Location: Moorings Base
Hello parents and others who love to read the Avizia Times, today was packed with many events and activities, so read on…
At 12:00 AM sharp, the meteor shower peaked. The whole boat stayed up to celebrate the beauty above us. Although I was able to see a few small shooting stars, as soon as I turned my head to grab a snack, the most astonishing shooting star screamed through the sky (apparently). The next morning was an early start for me. As today’s skipper, I would have to make my way to Beso Del Viento to discuss lucrative, top-secret information. Before anyone else, I had to eat breakfast alone to make it to the meeting. Soon after, my co-skipper Nat and I dinghyed over to Beso. Upon arriving, we saw four other pairs of skippers representing their boats, and the competitive aura set the tone for a serious meeting. We conversed about the upcoming race through the opening in Sandy’s Spit all the way through the passage between Thatch Island and Tortola (not even sure if those are the right names).
We tried to plan the route on a map to suddenly realize that we had the wrong map. We swiftly retrieved a new map and wrote numbers on small paper notes to decide our starting position for the race. With luck of the draw and intimidation tactics, I was able to secure Avizia with the number one spot (the most windward position and best for sailing). We then made our way back to our lovely Avizia and I spread the word of our good luck and our starting position. We began to set up our boat for the race when we heard a loud creaking sound and noticed that our main sheet wasn’t rising. We found that the main sheet was caught in one of the lazy jacks and that the reefing lines were all tangled. This mishap caused a 10-minute delay to the race. We motored to our starting position, and before we knew it, we were off! Seven of us were stationed by the jib sheet to unfurl it as fast as possible. With our boat’s combined strength and my skill at the helm, we were off to a good start. Highlander and our boat were the first to pull ahead in a fiercely contested race for first. Odessy, Shamwari, and Beso lagged behind us with their faulty sailing skills. In the end the race for first was still between us and Highlander. After being neck and neck with Highlander, they were able to scrape past us and win first place with an unfair advantage through their HUGE mainsail. Overall, we definitely outdid ourselves and totally destroyed the other boats which were similar to ours.
We then docked at West End to grab lunch. Our whole table had pizza except for Nate, who had a below-average fish sandwich. The pizza was 6/10, kinda sweet for some reason. After shopping at Arawak and getting snacks, all of AQ was summoned together by Big Boss Mike, who informed us of some scary news: a storm was brewing up, and it was headed for the BVI. That meant that we would have to motor to the Moorings base camp to dock for the night in case we got hit by the potential storm. The way there was an adventure through waves that were so high they peered over our bow. Taking advantage of the situation, Sophia, Kayla, Nate, Maddie, Grace, Nat, and I lay on netting up front to be almost drowned by the waves (in a fun way). We needed the day off, but having our second Mexican night and having our daily squeeze. In conclusion, Avizia had an action-packed day filled with fun and a bit of stress, but just like any other day, we moved on and looked forward to the next day and what it had to offer us.
Thank you parents and others for reading the Avizia Times, I hope I was able to catch you up on the happenings of our boat.
Till next time,
Ali