Location: Great Harbor, Peter Island
As the sun rose on the horizon, the sun beat down on the many other boats around Sand Cay, west of Jost Van Dyke. The crew of Avisia, including myself (Gavin), awoke from their slumber for a very suspenseful day ahead of them—the first sailing race of the AQ session. The breakfast for today started off with maple sugar, cinnamon, and spice, as well as apple and cinnamon-flavored oatmeal. After breakfast, the skipper of the day (Gavin) went over to the Beso Del Viento, another sailing vessel nearby, for the Skipper meeting to address the starting line and finishing line, and the rules of the race. At one point during the meeting, every skipper of the day from each boat came and pulled out a number from a bucket that would tell us what place we were assigned at the beginning of the race. With sheer luck, I was able to pick the first number, which would give us a huge lead compared to the other boats on the starting line. After returning to the boat, the race crew, consisting of Gavin, Jovian, Andrew, Cameron, Dawson, Holden, Katie, Pearl, Kennedy, Amaya, Kennedy, and Liliana, worked together to make the boat as light as possible, which involved taking everything off the rails of the boat and even using the paddle boards to make the boat more aerodynamic.
Before taking up the anchor at Sandy Cay, we set up the mainsail, strategized with the crew, and made our game plan for the race to come, which was to basically trim the sails as best as possible to gain as much speed and wind to gain a lead of the other boats. Speaking of that, we were aboard one of the slowest types of boat in the entire fleet. When the race began, we had 10 seconds to gun our engines and steer towards the finish line. From there, we were up against our main competitors. Highlander and Graytful. Throughout the entire race Highlander was in the lead from all the other boats in the race.
Meanwhile, Avizia (Aka, the fastest lagoon in the AQ fleet, which was us) was going head-to-head to determine who would end up in second place. Which, of course, we came in second place. Which was very impressive since we were racing in one of the SLOWEST brands of boats that AQ had to offer.
Right after our race, we headed right around the corner to Soper’s Hole, where we headed for lunch and went shopping at the Harbour Market. (Soapers hole is the same place that we started at the beginning of the session) Everybody went on their way, buying as much as possible to load up in the boat while going out to buy lunch at the local cafe and restaurant available. We again had to go to a skipper’s meeting for another race, but we all just decided it was too much and proceeded to our next location, where we would stay there for the night. While on our way to the next location, we experienced the WORST weather conditions of the entire session. Waves so big that water was splashing into the portholes of the boat, and the endless rocking of the It’It’st’It’sfe to say nobody had a great time. But finally, we reached our final destination of the day. Great Harbor Peter. Where we proceeded to take a relieving salt water shower; for dinner, we had Frank’s beans and rice, which was arguably not the best meal, in my opinion. But we take our wins and our losses.