Location: Bonaire
Note: Despite the title saying Dylan, it is, in fact, me (Morana) (from yesterday) who is skipper.
Well, well, well, hello again. You may be asking yourself, ‘wait, wasn’t she skipper yesterday?’ the answer would be yes, but when you are approached by Dylan offering the job again, it would be rude to say no. Due to this delightful turn of events, I had the opportunity to once again rouse the troops by blasting a song, this time ‘Island in the Sun’ by Weezer (it felt appropriate). After an even more joyful wakeup than yesterday, we were greeted on deck by Nella’s fantastic crepes! Many of us (not me) had gotten up at. You know what, of dawn to dawn dive. It was apparently amazing, so everyone was very excited about brekkie.
After a speedy cleanup, we once again spilt into a nav master class group and a dive group. By lunch, we had even more certified divers! We had an early lunch, which was unfortunately moved below deck because of rain, before getting to head out to the real headliner of the day… Blokarting! For anyone who doesn’t know what this incredibly popular and well-known sport is, imagine go-carts but with sails (very on-brand for the semester, I must say). Dare I say for the first time ever. Everyone was not only on time but early to the shuttle to the other side of the island. Because there were so many of us, we had to take two different trips.
Yesterday we split into three different groups, so all of the team one and half of team two went in the first round, and everyone else came in the second. Once the first group arrived, we jumped straight into directions and safety instructions. While we were getting all the info, we were able to watch other people riding on the track, which only made everyone want to get to it even more. One of the key parts of the safety talk was to try your absolute hardest not to flip the cart. Bad for you and bad for the cart. I’ll let you guess how many laps it took for Allie to take a corner a little bit too fast, resulting in a nasty flip. The most ironic part of the situation was that the safety brief for the other group was happening at this time, and Allie flipped during the exact ‘don’t flip the cart’ part of the presentation. I was in group two, so got to watch the first group before giving it a go. I (very confidently) rolled out onto the track expecting to speed forward, only to move at the pace of an 80-year-old snail (with a broken leg). After some finagling and instructions from the pros, I started speeding through the course, and let me just say if you ever have the opportunity to blokart DO IT, it was so incredibly fun. During the group, twos run, we had another two flips (I swear we listened to the safety talk), but everyone came out unscathed. After taking a fantastic group photo, we were offered a mystery ice cream. After tasting, we found out flavors included tamarind, starfruit, and (neon) green pistachio.
Hopping back in the van, we were only slightly delayed by a flat tire before coming back to Vela to, you guessed it, go diving again! We had two groups out; those who were already advanced doing a fun dive and another group doing a deep dive for their advanced certification. I am actually writing this ironically because it was at this exact moment that the cooking of some delish-looking quesadillas resulted in our very first fire alarm of the trip. Although there weren’t many of us on board, we killed it by quickly exiting the ship with life jackets and Gumby suits in tow.]] Back to our regularly scheduled programming, dinner is anticipated to start at 18:00, maybe a smidge later due to the *delay*. Afterward, there are plans in the works for ice cream (on the drive back from blo-carting, we realized there’s an ice cream store maybe 10 minutes away instead of the usual 30 we’ve been walking), night diving for some, and for a studious few diving into their lionfish literature review paper (I’ll let the viewers at home guess which group I’m in, hint I’m not night diving and already have my wallet in my pocket and shoes strapped on). Tomorrow there is another group dawn diving, and then we are all going to dive to plant coral! Not only is it super, super cool (literally gardeners of the sea) and good for Bonaire, but it also counts as the final advanced dive for most of us. So tomorrow, Vela will be brimming with Advanced sub divers!
Fast forward to after dinner!
We ended up starting dinner at 18:50. It was absolutely incredible (a 10/10, if you will). My squeeze question of the day was, if you could add any job to the job wheel, what would it be and why? A lot of people requested dessert masters (people who make dessert every day) or entertainers (who entertain at dinner). Overall today was a great day, and we are all excited about coral planting tomorrow!
See y’all in 30 days!
Morana
Pictures
1 – Blokarting!
2 – Team two pre blokarting
3 – Tom in him blokart gear
4 – A group exploring the beach near blokarting when it wasn’t their turn to go