Location: Antigua
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing sometimes, so when we woke up this morning to our first cooked breakfast after over three weeks of oatmeal, the smell of french toast wafting up from the galley was a most welcome scent indeed. Certainly, the breakfast got the day off to a solid start quickly, followed by an Oceanography class and some free time ashore. Free time ashore ended with the construction of deliciously delicious lunch sandwiches for the upcoming adventure to Stingray City.
Replace the buildings with coral, the suburbs with sand, and the people with stingrays, and sure enough, it might strike you as a little marine city. Also known as sea pancakes (aka flappy flappies, aka sea puppies, aka Steve Irwin killer, aka marine UFO’s, aka aquatic plate), the rays were quick to greet us as we stepped off the boats as a number of people had the winged creatures brush up against them in anticipation of getting fed a fine meal of squid. We were in a large, buoyed area, which was meant more for keeping us human intruders contained more so than the rays, and with the number of other people who were there with us, we needed the space. Some of us fed the rays, others held them, and still, others just floated around, taking in the rays, corals, and neighborly fish.
Post Ciudad de Stingray, we made our way back to the boat for some more free time, where most of the shipmates wandered off either for some last bit of shopping or for jogging tours of the area. Reconvening for dinner of an exceptionally large amount of fresh spinach and salad plus some chicken and other accouterments began to see our day coming to a close. Post dinner, the shipmates showed the expertise of first aid by taking the Emergency First Responder exam, and for one more time, the sunset on another day on the Argo to rise only 13 more times.
Dan
Pictured: Lex, Emmalee, James, Sydney, CJ, Amanda, Claire, Ev, Claire, Tim pictured with a large female stingray at Stingray City; Lex, Amanda, and Emmalee in the boat on the way to Stingray City; Smash being goofy during a cleanout of one of the bilges.