Location: St Barts
Today, we woke to a nice, intricately made breakfast of cereal served by Orly and Scarlett. After we ate breakfast, we all slowly got ready for the day and our activity of the day, which was surfing!!! Before we could head to shore for surfing, we had to dock. We all prepared to dock, and once we saw that we were docking next to a giant superyacht, Roman decided it was his time to shine and ask for snacks. Sadly, they politely denied that they had any snacks, which most of us didn’t believe, but we moved.
Around 9, it was time to head out and find our taxi that would take us and Frenchie to the beach, where we would be learning how to surf. As we had our 20-minute taxi over, we saw different parts of St. Barths, including the infamous Nikki Beach. Once we all arrived at the beach, we had about 45 minutes of chill time. Some people tanned and swam, and others went on a beach walk.
After some chill time, it was time for a group demonstration of the basics of surfing. This was done in the sand, so as you can imagine, there was sand everywhere. Once the instructor signed off on our basic form it was time for group one to start their session. Group one consisted of Sadie, Scarlett, Peyton, Evan, and Roman. During their session, everyone managed to catch a wave! While group one was surfing, the rest of us went to this French bakery down the road. We all ate some delicious food and enjoyed it in some nice air conditioning which is a luxury to us. We also got some baked goods, which consisted of some amazing tiramisu, beignet, and chocolate eclairs.
Soon, it was time for the groups to switch. It was now group two’s turn to shred some waves. We got our boards and headed out into the ocean with only a little bit of worry. Once we got out there, the instructors gave us one last demonstration and pushed us off. We all managed to get up and catch our first wave! The thing about catching a wave is that, unfortunately, you have to get back out. This is not as easy as it sounds. A majority of us took the hard way of swimming through the waves (this is the part when the waves ripped us) instead of just swimming around the reef and taking a long way. During the treacherous paddle back out to sea, I looked up and saw Andrew on this nice wave. Unfortunately, Andrew was also headed right for me. Naturally, I jumped off my board and hoped for the best. Minimum damage was done, and we both got a laugh. This was also not the last time this happened. While we were surfing and getting pummeled by waves, Will enjoyed some quiet time on the beach to himself. During group two’s surf session, group one enjoyed some insanely good burgers. After group two was done surfing and group one was done eating lunch, we came back together and started our shuttles back to the marina where we had come from.
Once we got back to the marina, we had about two hours of shore time. During this time, we all visited the stores we couldn’t visit the day before. Apparently, people here have a work-life balance and close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, which was highly inconvenient. So, around four people did some last-minute shopping at those work-life balance stores and made some last-minute purchases. During this time, Orly met her other half, who was a kitten who had just been rescued. It took some work for us to pull Orly away from the kitten, but we managed to continue our missions.
At this point in the day, it was time for dinner. We had a nice treat of pizza for dinner, and it was a combined boat dinner, so everyone was on our boat, which is always entertaining and chaotic. The pizza was so good and a nice treat after a busy day. After dinner, we did a group squeeze, which ended with one of the boys from Frenchie being challenged to eat the last seven slices of pizza. During this challenge, we were told that we were going to go out and get ice cream from this one ice cream shop that had been hyped up all trip. Let me just say it lived up to the hype and was very good.
After our ice cream adventure, we headed back to the boats (being on the dock has its perks). Since we were on the dock, we all enjoyed a nice freshwater shower and some AC. Now, we are all recovering from the day and relaxing before we head to bed.
– Celeste