Mega 2 Fleet! Day 14
Written by Sean C., Mate On Unsinkable II
The morning started partly cloudy, but opened up into very sunny skies. Winds were relatively light, as low as 5 to 10 knots for parts of our sail, but still gusting up to 15 knots.
Today started with our earliest wakeup yet. By 5 am the staff had dropped the ball, and was on the way to our first stop of the day, Virgin Gorda Yacht Club. Upon anchoring, the kids downed some cereal for breakfast and were immediately shuttled to the shore where taxis awaited them. Delightedly surprised by Sweet Ice Willi (the taxi), some of the kids had singalongs in the backseat! After a short ride we arrived at the Baths, a legendary Sail Caribbean hike. After we finished walking around the batholithic rocks, we returned to the boats (via Sweet Ice Willi), and up anchored, ready for our next destination of the day.
And to boatos….
We prepared our boat for a sail from Virgin Gorda Yacht Club to the Moorings Marina on Tortola, our home base and where we started our adventure. After we up anchored for the second time of the day, we also prepared our divers to head off on the first dive of the day. By 12:30 they were off, getting shuttled to the dive location via RIB.
For those not diving, we started docking at 1pm at the Moorings Marina, concluding our sailing for the day. By 2pm we began our shore rotations at Moorings, including pool time, a pizza restaurant, a coffee shop, and a market. We had about 45 minutes of shore time for the kids to explore the marina, and then we began a truck tour. The truck tour was amazing, and is a staple of the Sail Caribbean experience. The kids were taken all over Tortola, able to look at the surrounding islands that we had just sailed from! As they arrived back from the tour, our staff was finishing provisions for the boats, fresh food for the last 6 days of the program.
Foxtrot and Sierra students got a chance to see the amazing eco park on Tortola.
Once our provisions were stowed, we began our boat clean. Deep cleans are important to do every few days to keep the boat spiffy, so this was a longer clean. As soon as we finished, we got started on dinner: Alfredo pasta with bacon.
Our dinner chefs today really impressed me, and the pasta was delicious. Soon after we finished the dinner clean, we prepared to send our divers off a second time, this time for the night dive. This dive was a very exciting one, where many night adaptations were observed. For example, students noted the parrot fish in a unique sleeping habitat, surrounded by a bubble of its own saliva! While the divers were gone, the rest of the kids began watching a movie on land: Turbo. By the time the movie was ending, the divers were returning from the dive, and everyone was exhausted. Today was definitely one of our longest days on program, but it was also one of the most fun.
