Location: Mountain Point, Virgin Gorda
This eventful Friday was commenced with a melon and yogurt breakfast. The divemasters prepared the diving gear for today, while us rookies fought over the banana-cherry flavored yogurts that remained. Once breakfast was done, my boat started the day with a confined water dive in order to finally master the skills of taking various things off underwater and putting them back on. Have you ever seen someone take off their BCD, tank and all the other gadgets and put them back on 3 meters underwater? We all did, as well all took just about all of our diving gear off while under the sea! While down there we also admired the schools of minnows, which occasionally dodged the boat swinging above us. Several more gadgets, temperature drops and a stingray later, we onboard and heading to our next activity- navigation! Onboard Bella Vita my Vega-mates and I learned how to determine our coordinates without GPS. After that, we returned to our boat to indulge ourselves in grilled cheese sandwiches! After enjoying those, we continued with our day; racing on Picos! We had a small race: Josh, Liza, and Madeline vs. Pedro, Alonso, Adam, and I. Though a close race, at least in the first half, my team lost. We then just sailed freely, enjoying the tropical seas and winds. Alonso managed to dry roll a Pico, or flipping a capsized Pico without getting off/wet. I attempted to outdo him, only to end up completely turning the small boat over, losing the mast in the process. A staff-assisted fix later, we (Shannon, a staff member who along with Casey helped fix the Pico, and I) were safely afloat. Next was waterskiing. Shredding the clear waves on a board can be tough work, but Pedro made it look like a joke on his wakeboard. Adam refined his skills on the waterskies while Alonso tried his hand in wakeboarding, settling for knee boarding several crashes later. Eden happily viewed from the dinghies towing us as we cruised the pristine bay, admiring the coral reefs and colorful real estate ashore. Myself, I rediscovered my waterskiing “talent”, surviving a few turns on the fast dinghy aptly named Bolt. With the sun setting, we retreated to our boat, where the divemasters are now cleaning up the dive gear. Eden and Adam are cooking up chicken salad and corn, which Brandon will eat all of. The fly population aboard went from 20+ to zero in the past twenty minutes, thanks to Brandon and I. My fellow shipmates are relaxing on deck, and I’m signing off.