Echo Days 3 and 4: Sailing Tactics and Hiking Adventures
Day 3: Written by Reilly Addison
Our morning started ashore with paddle boarding and hacky sack. Before noon rolled around, one of our Mates-in-Training went to work on a marine biology project with some other divers. Her project was to plant coral in hopes that the underwater ecosystem might recover from the hurricane. During this time, the rest of us Echo students went out to sail the company’s small boats, the Colgates. Yes, like the toothpaste brand! We sailed through many tacks, and each person was able to work every position throughout the morning. We got the feel for a boat that is much more subjected to the wind and waves. Returning to Tintoret, we prepped for sailing on a larger scale. Again, we rotated all positions while tacking many times. Our leaders gave us a lesson about downwind sailing and the use of preventers.
Our anchorage was at Salt Island. We prepped dinner but did not eat yet. Our evening activity was a hike up one of the hills on the quiet island to watch the incredible sunset. We saw many goats! We headed back to the boat for dinner and then did our routine cleaning, followed by a boat meeting. The stars shined so bright and the skies were clear. Our night concluded with all of us laying on the decks watching for shooting stars, while we talked and made jokes.
Day 4: Written by Reilly Addison
Pancakes and fried Oreos greeted us on the fourth day. Our morning activity was a sail around Peter island, using all the skills and points of sail learned the day before. Some parts of the circumnavigation were very rough, and other parts were near flat. In Little Harbor we practiced our newly learned “Mediterranean Anchoring” due to close quarters in the anchorage. When we took in sails before the anchorage, we noticed a hole in the sail. We took it down to be sent off in hopes that it will be repaired before our down island sail.
Mark (from Land Operations) came out with the “Paparazzi,” a bad mamma jamma of a tube. This is not any ordinary tubing, because with this tube 360s can be done (safely). We celebrated one of our Mates-in-Training being the first to do two 360s in a row, and we dubbed it the “miracle moment” of the day. Others were shredding on the wakeboard while the rest of us hiked up Peter Island to explore. The rest of the normally scheduled evening activities went smoothly and most went to bed early. One of our crewmates had an unfortunate series of delayed flights and was going to finally arrive that night. A few of us stayed awake to greet him.
