Location: Soufriere to Marigot Bay, St. Lucia
Today started off with a light breakfast and clean-up, which is normal for a day on Ocean Star. After breakfast, we had a leadership class and prepped for our passage. The crew and I needed some motivation to get the boat prepped as fast as possible. Just the thing presented itself: if we arrived in enough time, we would be able to enjoy shore showers! With that news, we raised the sails as fast as we could and got the boat underway. Brooke took the helm for the passage and got some practice tacking the boat (turning the bow through the wind). Most of us stayed on deck as deckhands and helped work the sails and coil lines. Will and Ben braved the climb to the crow’s nest; ironically, when they climbed up, the waves got a little bigger, and the wind blew stronger. Nick (our marine bio teacher) broke out the video camera and filmed our progress of how quickly we have gotten at working around the ship. This led to the interview of each student by Bret.
After the passage, we quickly dropped and flaked the sails, then took out the sail covers and put the sails away. We did a very simple boat appreciation and made for the showers. It’s funny how living on a boat you find appreciation for the small things like hot showers. Once we had all showered, we were rejuvenated and even had a little bit of time to explore the marina. Dinner was cooked by Gwen, who made a chicken dish that her family makes. We all really enjoyed the meal, but we ate in a hurry because we had a night out planned and wanted to get ready. When we arrived at Doolittle’s, I was thinking, Okay, it’s just another bar where we just chill with each other. I was pleasantly surprised to see not only the final game of the World Series on T.V. but also free pool tables. Some of us immediately started to play pool and zero in our game. After a little while, the members of the staff challenged some students. The game was close, but the staff took it in the end. When we left the World Series, it was still on, but it ended up that the score didn’t change after we left. We got back to our home Ocean Star and took care of Irv (our trusty chariot of the boats) and went to bed ready for the next day.