takes to plan a sailing passageeverything from plotting our course to checking the weather and figuring out when and where we shall arrive.
Afterward, I orchestrated what I hope was a decent Boat Appreciation. This was my first time delegating a B.A., and although I wouldn’t say I’m nearly as good as Brandon or Mollie at it, the jobs all got done without any crew members feeling bossed around. I thought that feat alone would strip me of the title “Bossy Boots,” but just as Mollie is now, “Nanny Mollie,” Shea is “Sugar Shea,” Noah is. “Moah,” and Jack is “Captain Spice,” the name still sticks. After dashing once more off-board to grab handfuls of candy (Jon-Sweet-tooth-Rice), A box of Code Red Mountain Dew (Mountain-Dew-Matty), and Coca-Colas (Sam and I), it was goodbye English Harbor and hello Antigua coastline. With hardly any wind blowing over the deck, the girls agreed that, despite it being prime tanning weather, this sailing trip was probably going to take all day. We weren’t exactly pleased with this realization because we had both an Oceanography quiz and an SLD paper due tonight. I wouldn’t say the crew was sour over it, but the chipper mood we all usually swear by dissipated around hour six of what should have been a quick sail. Little did we know during the day that our anchorage was about to be one of the most spectacular any of us had ever seen. As we motored up aside Green Island, with just twenty feet of water beneath us, the ocean went turquoise. Surrounded by other sailboats and in the dead, calm, reflective seas of a cove shielded by islands, I certainly felt guilty for even thinking for a moment that Green Island couldn’t compete with English Harbor. The anchor hit the sand, the crew hit the water, and any stress over quizzes and papers was lost among the excitement to free dive, swim laps around the boat, practice backflips, and become Rescue scuba divers. We could rest assured that, once again, this new place would bring new adventures and new memories. It took us all five minutes to realize that when the time came, we would be sad to sail away from this breathtaking location and onto the next. But on Seamester, that’s how it always is.