Early Alpha Day 8: Silent Mooring Ball Pick Up Success!
Brought to you by the crew of Montlouis
June 17, 2016
We dropped the ball early this morning from Marina Cay after a quick breakfast buffet made by Nathan and Maddie. We set sail for the North Sound of Virgin Gorda with our skipper of the day, Nathan, at the helm. Our captain Curtis taught a navigation lesson last night, so Georgia completed our navigation for the day this morning. We got sails up quickly, put a boppin’ playlist on, and got on a close-hauled course. Grace and Grant helmed us through some tacks. We set a boat record today and completed a tack in 49 seconds!
The crew continued to rock it as we completed a silent mooring ball pickup. We developed hand signals together and cruised into Saba Rock mooring field in dead silence. The pick up was a success, thanks to Maggie’s hand signal spotting, Ben’s hooking, Daniel’s relaying and Grant’s threading skills. Once we were secure, Maggie and Carson prepared hoagies for lunch for everybody! After a yummy lunch, we swam ashore to Prickly Pear to have a lesson on mangrove ecosystems, taught by Grace. Once we learned about how rad mangroves are, we took some time to clean up the trash and debris littering the ecosystem.
In the late afternoon, we took the dinghy ashore to the Bitter End Yacht Club, and spent an hour beachin’ it. The boys spent time jumping off the floating dock and splashing around. Alex spotted a flamingo walking around the resort, then Lizzie, Carson, and Grace chased it down to snap a selfie with it. Finally, we headed back to boats for a dinner of pineapple BBQ chicken, a Sail Caribbean favorite, cooked by Grant and Georgia.
After dinner clean, we headed ashore to Saba Rock for an evening social. Everyone got sodas and drinks, perused the shop, and watched the tarpons feed. We headed back to boats early, had a quick boat meeting, and went on to bed. Everyone is stoked to have a day at the Bitter End tomorrow!
