Location: Mountain Point, Virgin Gorda
We started the day with a delicious oatmeal breakfast prepared by one of our teachers, Joey and Breccan. Soon after our dishy pit, manned by Mengmei, Oon, Sophie, Emme, and Malika, we set off on our very first rotation day! Our boat went first in Scuba Diving, as we are the Scuba Diving Boat. Though it was only a learning dive, we still had an amazing time and saw many cool sights. A few of those include a stingray, a barracuda, and a flounder! During our lesson, we had to move around in groups to: hover above the water for one minute; which Luke from Pirate Song helped us with; move through a hula hoop underwater with Grace, and the weight game, in which we had to knock a weight down in the sand with only our regulator (mouthpiece) and without our fins touching the sand, which Amanda aided us in. I personally thought the weight game was particularly difficult. All of these exercises were directed toward improving buoyancy. Afterward, our boat went to Glad To Be Here to waterski! A little later, we returned to our own boat to find that Amanda had prepared a tasty chicken salad meal with bread for lunch! Next, the Hope crew set out to Pirate Song to paddleboard. After making it to the beach and back, Pierce, Brian, Blake, and Mengmei jumped from paddleboard to paddleboard, trying to avoid falling into the water, which contained a few stray jellyfish that they attempted to avoid.
Following that, we returned to our own boat to learn some knots with Joey and Aden, who are from Pirate Song! We learned the Figure Eight with ease, then they taught us the Bowline, which Joey compared to running a marathon after just running a mile. Soon, we split into two groups to learn to tie fenders with the Clove Hitch, the Cleat Hitch to attach ropes to cleats, and how to toss the rope, where Brian almost tossed one overboard! Afterward, Mengmei, Emme, and I, as well as Brian, Breccan, Pierce, and Blake, went swimming before shower time. Following shower time, we had a rice and chili dinner, and everyone answered the squeeze question of what animal they would want to be. For example, Oey said a butterfly, and Izzy said a cheetah! That ends our day 4 at ActionQuest!