Location: Funchal, Madeira
A 6:30 wake up from our captain, and a long hike to the top of a small mountain brought a number of our crew to one of the most beautiful sunrises overlooking the Northern Atlantic Ocean. This adventure crew, with tired eyes and groggy brains, got out of their warm beds and hiked up the large hill overlooking a serene and peaceful bay that Vela made its temporary home. They made it to the top just in time for sunrise, with the only casualty being a soaked Allison. Some of our crew decided to sleep in for a couple more hours, and we ended up having some amazing conversations as the sun set into early noon.
After a nice lunch of chickpea wraps, we cleaned up and headed over to a fish farm near our Vela for an Oceanography lab. Most of our crew opted to take a long swim over to the farms, where we were dazzled by the infrastructure and taken aback by the sheer number of fish that existed in such a small space. Our professor, Sam, taught us the benefits of this type of farming and its increasingly negative effects, but we still had a fabulous time playing around in the water near the farms.
After swimming back to our Vela, we prepped our boat for a two-hour passage to another part of Madeira. We set off for one of the flattest and calmest passages that I think we’ve ever had, participated in a comforting squeeze, and had some fun cleaning up. Our crew gathered in the salon with our snacks and popcorn to watch the movie “Passengers” for our leadership class and finally sacked out.
While I forgot to take pictures today, we took a few during cleanup. Hope everything is going amazing back home!