Location: Antigua
Hello, hello, this is Orly again! We started this day bright and early with some scrumptious cereal. We cherished our last moments with the AC on as we waited for Claire to go through customs. During this time, we all read our books until we had to leave Nelson’s dockyard in Antigua.
The first watch team consisted of Peyton, Evan, and myself. We helped put the sails up and jibed. During our three-hour watch, Claire introduced us to the wonderful, magical, and slightly weird phonetic alphabet used for the VHF. During our 12-hour sail to St. Barths, each watch team got to learn and attempt to memorize the alphabet. This, of course, led to everyone yelling out words to spell using the alphabet during dinner and dishy pit.
Towards the middle of our sail, we ended up being directly next to the Frenchie boat! This was super cool, and a couple of rock-paper-scissor games commenced (we lost). Peyton and I helmed during this, and we were constantly trying to stay at 327 degrees at all times. Ben was very adamant that 327 degrees, and exactly 327 degrees, was the best COG ever, which made helming quite entertaining.
Dinner was tortellini, and it was so good that Celeste ate it by the handful during the dishy pit. Sadie and Andrew cooked the glorious tortellini. Legend has it that tortellini tastes best while sailing on Different Drummer.
During the sail, we got to enjoy the awesome playlist Scarlett made, and at one point, the Moana soundtrack was put on the speakers. This was a very monumental moment for the Different Drummer boat since “How Far I’ll Go” is constantly sung by us. Speaking of singing, the dishy pit was full of it during this sail. The singing, as always, was spearheaded by Roman. The karaoke sesh spanned a multitude of genres and songs. Singers from Amy Winehouse to Sam Cooke were featured, and some creative mashups/originals were included as well.
Most of the sail was spent napping and chilling. We made a really good time with our sail and got into St. Barths by around 9. Mostly everybody was asleep by then, an unusual occurrence at 9:00 pm. The sail from Antigua to St Barth’s was smooth and enjoyable!
So long! (sierra-oscar lima-oscar-november-golf!)
-Orly T.