Location: Road Harbor, Tortola
Hey guys !!
Today was wild. We all woke up in the villa after a fun, stormy night. Although we didn’t have power or running water, we all were happy to be in such a cool villa altogether. After some phone time to call you guys, we gathered around the table, family-style, and had some breakfast. We ate some awesome cereal, which Logan struggled with keeping in his paper bowl. Then, we began working on (polishing up) our emergency action plans and finishing our certifying paperwork for the rescue course. With the power out, we decided to play a fun game Lindsay introduced us to called the 30-second game. It’s basically charades but different ways of guessing the word each round: describing one word and acting it out. While playing, we got the best surprise ever; our neighbor in the villa brought us fresh pancakes and syrup for breakfast and some hot water for us. I can safely say that it was one of the yummiest, nicest, and comforting surprises we could have gotten.
We munched on the warm, buttery pancakes while playing the 30-second game and the mafia game, too. After the games and food, we headed down to the beach and walked around for a while. We climbed on rocks, played with crabs, splashed in the water, and enjoyed the fresh air after hunkering down last night during the storm. Before heading back to the villa, Gene hosted a mini Olympics for some of us. Liam, Avi, Daniela, Yeya, Aria, Charly, and I competed in a 50-yard dash, long jump, and endurance challenge; Avi won the sprint and jump, however yours truly won the endurance challenge🕺. We got back to the villa and ate before starting up some more mafia. We then chilled for a while, some of us read, some of us hung out. Gene, Lindsay, Logan, Liam, and I decided to play some poker to pass the time before the taxis came to pick us up to go back to Aloha/the boat.
Just before 7:00, we finally got back to the boat!! YAY! We all were so happy to see Ri again and be back home. We also were quite thrilled about having running water and power again (showers tonight were restorative, to say the least). We now just munched on some scrumptious franks and beans that Ri made for us and then squeezed. My question today was, “What is one thing about AQ that you don’t particularly love but will miss so much?” A special part about AQ is that it challenges you mentally and physically; even though sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to, like be a saltwater washer in the dish pit, you eventually grow to miss those moments with all of your heart. Finally, we wrapped up with a round of mafia to end tonight’s squeeze before heading into cleanup and writing our cards tonight. Overall, the past day has been awesome and a special experience that we all feel grateful to have experienced altogether. 🙂
Goodnight, and see you all soon!
Love you, Mom and Dad!