Written by Hannah S., Mate
Hello again readers, this is Hannah from Blueberry. First of all… what a day! Today the students successfully completed Challenge Day. Challenge Day is a Sail Caribbean tradition where campers get complete control over the boat with virtually no help from us counselors (they are only allowed to ask 3 questions as a whole).
But before we get to the sailing, let’s start with wakeups. The alarms went off at 7 a.m. Our skipper of the day, Leilani, along with the mate, Rowan, and navigator, Kenzie, then quickly got in the dinghy for a navigation briefing from staff boat. While that was happening, Lulu and Brynne prepped breakfast for the crew.
Stomachs full, the advanced open water and fun divers left us to go diving, and non-divers got to summit the Beef hike. Lulu, Silas, and Noah came back muddy but thrilled with the views the hike offered. As we all rejoined around noon, Challenge Day had officially started!
A delicious lunch of chicken Caesar wraps had us fueled for our sail. The campers started PDCs (pre-departure checks) and we were shortly dropping the mooring ball and underway. Our sail was around 2 hours from Marina Cay to Diamond Reef, Jost Van Dyke.
Leilani did an excellent job helming, which is no easy feat — a downwind sail with lots of weather helm. Each crew member did an excellent job and needed no guidance from us staff. Recently, our boat has enjoyed listening to podcasts on sails, so we banged out a few episodes during today’s sail.
Around 3:30, we dropped the sails to get ready to moor our boat. I had no worries since our crew is somewhat of mooring experts at this point. Engines and life jackets off, campers had completed the Challenge sail and were free to enjoy some time swimming in the crystal-clear blue waters and taking ocean showers.
Stella, our Italian chef, along with Leilani, cooked up an excellent spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. Around 7 p.m., campers got shuttled onshore for a soda social at Foxy’s. The boats all got to intermingle with one another and catch up!
As the days on program become fewer and fewer, everyone is opening up with one another, and we’re becoming one big Mega fleet family. Another successful day in the books.
