Alpha 1 2015 – Day 11

written by mate, Alex Armson, Brought to you by the crew of Xeres

Today, Matt was our skipper, Dean was his navigator and Betsy was the ship’s mate. We planned our course from Bitter End to the beach at Long Bay on Beef Island. It was another windy day with big rolling waves, so we reefed our mainsail once. The sail wasn’t too long, only taking a couple of hours, but we got to practice our downwind sailing, anchoring and man over board.

When we arrived at Long Bay, we had lunch then went to shore. Dean, Drew, Aidan and Oliver got to go on the poparazzi before the Olympic Games between Xeres and Venture began. There were four events to compete in. The first was synchronized swimming which Betsy choreographed. The second was a bury-your-captain competition, which you had to incorporate sand art into. We made Kevin into a giant leprechaun with a pot of gold, which Kenzie, Katie and Hazel designed. Next was the tug of war contest and finally was a relay race where you had to run up to a fender wearing a mask, snorkel and fins, spin with your head on the fender five times then make it back to your team. Needless to say, we were all pretty dizzy afterwards.

After, we had a great BBQ on the beach with hot dogs, burgers, watermelon and corn on the cob. There was then a huge fleet-wide boat meeting where we played lots of team building games like the magic carpet, where you try to flip the magic carpet with everyone still standing on it. It was a really great day on the beach. Today, our crew did a great job of practicing man over board, but we need to work on communication. Our miracle moment was when we didn’t have to clean up after dinner!

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