Location: Young Island, St Vincent
Welcome back to your daily dose of life aboard Ocean Star! As always, when I’m skipper, I like to wake up everyone with some of my favorite Australian music, typically with a very relaxed tempo. My choice for the day was by the Australian hip hop band Hilltop Hoods – Won’t Let You Down. Now I know what your thinking; hip hop doesn’t sound particularly relaxing, but this is the Restrung version that was recreated with an orchestra.
Usually, by the time I get down to the Salon in order to wake everyone up, a lot of people are already milling about, including the chefs. Today it was so quiet. Turns out the Chefs had already prepared breakfast the night before, a wonderful, berry-filled Oatmeal Bake. Produced by our awesome galley crew for the day featuring Meg as Head Chef and backed up by Henry and Johnny as Sous Chefs. Another reason the boat was so quiet this morning was Brahm had organized for a small group to go to a nearby rocky island for a sunrise hike, so Celia, Julian, Keaton, and Addisen came back to Ocean Star along with Brahm, beaming from that sunrise glow.
Straight after breakfast, the group dived (figuratively) into an Oceanography class with Sam that focused on tides and their creation by the sun and moon, along with other interesting facts that would take me too long to type because I’m slow. Then some of the group dived (literally) into the Ocean for our morning Scuba dive. Liam and I jumped in so that we could complete Liam’s Navigation and Peak Performance Buoyancy components, he’s now only got one more dive to go, and he’ll be an advanced diver! Grady and Julian also went for a dive, navigating the site by themselves and stumbling across a huge lobster. Everyone else was either studying for the Marine Biology exam or napping.
Meg and the galley crew then dazzled us with Mexican burrito bowls for lunch whilst Steve, our captain, went to customs to clear us out, ready for our passage to St Lucia tonight. For the arvo (Australian for afternoon), the crew had their Marine Biology exam followed by more diving! This time Meg and Erin jumped in to start collecting data for their research project on Christmas Tree Worms, and Henry tagged along for the ride. Addisen, Julian, Max, Keaton, Liam, and Noah went snorkeling on the nearby reef. Addisen, who is standing next to me as I write this and commenting how ‘hilarious’ it is to watch me type, would like you all to know that she can touch the bottom. The bottom of the ocean, to be clear, which is a whopping 8.7 meters (around 29 feet), a new PB. I’m looking forward to writing on my next blog about how she reached her goal of 15m.
Once everyone was back from their arvo adventures, Brahm got everyone going on passage prep. The whole crew worked to get Ocean Star ready for our overnight trip to Saint Lucia whilst the galley crew prepped dinner. Passage prep involved getting the sails ready and lashing down any loose items on deck and down below. I know for a fact that Addisen had a great time lashing down some benches in the salon where she created a pyramid scheme getting Erin, who got Keaton, who got Meg, who got me where I then passed it back to Meg. Nevertheless, the benches got lashed by someone.
Dinner was an impressive spread of bbq chicken, cornbread, corn dogs, and veggie burgers plus honey. And our squeeze question for the evening was, “if the person to your right was an action figure, what accessories would they come with?” There were some fantastic answers like Max would come with a giant, endless roll of dental floss, Keaton would come with a cheese hat and a miniature action figure of Addisen, and Steve with his classic fire ax, to name a few.
Now the crew is waiting and preparing mentally for our passage when we throw off the mooring lines at 20:30 tonight and sail our way to new adventures.
Fin.
1. Sunrise crew (minus Addisen)
2. Celia and Keaton on Walk Up Rock
3. Julian
4. The Sunrise crew
5. Addisen
6. Meg cheffing
7. Johnny cheffing
8. Henry booming
9. The crew studying
10. Hauling on the handy-billy
11. Henry and Liam prepping the main sheet
12. Grady in the Laz putting the dive kit away
13. Max and Johnny prepping the mainsail
14. Liam prepping the main sheet
15. Meg, our wonderful head chef