Location: Falmouth, Antigua
Our arrival in Antigua around lunchtime was a momentous occasion, evoking extremely mixed emotions from all. On the one hand, all of the knowledge and skills we learned over the course of the semester were put to use and demonstrated as we successfully dropped anchor after an entire student-led passage. We proved to ourselves that we are entirely competent sailors and really have come to work well as a team. On the other hand, this was our very last time dropping anchor all together on Vela. We were filled with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and sadness as we realized that this is officially the beginning of the end. Seeing as we still have about a week left together, though, we did our best to soak in the glory and embrace the time we have left together. We had all hands on deck to put the boat to bed as quickly as we could so that we could spend the day swinging off the starboard side of the boat on a boom swing. Tremendous fun was had, and only a few mild injuries were suffered, signifying a raging success according to our standards. Afterward, rescue diver candidates went for a dive to continue meeting requirements for their certification. By the time everyone had surfaced, the rest of the crew of Vela had made the swim over to Ocean Star, which happened to be anchored right next to us. We toured their boat and socialized with outsiders for the first time in nearly ninety days. After meeting them and talking for a bit, we got ready and met back aboard Vela for dinner and ice cream altogether. Some of the boys of Vela took this opportunity to exemplify peak riz, filling the starboard six stack and the salon with cologne in the process.
Was it enough to reach W riz? That’s not for us to say. Emy and Rachel then gave us a lovely ukelele and vocal performance of the song they wrote together, reminding us of all of the memories we have made together. To end the night, we had an apple bobbing in dishy pit water competition to determine which boat has more grit (still not sure how apple bobbing equates to grit, but it’s fine), and unfortunately, Vela did not put their best foot forward (Joel), and we were defeated womp womp. This ended in buckets being dumped on each other and Asa getting his nice, fresh pants drenched in ice cream and cabbage water. Sorry, Asa 🙁 The Ocean Star crew then headed back over to their boat, leaving behind an alarming number of sausages in the boys’ beds (?) and taking our bensin as a fun little prank. Unfortunately for them, most of our crew didn’t even know it existed, and I still don’t think anyone knows what it’s actually called, so we were none too concerned with our loss. All in all, we had a great time, and I would even venture to say it was a W evening with Ocean Star.