Location: Gustavia to Ile Fourchue, St. Barths
Today was our last day waking up in Gustavia. With gluten-free chef Keeley in the galley, we started our day with a breakfast of cornmeal pancakes, honey-lime butter, and honeydew melon. This fueled us for our class with Captain Kris, where we learned about estimating positions when navigating. Learning this new concept used our previously learned knowledge of dead reckons, leeway, and set and drift of the current. After class and a few practice problems, we were given free time before lunch to explore Gustavia for the last time. Being a Sunday morning, not much was open in town but a few restaurants. Shipmates were hopefully able to talk to their families and friends during this time and share a few words of amazement at the fact that we now have only two weeks left on Ocean Star. When all the shipmates returned to the boat, we completed passage prep and had a colorfully fresh salad bar for lunch. Leaving the Gustavia Marina to head out for Ile Fourche was our first time leaving a Mediterranean-style docking with other boats on both sides of us. To get our anchor out from under the mega-yacht Helios2 next to us, we had the KUKA divers go down with their lift bags and lift it up. Although it has been quiet on some of these islands this fall, with the season beginning soon, we were lucky to have our anchor crossed under only one other anchor in St. Barth rather than under five. Once we were out of the marina, we raised the sails and made our way to Ile Fourche. During the five-nautical mile sail, we practiced our jibes. The highlight of this sail was our arrival at Ile Fourche when Will and Ben both called out excitedly with a whale sighting. This whale happened to be a rock. So, for anyone looking for the newly discovered species of rock whale, there is one off of Ile Fourche. After putting on all the sail covers, we had shower time and dinner, a vegetable pasta bake, and then we had our Oceanography class, where we learned about fisheries. That concludes Day 66. Tomorrow, we will begin the final sprint of our Sea|Mester semester, which has less than two weeks to go.