Location: St. Eustatius
Today brought another wonderful morning moored next to the austere beauty of Saba. Although it was beautiful out, the wind was starting to pick up, and the waves began to crash into the side of Ocean Stars hull. These were not the calm conditions that our glorious Captain Gabe had been promised by the Saban locals the night before. Nevertheless, it was time to brave the Caribbean waters and make the short journey to Statia. Unfortunately, our brave staff had to go to war yet again in the engine room, which halted our early departure time. After a few hours of doing battle, Zoe and Gabe emerged from the dark depths of the engine room covered head-to-toe in grease, but alas, victorious. We finally made ready to leave and sent Sam and Aidan (AKA SEAL Team 2) into the water with nothing but snorkels, fins, and tools attached to life vests. They valiantly fought the mooring ball and, after some doing, were able to set us free. Then we set off on our four-hour voyage full of good vibes, hard work, and intense waves. We arrived in Statia just before dinner, and it was not at all what I was expecting. One side of the island was riddled with oil tankers ready to take the next shipment across the globe, and the other was a small city circling a majestic volcano. After we dropped anchor, Gabe took a dinghy to customs while the rest of us made dinner and showered. To our joy, when Gabe returned, he informed us that we would be having a sign-out night at a bar on shore. We would only have a couple of hours on land, so we had to make them count. Gabe and Ignacio accompanied us, and we arrived at a bar alive with music. The music was an interesting genre that many of the locals were dancing to with their significant others. Gabe explained that this form of dance was called machado. The highlight of my night was watching Gabe proceed to teach Grayson Machado and failing because Grayson had no idea what he was doing. Tomorrow we leave for Nevis and will hopefully have yet another day full of adventure!