Location: St. Kitts
The day started very early; watch team #2 had the shift from midnight until 3 a.m. in the morning. While on watch, one person is steering the boat or ‘helming,’ two people are on bow watch, looking out for anything unusual like other boats, etc. Every hour, in teams of two people, a ‘boat check’ was performed. This included inspection of the decks, the engine room, and its gauges and plotting our position on the chart for navigation. Watch teams were on for three hours and then off for six; whenever they were off, they were resting.
The full moon lit up the night and made the sailing especially enjoyable. We observed shooting stars, the lights of large cargo ships passing by, and the planet Venus rising in the East.
At 6 a.m., just right for sunrise, watch team #3 turned over to watch team #1, so most of us got to see a fantastic sunrise at sea and spotted the island of Saba emerging in the distance.
At noon we all gathered for lunch underway, passing next to the lush volcanic island of Saba, spotting Statia and St. Kitts in the distance. For a short part of our passage, we had dolphins swimming alongside the boat, and we could observe flying fish and different sea birds that kept us company.
In the late afternoon, after 20 hours at sea, we arrived at the island nation of St. Kitts. After a thorough clean up of the boat, we quickly jumped in the ocean for our sea showers, had dinner, and got ready for an open-air movie for one of our classes on deck, eating some popcorn …- what a great way to end this day!