Echo Days 1 & 2 – Welcome to Sail Caribbean and our First Sail

written by Social Media Coordinator, Meredith Evridge

June 2, 2019

Day 1:

Our Echo students arrived in the afternoon and were greeted warmly by their Captain and Mate. After unpacking their bags in their cabins, the students ate some snacks while meeting and getting to know each other through fun Icebreakers. We then showered and prepared for a delicious dinner of chicken wings, coleslaw, and rice and beans! The students had a chance to meet and talk with Mike Liese, Sail Caribbean’s founder, before circling around in the cockpit for the first boat meeting of the program. Everyone was fairly tired from a full day of travelling and soon headed for bed, eager to wake up and face tomorrow’s adventures!

Day 2:

Today we left docks! We ate breakfast and completed a “Prior to First” orientation of the boat. With the students well informed on the ins and outs of the boat, we finished up a few final tasks, completed pre-departure checks, and a dedocking lesson. Riley was our skipper and led our crew through a flawless dedocking. As we entered the Sir Francis Drake Channel for the first time as a joined crew, we decided to dive straight in with taking out both sails, it was an amazing sail! As we arrived at Cooper, we picked up a mooring ball on the first try, completed swim tests, and made a delicious lunch. We explored the shore, went wake boarding, and returned back to the boat for our first boat showers, dinner, boat clean, and boat meeting.
Part of the Echo Program includes a journaling aspect; every evening this program at boat meeting we will be reflecting on a quote given by Riko in our journals, and then sharing our thoughts on the quote. Our quote for this evening was “Ship, shipmate, self,” which brought up a conversation on how each person views this in perspective of both this program and our lives in general. We all went to bed excited for what tomorrow has in store!