Alpha 1, Bravo 1, Charlie 1, Delta 1, Foxtrot 1, Sierra 1 and Tango 1 Day 1: We have arrived!

written by Social Media Coordinator, Ryan Smith
June 24, 2017

The whole team was moving about extra excited today, preparing for over 100+ arriving students today! Days like today are a habitual amount of collected chaos, with many moving parts maneuvering amongst each other, even from two different islands. Although the day can be rather long and tiring for our traveling teens, at the end of the day, it’s almost palpable that it is also the beginning of something gigantic.

At our base, operations and sail staff awoke with the sun and went about the day prepping boats, inventory, provisioning, the works! Myself and seven other staff members headed over bright and early to the St Thomas airport via a beautiful and sunny ferry ride to greet arriving flyers. We had a few students join us by other various methods throughout the day as well, but the majority of our students arrived in waves of flights to the USVIs.

Finally in the hands of our excited staff, students arriving from all over the world collected their baggage and were led by staff in three groups back to Hodges Creek Marina on Tortola. My later group’s ferry ride definitely had the highlight of a ferry ride through the islands backlit by a Caribbean sunset, already mesmerized by the place they will call home for the next two weeks. Once through Customs and Immigrations, we were greeted by our taxis and swept off to base.

When we were altogether back at Hodges, students were given their boat placements and were eager to get off their feet and settle in, meeting their crewmates along the way. It wasn’t long before we all were enjoying a delicious meal of chicken, rice and ‘slaw, freely devouring it from the cockpits of our new homes, among new friends.

After taking some refreshing shore showers, each boat’s crew held their first boat meeting within their yacht’s salon. During each boat meeting, crews got acquainted with each other and had brief introductions to different aspects of the program, such as the roles on the duty roster and ship’s logs. After wrapping up the meeting, students were quick to relish in the opportunity to rest up from a long day, and in anticipation of leaving the docks the following morning. Look forward to the crews’ boat photos prior to leaving docks in the next trip update for Day 2, or have an early look for yourself by checking out our Sail Caribbean Facebook page!