Written by Sloan Vr., Student On She’s The Captain
Today was challenge day, a day where the captains and mates give control of the boat to the kids, hoping to successfully run the boat for a whole day. The fleet sailed from the lowest island in the BVIs, Anegada, to one of the highest ones, called Mountain Point. We woke up bright and early at 7:00 AM, and the breakfast prep crew, Reece and Jan, began making French toast, amongst other things, which is always a nice breakfast. Then the captain, along with the navigator today, Rauphie, and Juliet, dinghied over to staff boat, where they received the nav briefing.
Then, after a prompt breakfast clean-up and PDCs, we were underway. After raising our sails, we had a nice three-hour sail south, with good winds and waves I like to call “fun size,” rocking our boat. Once we dropped our sails, we anchored in the bay of Mountain Point, and the chefs, Sloan and Liv, began lunch prep on meatballs, marinara sauce, rolls, and other additions.
At noon, the dive boat arrived, the divers dinghied over, and we began the first dive. The first dive site was a very interesting shipwreck called the Kodiak Queen, with tons of reef life bustling all throughout it. While under, I worked on underwater navigation using a compass, then got to explore the wreck. After surfacing, we made the short trip over to the second dive site, West Seal Dog, a beautiful reef with loads of interesting features. While some dive teams got to see baby sharks and octopuses, I, however, was lucky enough to see not one but two sea slugs (basically massive caterpillars underwater), which really wasn’t what I was hoping or expecting to see, but I guess I can check that off my list of things to see. While this was happening, the rest of Mega Fleet got to have an hour of shore time on the beach.
After both the beach and diving concluded, we were shuttled back to the boats. A fun activity that happens almost every day, towards the end, is water sports, which involves tubing off the back of the RIBs. And it was awesome! To conclude the day, we had a relaxing dinner of Chipotle-style food, prepared by Maya and Rauphie. We got to watch the sunset, which soothingly set over a small island.
