Delta 1: Day 5 (Part 2) – Cooper Island
The Crew of Nolde
The morning began with an early wakeup at 6:30 and a staff motor from Great Harbor to Cooper Island. Cooper island is where we do a lot of our scuba diving, so all the campers were super excited to get going. Breakfast was made underway in some windy conditions, which made for some hectic cooking and a lot of laughing. Eventually breakfast got made and was delicious. We then arrived at Cooper and successfully picked up a mooring ball even in rough conditions. Big win! We cleaned the boat and prepared for the day ahead. It was scuba diving time! Our open water divers headed shore to work on getting their certification. Everyone else stayed on the boat and got to enjoy some free time that included swimming, snorkeling, and mingling with other boats.
After a delicious grilled cheese lunch the non divers got to go out on the 26 foot Colgates to practice getting their basic keelboat certification (ASA 101’s). The swells were pretty gnarly and made for quite the exciting sail. We got bounced around a bit, but managed to sail well for the most part. After about 45 minutes we dropped sails and brought the boats back to the mooring field. Once back on board we sent the Colgate campers to shore to enjoy some quality time at the local ice cream and dive shops. The Ice cream felt like a taste of heaven in the blistering BVI heat. Around 4:45 the open water divers came back from their confined water skills practice.
We all reconvened back on “The Noodle” (our boats new name) around 5:00 and began our ocean showers. Dinner prep started on their cooking of grilled chicken and pasta. Due to a lost deck brush we needed to borrow one from the other boats before we could clean. After a search in the dinghy we finally found one and worked hard to make Noodle spotless. It was a pretty exhausting day, so we kept boat meeting concise, giving the schedule for tomorrow and doing a high, low, buffalo before closing out the day. All in all it was another glorious day on the Noodle as we continue learning how to live on the boat. Can’t wait for what tomorrow brings!
Wishing the best to everyone back home! We miss you all!
The amazing crew of The Noodle
