Location: Peter Island, BVI
This is my last communiqu as skipper of the daunting sailing vessel Ocean Star (complete with haberdashery and shoe shining; see ship fashion coordinator for details). Upon the breaking of the dawn, my eyes were filled with breakfast burritos and flash drives whose contents were that of a paper for our Student Leadership Development course. While the morning haze was lifted from my mind and the fog from my eyes, I came to see that the Ocean Stars crew had dispatched the procedures necessary for taking up anchor, and we were soon making our way to Norman Island. There was no time to tarry, for we did have a dive planned upon our arrival. My reaction to the time constriction was to tear off the shirt adorned upon my chest like the Hulk, which was not well received because it was not, in fact, my shirt. The dive was a wondrous wreck known as the Rhone, who had her back shattered against the rocky shore. During the storm, the passengers panicked, and the captain had them lashed to their beds with chains in order to keep them from impeding their own rescue, but sadly drowned in the wreck. As this was being described to us, I slowly hid the paperback I was reading, “How To Properly Chain Your Meddlesome Crew.” The wreck was magnificent, with glorious swim-throughs and fantastic aquatic life, including a green moray eel, which reminded me of the stowaway I found in the bilge once. Dives concluded we motored once more to a mooring we previously utilized at Peter Island. The familiarity of this place is strange, given over seven days of unfamiliar islands in a part of the world I had never previously witnessed. We studied our notes and shoved lovely past goodness down our gullets in an orderly fashion to stay us for the Marine Biology exam that would soon ensue. It has been a joy to sail with the rogues upon Ocean Star.