Location: The ocean
Today started bright and early, around 5:15, to start our sail to Saba. The first watch team consisted of me, Scarlett, and Roman. The early wake-up was worth it because we got to see a beautiful sunrise, which put a smile on all of our faces. While everyone else was sleeping, watch team one put the sails up and get us out of the BVIs. Soon it was time for our first boat check of the day. This is when one person goes down and plots our position and makes sure all parts of the boat are okay. This would be the simplest boat check of the day because the sea state was still calm.
Around 7 am, more people started to get up, and Scarlett cheffed up some amazing cinnamon bagels. After about an hour of calm, things started to take a turn. Everywhere you turned, people were either seasick or out for the count sleeping. Watch team one was relieved to go sleep by watch team two. Watch team two consisted of Evan, Peyton, and Orly. This watch team started off strong, but Peyton fell victim to the sea. The sea state changed from calm to slight, and it stayed that way for the rest of the day. As time went on, more people from watch team two went down, and soon, it would be time for watch team three to take control. The people in watch team three were Sadie, Will, Andrew, and Rina. Andrew took the helm for about 5 minutes until he also fell victim to the sea for the rest of the day. When not on watch, most people were dead asleep or up by the helm, chilling out with the watch team. I personally had a nice six-hour nap (thank you, Dramamine). During watch team three’s watch, it was also time for lunch. For some people, the sound of food made them go to the side of the boat, and for others, it sounded amazing. The process of trying to make a PB & J’s was a difficult one. Every time a wave hit the side of the boat, things went sliding all over the table, and people had to brace themselves, for the people that were seasick or borderline seasick lived off of saltines for the day.
As the day went on, watch teams became. Whoever was healthy was up and helping out. The time passed by quickly and soon it was time for dinner. Shoutout to Sadie for cooking dinner alone due to being one of the only ones not seasick and not on watch. Dinner was beef-less beef stroganoff and garlic bread which was really good for the people that weren’t sick. As clean-up from dinner was happening, Evan and I saw land for the first time. It was a minor outline, but it got everyone excited. Evan and I were largely the ones on the helm, and Peyton was helping when she felt well.
As we made it closer to land, we put the sails down and got ready to moor. Peyton, Evan, and I were put on the mooring team. This was probably the hardest job of the day, which is saying a lot. Trying to moor in the dark with a lackluster headlamp, or a “torch,” as Ben would say, was not an easy job. After about 20 minutes of searching around a mooring field for a ball, we finally found one. As we pulled up to it, we saw that it was red. This was very disappointing because a red mooring ball meant that we couldn’t moor there because it was a dive boat one. So we were back at square one with no mooring ball and a bunch of tired people. Around 25 more minutes we found a different ball! We were so happy and just hoping that it was the right color. Evan got us hooked onto the ball but all of us got scared because we couldn’t find the “eye” of the ball where we hook our lines onto. Luckily, it was just a weird setup, and the eye was in a different place than it normally would be. We finally got tied off and got to take off our PFDs for the first time all day. It was around 9 pm when we finally got moored, and everyone was exhausted. Thankfully, we all got gifted the most amazing gift of down below showers. After showers, most people passed out and went to bed after a long day of sailing. For the most part, it was a good day, minus the epidemic of seasickness.