Location: Nevis
We woke up this morning after a good night’s sleep, refreshed from our tough hike the day before. We made a quick breakfast of cereal so we could get to the activities of the day: diving and shore time. I took Mark, Aiden, and Ari to the dive shop while the rest of the crew, Nicholas, Theo, and Ian, headed to explore the Dutch Caribbean island of St. Eustatius. The dive sight was a beautiful collection of artificial reefs in Statia’s marine national park. We descended the mooring line down to a sunken barge to begin our exploration. We saw puffers and trunkfish, and Ari even pointed out a stingray. The reef was made up of different pieces of boats that had been donated to the island in order to create a fish habitat. In addition to the barge, there was a sunken tug boat and the hull section of a container ship. After about 40 minutes of bottom time, we ascended and headed back to the island.
Meanwhile, our other shipmates were getting to explore the town of Oranjestad. After a quick provisioning stop, Theo, Ian, and Nicholas headed to a newly opened Café to get lunch. While there, they chatted with the owner, a man from Florida who had recently moved to Statia to open a gym and restaurant. Once the shore party was done with lunch and the divers returned to shore, we headed back to MaryLee to prepare for a passage to Nevis.
Mark was at the helm as we pulled out of our anchorage and began to raise our sails. Nevis was a mostly up-wind sail, so after getting our main up, we fell off to close-haul and began our roughly 30 nautical mile sail to our anchorage for the next few days. On the sail-up, we took turns napping, snacking, and getting helm time. We pulled into Nevis and were greeted by Ocean Star, the twin-masted schooner used by our college program Seamester. The students took ocean showers and played in the water while Margaux and I started getting dinner ready. After a tasty dinner of rice and chili, we settled down for a chill night so we could rest up for a busy day tomorrow, where we would split up to either bike, kayak, or horseback ride.