Location: Gustavia, St. Barths
My day started for the first time around 1:30 am when I was abruptly woken up by the sound of the horn and the brightness of the floodlights shining into the fo’c’sle only to come up on deck about 15 minutes later to find out that the boat that had been anchored in front of us was dragging and headed straight for us, but by the time I had gotten on deck the crisis had been adverted, and the boat was moving to a new spot further away from us. I was then woken up for the second time at 4:54 by Griffin for my 5-6 am anchor watch shift. My watch was very uneventful and peaceful, but I couldn’t help but think about how, as soon as it hit 6:00 am, I got to go back to bed. The third and final time I woke up today was a few minutes before 7:00 am so I could wake up the non-rescue divers in our crew since the rescue divers had some pre-breakfast shore time exploring Isle Forchue. After a yummy breakfast of blueberry lemon bread, the rescue divers jumped in the water while the rest of us had a paperwork party in the salon with Ash which basically just meant we were logging dives and filling out some PADI paperwork. Once we finished with the paperwork party, Katie, Jack, and Kylie watched Chasing Coral. While they watched the movie Ben and I spent some time collecting data for our research project before having free time until lunch. Lunch was a big salad, potatoes, lots of random leftovers, and bread. While the rest of the crew was doing cleanup, Katie, Heather, Kylie, and I all headed up to the bow to start the process of raising the anchors. We started on the starboard (right) side anchor, and let me just tell you that the anchor chain did not want to be brought up. About every 6 inches of chain that would get brought up, it would start to wrap around the wildcat system, which is the power behind lifting the anchor making the whole process for one side take about twice as long as it should take. We finally got both anchors up with help from the rest of the crew and were off back to mainland St. Barts. While underway, we had a leadership class on deck led by Katie and Jules. Once we dropped anchor, we all made our way down to the salon for marine bio, where we learned about marine mammals and ended class with a little bit of animal charades. We had some free time before dinner and then ended dinner the same way we do every night with a squeeze and tonight’s question was, “What is your most useless talent?” the answers ranged from “I can tie the stem of a cherry with my tongue” to “I can pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time” to the most random ” I have very wide feet that help with my balance.” Now we are finishing cleanup, and I have to do some last-minute homework before going to bed.
P.S.
Hi Mom, Dad, Nene, and Bailey!!! I love and miss you guys so so much!!! Can’t wait to see you guys soon!!