Alpha 3 Day 5: Building Friendship & Teamwork At The Top Of The Bight Hike

July 29, 2016

Most of the mooring fields that we stay in are wide open. The mouths of them facing agape toward the channel. Here in the Bight, though, the mouth is narrow. We lay hidden deep into the cut of the island. The cliffs and hills around us make a tight amphitheater, showering us in sounds from the land. From our decks, we can hear the goats that roam the island, we can hear the assortment of colorful birds that live in the trees, and we can hear the splashes of waves lapping up on the shoreline. It is a place of abundant sound.

Today, we contributed our own voice to the sounds of the bay, starting with an early hike up to the top of the island where the Alpha and Tango fleets came together to build friendship and teamwork through activities and games upon a helicopter pad that overlooks the bay. We mingled and mixed, competed and came together. Laughter was sewn into our daily practice by handshakes and embraces.

When we descended from the hike, the fun we were in for for the rest of the day was audible.

All of the open water divers continued their training and dove through the afternoon, practicing their underwater skills. While they did that, the Alpha and Tango fleets continued to tango. All gathering aboard I Am Free – the Tango catamaran – for a marine biology lesson on corals and BVI species, we got to immediately apply our learning experientially during a fun snorkel at the reef that surrounds the mooring field.

As the day drew to its midday peak, we set sail for a long upwind stretch to Salt Island, an island which has two huge salt ponds resting in its belly.

When the day came to rest, it seemed that even the sunset was loud, sending the sky into indescribable shades of purple as we sat below. Back to our home boats, we broke bread together and celebrated yet another day of memories made under the sun.