Location: Cape Town
Hey friends and fam! Today was awesome, and we got a lot done! A few of us started the morning with a jog/run around the marina, which turned out to be a great way to get our day started. After breakfast, we all headed as a group to the ferry to Robben Island. We packed lunch for the trip but soon found out that we couldn’t bring our forks through the metal detectors, which was kind of a bummer. Even though we were forkless, we managed to make it to the ferry and head to the island.
The tour of Robben Island was phenomenal! Learning about the history of the island was really interesting, and it seems like everyone left feeling very grateful for the opportunities we have. Our tour guide, Sparks, was a previous political prisoner on the island and told us his story. It was heartbreaking to see and hear about the conditions these people faced while incarcerated, but Sparks’ optimistic outlook on life and the peace he has made with all the people who harmed him was deeply inspiring.
After our visit to the island, we headed back to Vela and enjoyed a little downtime before we went dragon boating. We were essentially in two big canoes rowing around the marina and practicing for the race we would be competing in. My group won the first race but then decided to switch to the opposite side of our boat to try something new. This turned out to be a bad decision as the other team won all the rest of our races. Even though we lost, we still had a ton of fun paddling around and seeing the marina from a different perspective.
The last big thing we did today was gather in the salon for our first leadership class. It was exciting to hear about all the fun we are going to have in that class in the upcoming weeks. Tonight seems like a great time to get a jumpstart on our assignments, so I’ll wrap up the blog here.
Thanks for reading, everyone!