Location: Falmouth Harbor, Antigua
Today I woke up to the sound of Ethan, Seve, and Liam screaming at the top of their lungs in my bunk. They were heralding our arrival at our final destination: Antigua! Everyone woke up stoked and ready for the day, and we mustered in the cockpit as the day began to warm up. We did a baby BA in the morning to make us look like “clean and healthy people” for the health inspector. After he arrived and took all of our temperatures, we had the final boatmeal and got ready for the second, messier BA of the day… aptly titled the Messy BA. The Messy BA is the older sister of the regular, tamer BA and involved doing the once-a-program messy, dirty jobs like cleaning the bilges and the anchor locker. We had our work cut out for us, only stopping once for lunch and once again for dinner and another time for a snorkeling break; we toiled away in the pits and crevices of the ship, scrubbing. It was a lot of fun and very satisfying to squeeze myself into a tiny space in the bilge and scrub the grime from the corners of it. After our snorkel break, during which we saw a lot of squid and barracudas, we dried off and had delicious chicken curry, thanks to Sam. We also saw a medium size spotted eagle ray come right up to the surface beside the boat during squeeze, a good omen for what’s coming next. We are preparing to go on a night dive and hopefully see some cool things in the water and also hopefully get clean after this messy messy day.
Pictured:
1. Bilge monster Marion
2. Ethan wearing 24 PFDs because safety never takes a holiday
3. Sam, Brian, Mikey, and Ethan getting serious in the galley
4. My view of Liam, Julie, Marion, and Brian through the focsle hatch (creeps)