Location: Marina Cay
Another early start for our outside sleepers as a squall rushed through and woke up the majority of the boat. I am told that “rain” is a soft word and that “hurricane” is more accurate, but I slept inside and cannot account for the truth behind this statement. We ate a scrumptious breakfast of cereal and COLD milk (thank you, chefs) before leaving Mountain Point and motoring over to the Dogs, where we would spend the majority of our day. We made some friendship bracelets and Turks Heads which demonstrated Gabe and Sivonne’s artistic skills. Open Water divers absolutely CRUSHED their certification tests, and everyone participated in a riveting Sail Chat about colregs (collision regulations). Lunch, prepared by a giggly Daisy and Zac, was extremely edible mac and cheese that we finished/washed away the taste of with some Nutella concoctions. Millie made a fat stack of Nutella and Pbandj sandwiches for our lunch guest Tyler. Lochlan, this day’s steward, cleaned the galley until it was sparkling clean. Disaster then struck in the form of a last-minute dinghy appearance that announced we were about to dive. We spent five chaotic minutes gathering our gear before heading to the dive boat and kitting up. I am quite disappointed that we couldn’t dive at the shark planes due to some undesirable conditions, but now it has joined my dive spot bucket list. Advanced Divers performed their double fish ID dives, and Open Water divers performed their first fun dive in a spectacular spot. On my fish ID dive, I saw a spotted drumfish, two different lionfish, and a spotted moray eel, the latter of which was number four on my Animals To Be Seen At AQ 2023 list. Zac and Sophia were fish ID-er legends and filled their slate with an abundance of marine life. Ava H (Thing 1) is an environmental goddess who rescued an unspecified object from the sea floor. Unfortunately, our lovely shippie Imogen could not equalize and was unable to perform the dive, but she hung out on the surface with our Nomada buddies. We dinghied back to Friend Ship and had a lovely motor over to Marina Cay, passed by napping, Sierra making her way through another book, and chatting in the cockpit about the dive.
The chefs made some spectacular chili and rice while we were underway, which we promptly devoured. We had some scary showers where we dodged some jellies, then our washers carried out a Dishy Pit, which Liam REALLY enjoyed. Afterward, we sat down for a lifeworks session, where we bared our souls, and approximately 20+ tears were shed. Bless Millie and Daisy for baking us some FIRE brownies to soothe our emotions. Garrett’s very nice good friend Arden joined us for a gossip sesh. THANK YOU, ARDEN, for the tea. Voice update: the ruthless teasing was resumed in the morning when I could barely force out a whisper. However, the evening has rolled around, and I am mostly audible (my cheering at Boat Olympics may have gone too far). We all miss the folks at home (Navales fam hope you’re having so much fun!), but the Friend Ship fam has never been tighter. I leave you now with DJ Tony G’s quote of the day 🙂 “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming ‘Wow! What a ride’.”