Location: Grand Caymand
Jessie, wake up, you’re skipper, and everyone was supposed to be on deck already. As my mind kicked into gear, all I could think of was, you said what? However, it turns out that yes, not only was I a skipper, but I was also late. The early hands wake-up occurred slightly later than planned, but it was swift and effective. This translates to me walking around with a Nalgene of water, threatening to pour it on people’s heads if they don’t bounce out of bed. Even though we were running late, we had the sails up and were leaving the Caymans by 7:20. The wind was ripping past us, speeding us along at a solid 10 knots. The Florida Keys seemed like it would be here in no time. Until disaster struck, I was just kidding; it wasn’t disastrous. Mark took a spill in the galley and cut the back of his head. Once again, I was napping when someone came in to tell me Mark needed stitches, and we were tacking. And for the second time that day, my mind scrambles and only comes up with You said what? Although we do have the capabilities to treat this injury on board, we were so close to the Caymans that we flipped Argo around and returned. The six-hour sail ended where we began, but it was still a great time. The wind was perfect, the heel was intense, and the tacking was good practice. The rest of the afternoon was filled with diving while Mark went on shore to get stitches. We completed our last test for advanced open water certification, sunbathed, and worked on our papers. Dinner was prepared by our birthday girl, Ella, and ended with her favorite carrot cake (don’t worry, we didn’t make her bake her own cake). After a long day, we wrapped things up with the last of the PSCT presentations, a bit of hot tea, and some good conversation. I walk around telling everyone they will be up at 6:15 tomorrow, and someone looks at me and says You said what? It looks like we usually end up right back where we started.