Location: St. Pierre, Martinique
Today marked the halfway point in our grand voyage. It started at different times for the crew of Ocean Star, as we had a night passage starting in St. Lucia and ending in Martinique. It was a beautiful, calm night for sailing. The moon was bright, the sky was cloudless, and the sea was calm with a nice breeze. Starting with watch team one, we had three-hour long watch shifts before switching teams and arriving during watch team three’s shift. They handled the sail and anchor drop while the other teams rested for a day in Martinique. We were given an extra thirty minutes of sleep this morning before having a delicious breakfast. Following breakfast, we broke into an extensive boat appreciation, where we got our home looking clean and beautiful. Boat appreciation took most of the morning, finishing thirty minutes before lunch. After lunch, we went ashore to participate in student leadership development challenges. In this challenge, we were tasked with forming a circle, grabbing the hands of two people across from us, and then untangling ourselves. It seemed like an easy task at first, but if one person broke hands in the circle, we were asked to restart. So what seemed like it would be finished in a short time ended up taking two and a half hours. In the end, we got almost everyone undone but were outsmarted by the knots we tied ourselves. Time became the limiting factor in our challenge, and we had to stop without ever completely untying ourselves.
Although, at times, it was frustrating, we still tried and listened to one another until our time was up. After the challenge, we were given time to either go to shore or go back and study for our MTE exam we have tonight. Almost every student took the opportunity to study, with four of us electing to explore the town. Dinner tonight was a delicious Tristcuit breaded chicken and rice cooked by first mate Nick McGinty. Now is the time to take our MTE quiz, where we will be testing for our International Crew Certificates. Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, everyone aboard Ocean Star will have this certification. With 40 days down, we are looking forward to 40 more.