Location: The Bight, Norman Island
Today was our first full day on the good boat, Shamwari! Last night we had an interesting run-in with a local tabby cat that we’ve named Cinnamon Toast Crunch, who jumped onboard time and time again even after Aidan lured it onto the streets with a piece of ham. CTC ended up sleeping on the blue lagoon with Max and taunted us by looking through our hatch every time he snuck back on board. After many of our first times sleeping in hammocks and learning all the tips and tricks of how to be successful, we woke up and had a nutritious breakfast of cereal and went to hear Mike’s intro chat with every other boat in the fleet. We heard some staff intros, learned about AQ, and how our next few weeks may unfold. Then we took off, into the glorious light of day (-Aidan M. 2023), for our very first sail on Shamwari/Shamu/Shamalamadingdong/Shamwow/….! We put up the main sail and cruised on over to Norman Island, where we all took our swim test, munched on some delish sandwiches, and then snorkeled through the caves!!
You may not believe that the swim test could’ve been a highlight of the day, but for us, it was. We each took turns trying to backflip and front flip off of our dinghy, to varying success. Kate decided to stick with the back flop, which she got down to a perfect science. We learned that Max can backflip without his head ever going underwater, Kellen seems to pause mid-air and float, Thomas makes the backflip equivalent of a tennis grunt when in the air, and Hays was able to pull off a stunning front flip without his facing slapping the water unlike some of us. Stella convinced Meredith and Drew to attempt backflips as well, and by the end of shower time later today, everyone found success. Our day then took an unexpected turn when we learned that we had somehow enticed a queen bee to come aboard our power tower. Unfortunately for us, that meant her whole hive followed, which was quite a surprise. While everyone took cover in the air conditioning, our fearless leader Mike, along with Aidan, Beth, and Allie, fought off the bees with various tools, including ones that looked like light sabers. The queen decided the Shamwari life was not for her, and soon the hive followed. Then we had a lovely dinner and LOVELIER sunset, where we spoke about how excited we were to meet our four new shipmates that were arriving shortly. We also discussed future plans for pranks against the other boats. Now the students are sitting in on their very first Scuba chat, and halfway through, we got the awesome news that Lyla, Matthew, Claire, and Evan had arrived! The Shamwari family is finally complete, and we couldn’t be more excited. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow has in store for us, the Shammy gang.