Bravo 2 & Charlie 2 Day 11: From Trellis Bay To Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor
written by Bravo/Charlie mate, Megan Lundequam
July 26, 2017
This morning started with breakfast and lunch prep so we could make sure our Dive Master trainees and our Rescue divers left us with full tummies and food for mid-day. Once we saw off our divers, we finished breakfast and breakfast clean and began gathering together our snorkel gear before heading over to one of the Foxtrot and Sierra boats for a snorkel clean! Many mooring fields are filled with trash and people’s belongings because of how many visitors come in and out every day and how easy it is for things to fall off the boat or out of sheer laziness. So, one of the ways in which we earn community service hours here on Bravo and Charlie is by snorkeling the mooring fields and collecting all the items that wouldn’t naturally appear there. After we snorkeled and cleaned, we all reconvened on the bow of the Foxtrot and Sierra catamarans and had a talk about sustainability, and our responsibility as visitors of these islands. The general rule we follow at Sail Caribbean during all our activities is Leave No Trace (LNT!). In order to keep these islands healthy and beautiful, we make certain that we take only pictures and leave only bubbles and footprints so as not to disrupt any of the perfectly balanced ecosystems.
After a good bit of splashing around and serving the community, we had a bit of shore time to visit Aragorn’s Local Art Studio and Shop one last time and socialize in the enormous purple hammock ashore before heading back to boats. Once back on board, we had a quick lunch and then dropped the ball and set off for Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour.
Challenge Day is on the horizon for our students so today we decided to have a bit of practice to see how much we knew and what we needed to work on. Starting with the dropping of the mooring ball and ending with dropping sails outside of the channel leading into VGYH, captains and mates served only as crew members, unable to answer any sailing related questions or make any sailing related comments – unless in the face of danger – leaving the running of the boat entirely up to our students. Although there were a few bits of feedback we gave to have the crew work on in the days to come, all in all, both the students and staff were so impressed with their performance.
Once we reached docks, we met back up with our divers and launched straight into a deep clean of the boat as we had cleaning inspections this evening! Thanks to lots of hard work and teamwork, we passed on our first inspection and our students were able to spend the rest of the time before dinner showering with freshwater for the first time in a few days, along with air conditioning. The rest of the night progressed on as usual with a family dinner, dinner tidy and finally boat meeting where we caught each other up on our day. It was another day full of learning here in the Caribbean and we fell asleep exhausted and excited for another day under the sun.
