The Last Day!
Location: West End, Tortola
The last day of our AQ adventure was action-packed. We started the day at 6:30 with cereal and Brazilian music (thanks, Nesz). While my shipmates were cleaning up, Gabu and I attended the skipper's meeting, where we learned the course of today's final race. We then picked our positions out of a hat. As the second to last draw, we sadly started in 5th. We prepared for the race by motoring to the starting line and listening to our race day pump-up playlist. As we heard the countdown end over the radio, we raised our jib and took off. We watched as a gust of wind picked up the sails of the other seven boats and let them zoom ahead. Despite our constant adjustments, great helming, and overall hype mood, we were overtaken by all of the monohulls in the fleet. As the race continued, we began gaining on the 4th place boat, Shape Up. As we tried to beat them out by stealing their wind and using right-of-way rules, we were distracted by the eggs they began chucking at our beautiful boat. We collected our own supplies (stale bread and maple syrup, along with some old tomatoes) and tried to repay this favor, but sadly our throws fell short. Unfortunately, they gained speed and pulled ahead once again, leaving us in 5th place with a slightly broken ego and eggs splattered across the deck. The race went on, and we were passed once again, this time by a catamaran (shameful, I know). We ended up coming in 6th place. When the race ended, we promptly began to deep clean Breakaway. Some were assigned to clean the heads, others to scrub the deck, and more to sort through all of the food in the kitchen. Right as we finished our clean-up jobs, we pulled into the dock in West End, the same place we started this crazy journey. After some shore time with our phones, we got ready and headed over to our send of Barbecue.
We ate burgers, hotdogs, and Indian curries for our last dinner in the BVI. We ended the night with our final squeeze, where we shared our appreciation of the trip and decided what weather pattern/natural disaster/ landscape the person to our right would be (the question got a bit skewed if you couldn't tell). Overall, ActionQuest has been one of the craziest, funniest, and most action-packed adventures of my life, and I truly think it has changed me for the better. Thank you, AQ, for creating this amazing program that I had the privilege of participating in. Thank you, staff, for creating a welcoming and fun-filled space for us to thrive in. And most of all, thank you, parents, for letting your kids come here. They are all amazing people who I am so glad I got to meet.