Location: West End, Tortola

Today, we woke up at 7, and Stich and I dinghied over to Sea Breeze (Mike Boat) for the skippers’ meeting for race day. At the meeting, we covered the race course as well as what to do to get our boats excited for race day. After getting back on board Graytful, I wasted no time assigning racing roles: Alexis and Ty were our hype squad to get everyone excited with music and dancing. Annika was in charge of lines, with everyone behind her following her orders. Right before we slipped the mooring ball, Kiki, Macy, Annika, and Madeline raised our mainsail. Ruby helmed us to the starting line where I took over for the first half of the race! Once I took over, we lined up in our position, and then we got the countdown to start! And we were off. The start of the race was looking good for Graytful. We took an early 3rd lead, and with Micah and August trimming the sails, we quickly got that 3rd down to 2nd. For the first half of the race we were keeping a solid 2nd place with a few close calls here and there. Right before our Tack around the Road Town channel marker, Highlander, another 50′ Catamaran, decided to cut upwind of us, and no matter what we did, there was no stopping them. Highlander cut in front of us and took our 2nd place position. We tacked around the marker, and Ruby took over the helm shortly after. Still several close calls but unfortunately we weren’t able to takeover highlander again, finally we crossed the finish line with 3rd place. After the race, we began motoring back to West End for the last time.

While we motored back we began boat appreciation which is just a deep clean of the entire boat, every surface of the boat has the be spotless. After a few hours of cleaning we made it back to West End and got the boat back on the dock. Amelia, August, Milo, and Micah went to get lunch, and when they got back, we finished boat appreciation with a thorough scrub of Graytful’s exterior. Afterward, we made some calls home and had a hangout session on the boat. Later that evening we headed to Omars for our final Barbecue, everyone had a great time and had lots of fun. Finally, to finish off the night, we listened to Mike’s goodbye speech and headed back to the boat to prepare for our departures in the morning. It’s crazy to think that just 20 days ago, we were here on the dock preparing for our amazing adventure, and now it’s coming to a close. We’re all excited to see our family and friends but sad to leave West End, AQ, and the friends we’ve made here along the way.

Scott