Location: Navandra
The day started at 6:15 when I woke up to go on deck to see Tugy and some others on Anchor watch. I joined Sam and Ceci in what we now call Vela Gym Club. We did workouts on the deck just as the sun was rising, with the view of sailboats and the Fijian mountains on the horizon.
We later pulled up anchor to prepare to go underway while the Open Water students did their final checkout dives to complete their certifications. When they returned, we set out and left Malolo behind in search of a new island to call our home for a few days.
While underway, many of us, including myself, felt especially nauseous with the rolling waves. Luckily, Daniel made us delicious black bean burgers with Jason and Ardens help as Sous Chefs. A boat pulled up to Vela as we were having lunch, and asked our Captain Mac where we were headed because they were filming the show Survivor and didnt want us to interfere. We were able to continue our course and start some skill-building in Seamanship, where we learned the different techniques for Line Handling around the vessel.
At last, we arrived at the most beautiful island called Navadra. She welcomed us with some twelve Black Tip Reef sharks that were very curious about our boat. Velas Crew all jumped in and hung out with the black tips. We all later took an ocean shower while Jill and Andra did backflips off the bow.
Dinner ended with going around sharing our appreciation of the day and answering the squeeze question, where I, the Skipper, asked everyone if they would rather be a cowboy, a pirate, or a samurai. It was no shock that many of us said that we would be pirates after the 80-day students had a Marine Bio lecture before preparing for anchor watch later in the evening.
The first week on Vela has been so much fun diving, learning to sail, and getting to know everyone on the boat. Everyone is playing cards now, so I must go- but we will be in contact soon! Just know that all of us are having a great time out here in Fiji, living our pirate lives.