Location: Canouan
You know the deal; if youve been following along this far, 31 days, then this might be your favorite daily news update. You know, here is where the day is recounted in another passage of the latest chapter in the book Ocean Star. Its a book thats known so many characters over the literal decades, never the same when they walk off the stage to when they made their entrance.
Well, lets get a move on and set the scene; as you hopefully cozy up with tea in your favorite spot reading this, you might let your mind wander to a small crescent island in the Caribbean Sea. As you glide over the water and enter the bay, sun shining, a strong wind rushing through your hair, youll notice turquoise waters and coral looking to be within arms reach below the rippled glass. Feeling at peace with the occasional bird’s song drifting to your ears from shore, youll likely miss the heavy stench that has begun accumulating in your nostrils but doesnt fret; youre in a Caribbean paradise. When the wind begins blowing you back and forth from the shore, pay no mind to the rattling of the anchor chain, for here is a place of peace. And finally, youll think to yourself when the water looks to be changed with floating specks of bread and meat from the morning’s dishes, it could not be, for Im in the most beautiful place I can imagine, so muttering to yourself you drift blindly with a hollow thud into the black and beige hull of yours truly, Ocean Star.
Youll quickly be whisked from the water by what must be people disconnected from the world. Tossed onto the deck, not unlike a flopping fish, but really as a mildly concussed daydreamer unable to wake, youll have a brush thrust into your hands to scrub midships free from the day’s delightful breakfast of eggs, sausage, and bagels. By now, you are fully disoriented, theres a large number of barefoot, smelly (not offensive, simply as people should smell, of sweat and salt) and noisy people about you shuffling to and fro getting ready for the day, cracking jokes as they do, with one, in particular, contorting with laughter at every quip. Looking where your nose leads you, youll see a door below the deck where you recall that foul odor from when you were feeling blissful just a few moments ago. There, explains a passer-by, It’s the cursed salon bathroom where none of the guys onboard can figure out to sit when peeing as a proper sailor does to not drench the floor.” In other circumstances, you might have thought, what a strange thing for a person to say, let alone do, but your head is still spinning from smacking straight into a steel vessel. Suddenly youre dragged into a long and very close-quartered room, with what can only be described as an embodiment of the ocean itself is a professor, often clad in whale shark camouflage, Sam, explaining the mysterious workings of the depths in a lecture on the voodoo of oceanography. Somehow time speeds up like a scene from that horrid Adam Sandler movie Click, and youre being dropped from the deck back over the side of the boat; you wince in the expectation of a painful splash, but instead, youre caught by a strange looking fellow in an Australian cattleman hat. He promptly drops you, expecting that he was being handed a dive tank and being disappointed. You land securely and sorely in the dingy, of which some of the shipmates distastefully but affectionately call Sexy Exy. Ah! Back to flying peacefully over the water far from that confusing place, but wait a minute, there are four people stepping on you with scuba fins on since you havent been noticed amongst the dive gear neatly piled up as you speed towards a reef. Suddenly a wise handsome bearded turtle disguised as a dive instructor, Ash, tells you to roll backwards into the water, promising that youll be able to breathe under the surface when you do. Having none of that and not trusting him one bit, you stay in the dingy with that strange fellow as he mutters to you about sitting surface support for a dive being a rewarding and exciting job, you sit and track bubbles for 45 minutes, ready to spring into action at the slightest sign of danger, which thankfully never comes. Emerging from the depths an eternity later, six faces appear cheery and excited, spewing nonsense about eels and trunkfish, the cutest fish in the ocean. Then a few feet away, a diver leaps from the water and hovers, proclaiming that I, Liam, have today become a certified diver! . It’s now become clear to you that nothing in this daydream makes the least bit of sense, and you just want to be back home curled up with your tea.
I’ve entirely run out of patience for the previous narration, so here I’ll be more straightforward. After the first dive group finished their exploration of L’ance Guyac Point, all aboard had a pleasant sandwich and prepared for Seamanship class where I expressed my extreme gratitude for all having studied so well for the last classes quiz, reviewing the do’s and don’ts of marine radio communication and prepping for a short exam. This was immediately followed by dive group two getting a shot at further exploring the earlier Point, with myself once again monitoring their bubbles trying to divine the lucky numbers in their next fortune cookie. The day came to a close with the culmination of six hours of work on part of the chef team to make a fantastic dinner of pizza. Squeeze, our nightly ritual with an appreciation and a thoughtful, deep, and bogus question was quickly wrapped up with a stomp clap stomp for some and the inverse for others signaling an end to the day, which for the shipmates likely means a movie or study night, I can only hope they choose wisely.
Thank you for reading,
My best regards,
Brahm W.
Picture P.S
1: A vibrant start to Radio Communications review!
2: Two shipmates taking a turn at the tiller, terrifyingly.
3: The wonderful and fantastic Chef team prepping dinner.
4: A display of the energy at the end of reviewing Marine Radio Communications.
5: Two shipmates disrespecting the cleaning supplies and committing the worst and unforgivable offense of having fun.
6: Tonight’s dish pit crew, working hard as Liam does some sort of off-balance karate.