Location: Nevis
Today was a day packed full of adventure in Nevis, the 5th island we’ve visited on our voyage. Our day started with an incredible breakfast: avocado toast topped with fried eggs and onions. Following this delicious meal was cleanup, and then the first group’s turn to head out to shore by dinghy. Once on land, they met with their taxi, which took them to a ranch where they were paired up with a horse they would be riding. The horse group, consisting of Avi, Ignacio, Dominic, Camille, Will, Camilla, and Madeleine, rode their horses on a short tour through the island, where they eventually found themselves on a beach. Will and Ignacio found themselves calf-deep in water when their horses decided to take a little swim, before coming back to land. While the horse group was on their little adventure, the second group took their trip on the dinghy to land, where they met up with their guide, who, instead of horses, took bikes on a wheeled rather than legged tour of the island. The bike group, consisting of Ollie, Marrie, Gigi, and Zoe, visited Alexander Hamilton’s house, stopped for sodas, picked mangoes, and jumped on a floating water trampoline before meeting back up with the horse group for lunch at the beachfront centre, where both groups competed in a selection of water-based competitions. These challenges, like a 100m freestyle swim and 50m backstroke swim, among others, gave us a chance to not only compete against each other in a friendly, fun manner, but also against island locals, one of whom was an Olympic swimmer in the 2024 Paris Olympics when he was 15. Multiple members of the Seamester group earned medals; however, none were able to best or even come close to the Olympian, who cleared in all categories, not without challenge from our group, though. Multiple of our group’s participants were able to earn podium placements with this Olympic swimmer, who was only 16. After a day of swimming, island tours, enjoying local food, drinks, and music, the day ended with a gorgeous sunset, a delicious Japanese dinner made by Captain Gabe, and our regular boat chores, before we took our VHF radio quiz and went to sleep. Tomorrow will be more adventures on shore, our last dive for the non-certified members before they get advanced open water dive certified, and a nighttime celebration of the local 2-week party called carnival.