Location: Sandy Spit, Green Cay
Every day, we wake up thankful to be here, but today is especially so. We were gifted with a late rising of 7:30, a stark contrast to our typical militant awakening earlier than 7. Adding to the amazing start, our staff were away for a staff meeting, and Claire and Nadiya had prepared a delicacy: french toast! After finishing breakfast, we gathered for some much-needed group decompression time due to last night’s barbecue. Despite our unproductive lazing, a series of unfortunate events occurred: first, Sariah lifted one of the leaflets off the table, knocking my two-liter water bottle off and displacing its contents all across the room, disrupting Claire and Julias’s deeply competitive game of war. Houston was the chief steward, but he refused o clean that was caused by neither his action nor his property. Sariah was henceforth left to eradicate the spillage lonesome. This gave Julia the motivation as headmaster to deep clean both of the girl’s heads. After said fiasco, Gary, Will, and Megan returned. We were forced to reverse the lethargic energy that had permeated through our morning and set sail to take our practical sailing test. We began with mooring drills, and I was first up. Normally a sailors friend and companion is the wind, however while mooring it becomes his greatest adversary. The wind and current joined forces to ensure that the bow of the ship remained careening every way but which i was directing it to go. Despite the struggle, I persevered, and we were successfully able to moor. Claire, Houston, and Noah all faced similar predicaments, however Claire fared better than the rest. After the mooring drills, we moved on to sailing; B, Claire, Celeste, Houston, and Noah all were at the helm. As we tacked, I helped sheet out the jib and move to switch the working and lazy sheets along with Nadiya, Ella, Julia, and Sadie. While we were underway we ate a chaotic lunch of chicken wraps, we were rushed to eat, as the bow moved through the waves, throwing as about the ship as though we were rag dolls. After finishing, we continued with our tacking escapades, but the cracks in our energy were clearly showing, as many people were napping due to the previous day’s excruciating hike. This included Celeste lying down with polarized sunglasses on while Gary constantly held up their fingers for her to count to ensure she was not asleep. As we finally finished sailing, we were informed – to our shock – that it had actually been a test. Although we were aghast and blindsided, we pushed onwards; Noah and Celeste closed us out by anchoring us perfectly, with help from Maren, Sariah, and Julia. We were scheduled to frolic on the lonesome dune of Sandy Spit, but due to our somewhat late arrival, we were once again confined to our vessel. No one was unhappy; in fact, due to our being exhausted and the already overwhelming amount of sand on the ships, we were all relieved that we didn’t have much more activity for the rest of the day. Because we are refilling our freshwater reserves tomorrow, we’re allowed to take freshwater showers. After our first real shower in a few weeks, we ended the day as it began by laying around and relaxing. We feasted on a hearty dinner of Franks and beans with a side of cornbread. After dinner, we had a sail chat. Will taught the final parts of beginning sailing to the Vega students, and Garrett came to our boat to teach the final lesson to the advanced sailors. We ended the night in good spirits and mostly recuperated from the prior day’s hike.