Location: Slipway, Antigua
Hello Everyone,
This is Julia (Actually, it’s Steve), but please read this blog as if written by Julia. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to finish, nor in fact, start the blog due to technical issues, those issues being a steady flow of water from her eyes. I deemed this a potential hazard to the ship’s keyboard and surrounding electrical equipment. So I will be writing this blog in my best Julia impersonation.
Yoooooooo Waddddup peeps, how’s it going? This is Julia, and I’m feeling totally super, awesome, fantastic. Today was a great day. We started the day off right by having an amazing breakfast by Iza and her sous chefs. With full tummies, we began the process of the big Final BA (That’s Boat Appreciation) for all of you not in the know folks. We had a lot to get through as our super, amazing, smart, funny, and caring Captain briefed us in the morning of the tasks ahead of us. We were split into two groups; some were down below, giving the Galley and the Salon a good scrub. We then rotated around amongst us, cleaning our bunk spaces; many of us found items we thought were lost many moons ago but one lift of the mattress or a bilge cover, and hey presto, there’s my missing headphones, Carabina, Clothes. While we were down below, others were up on deck sorting out all the dive kit, inventorying, and putting away into the nicely cleaned, mold-free laz. In-between the chaos of BA, there was intermittent kidnapping of shipmates by the aforementioned Captain to clear people off the Crew List; we were finally free from his tyrannous grasp, free to be merry and galavant how we see fit, well until he drove us back to the boat and made us carry on cleaning. Lunch provided a brief rest-bite from the cleaning, and the arepas proved the perfect food to fuel us through the rest of the afternoon.
We then did it; we made it to 5 pm, which was set aside for our final squeeze; I decided to ask the question Rose, Bud, and Thorn. The Rose was something you enjoyed on the trip, and many people expressed the joy of getting to know one another, the laughs we’ve all enjoyed, and the bonds we’ve made. The Bud was something we were looking forward to; many expressed the excitement of getting to see loved ones back home. However, this is somewhat bittersweet as it means leaving here and all of our new friends. The thorn is something we found challenging; for many of us, it was coming into this whole experience as noobs, learning how to sail from scratch, dive from scratch, fitting in school work with all of our other responsibilities, it was tough, but we all banded together and made it through.
After the squeeze, we headed out for our final meal at Trappas. After a brief blackout and drinks under phone lights and candles, we were treated to some amazing dishes before enjoying the rest of our evening and heading back to the boat for some final night gossip sessions and a nice easy, relaxing morning the next day before the sad goodbyes and more tears to come but I will hold them in so my sheets don’t get saturated with salty tears.
Catch you all on the flip side,
Julia (Steve) signing off (Literally)