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Setting Sail
From the Valenza Trip Journal:
Day 2
Today we finally raised the main sail and set off to the island of Ile Fourche for our first adventure! The day began with meeting fellow crewmembers, bathing in the sun and swimming off the catamaran in the aqua blue water. Due to the unfortunate volcanic explosions on Montserrat and the emissions of ash, several flights had been cancelled and not all the crewmembers had arrived to our boat, Valenza. In fact only half of the crew was there in the morning. Margaret, Trevor, Natalie, Scott, Miriam and Sarah waited excitedly for the rest to arrive and in the meantime had fun learning about each other.
In the early afternoon, to the crew's delight, three more crewmembers showed up ready for adventure. They were Logan, Peter and Joe and they were exhausted from their travel. When they arrived we pulled up the anchor, raised the sails, and set out for Ile Fourche. The sail was beautiful, and those sitting on the bow were splashed by the waves, which was a nice cool down from the beating sun.
After arriving at Ile Fourche, we immediately geared up before the sun set and completed a half hour dive at 28 feet. During the dives we refreshed our skills. Some skills were regulator recovery, mask clearing and alternate air source breathing. Everyone was excited to be back in the water and it was nice to brush up on our skills. There wasn't much wildlife around that we could see, which could have been from the sand our fins were kicking up. When we swam back to the boat the smell of Hawaiian stir-fry filled the air and reminded our stomachs how hungry they were.
After our delicious dinner cooked by our dive instructor Tiffany and our skipper Joe, we learned about some of the Broadreach traditions such as every crewmember telling their "glums and glows" at the end of the day. Fortunately their were few glums mentioned. :) From there, we got our last shipment of crewmembers. They were Ben, Emma and Ellie, who were also exhausted from their long day of traveling. We set up the assembly line, a quick and fun way to clean the dishes. The line consists of two washers, one rinser, two driers and one runner to put the dishes away.
After learning some more things about the boat, we all got ready for bed and met in the salon to play cards and get to know each other better. Overall the day was very successful and we are all looking forward to a day of diving tomorrow!
