Location: Cane Garden Bay, Tortola
Day 14 began with an early morning drive back to Muskmelon Bay with me driving the boat. The drive was a very relaxing way to begin our half-rotation day. Once we arrived back at Muskmelon, we rafted with the staff boat so that everyone could do boom swings for the whole morning. We rushed to finish our oatmeal and cereal before heading over to the dive boat for our final open water dive! After this dive, we would be officially scuba certified. Evan, Lyla, Thomas, and their dive instructor Izzie were the first group to enter the water, ready to dive. Aidan was on his way in the dinghy to join them for the dive, so they were the last to descend. After descending to 60 feet, Hays, Stella, and Kate did some crazy backflips at the bottom and fought their instructor Ian, who was using his fins as a ninja tool. On our dive, Kellen and I saw a little fish riding a sting ray like a horse, and Meredith claims to have seen a massive Lionfish on her dive with Beth. We also recovered a lost cup and fork, likely thrown overboard by Beso Del Viento. Kellen and I were the first in our fleet to become officially scuba certified!
Garrison made sure to call out to tell everyone on the radio. Once everyone had surfaced, we were shuttled back to Shamwari to boom swing with Avizia and Beso Del Viento. Aidan did his first boom swing back flip – but it was all back and no flip. Stella gave Aidan a henna tattoo of the sun to match the rest of the girls – she also shared her henna with the girls on Beso Del Viento. After getting my second backflip of the trip – with the wonderful encouragement of my boatmates, Hays, Lyla, Drew, and I went out with Aidan to kneeboard and wakeboard. The rest of the boat stayed back to read – which according to Matthew, makes you lose brain cells. Hays was the first to brave to water with the goal of achieving 30 360s in one run. The most he got was 13, but in total, he got over 30. Inspired by Hays, I set the goal of achieving a single 360 because my previous tries had ended with an unhealthy amount of water up my nose. Thanks to Aidan’s incredible driving skills and my own determination, I got five 360s in a row. The water was pretty crazy today, and I was being launched across to wake and catch air. Lyla was next on the kneeboard, and she absolutely shredded. We couldn’t stop laughing because she was giggling the entire time.
Hays also got up on the wakeboard once we all finished. Back at Shamwari, we were met with the delicious smell of chicken quesadillas wafting from the kitchen. Before preparing to sail to our next location, we enjoyed our quesadillas and lime tortilla chips on the bow of the boat. After eating, we headed for Cane Garden Bay. Drew lifted the jib all by herself with her crazy strong arm muscles. What we thought would be a relaxing sail soon turned into the craziest rainstorm we’ve seen yet. Most of the boat was down below when Aidan and Beth spotted dark clouds rolling in over the islands. Drew, Matthew, Kate, Hays, and I quickly put on our rain jackets and PFDs and went up to the helm. It started as a light rain but turned into pelts of rain that were very painful but even more fun. We needed to take in the jib fast because it was getting super windy. Although we had just showered, Hays, Matthew, Drew, and I gladly offered to reel the jib back in. Even though we were pulling as hard as possible, we couldn’t make it budge. It started whipping in the wind until we were able to pull it in. After that, it started to lightning, so we were told to go back below the hard top and to not touch any metal. Aidan was more scared of the metal than anyone else. We were all soaking wet, and it looked like we had just gotten out of the water. The storm calmed down just as we arrived, and we were able to dock at port to fill up on water and Sprite (Matthew bought an entire 35-pack of Sprite, which should hold us over for the next few days). We drank our room temperature Sprites and put our anchor down. We enjoyed a calm afternoon of reading, nail painting, and many rounds of MASH to predict everyone’s future. After our games, we concluded the night with Thai curry for dinner and arguably the prettiest sunset yet.