Echo & Ocean 2018 Adventures Day 2 – Off Docks To Sail Across The Sir Francis Drake Channel

written by Echo student, Ava Zockoll
May 30, 2018

We woke up to a beautiful sunrise at Hodges Creek and had a long morning of anxiously waiting to get off docks while getting different dive materials and other paperwork in place. One student who had a late arrival showed up after a crazy 24 hours of bad travel luck and our full crew was finally together!

Our skipper for the day was assigned and we got off docks and on our way to Cooper Island as soon as we could!
After raising the main sail and furling the jib for the first time, we had a speedy route and arrived with a relentless mooring ball pursuit. Three students got swept away to their first day of PADI Open Water course work and confined skills learning and the rest of us went on a recreational dive and saw a shark!

Two crewmates later made a delicious dinner before Echo and Ocean separated for a bit to work on program-specific course work. The Ocean crew began their studies with an essay by Sylvia Earle and then dove into an overview of the various marine bio topics they will talk about throughout the program. The Echo crew began our first section of ASA 103 with an overview of parts of the boat and an impromptu skills test as Captain Arter took us around the boat and had us name the different components.

We ended the night with a boat meeting followed by some relaxing and a bit more hanging out and getting to know each other more.