6
Location: Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda
Good evening, everyone. This is Riley here, program director of GoBeyond and captain of Hagan Time. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the daily updates. Today was a long day, but a very fulfilling day at that. My day started as it normally did, waking up around 5:30 am. Sunrise down here is around 5 am, so sunlight through the hatch is a natural alarm for me. I spent the morning as I normally do, putting things away, checking the dinghies, charging the house batteries, double-checking planning, and so much more. Our staff team does a massive amount of work on a day-to-day basis, but it just so happens that one of my best times to do so is before everyone is awake. After waking everyone up to some reggae, we quickly ate some oatmeal and loaded up into the dinghy to head back to the Ciboney school on Virgin Gorda. Ciboney is one of the few private schools in the BVI and excels in providing elevated learning opportunities for students aged K-12. One of the team members we worked with is Julie, who GoBeyond has known for about 20 years. Her focus is sustainable farming, recycling/up-cycling, and generally teaching people to make food for themselves. I have had the pleasure of working with Julie for three years now, and she always provides good projects for the entire team. As you all read in the last blog, a team consisting of Maya, Anabelle, Ella, and myself has been working on building a boat-themed playset for the primary students at Ciboney. While it has been slow going, it has really taken shape over the past few days. I am definitely not a carpenter by any means, but it has come to life due to all of the help I have received, which I am very thankful for. Meanwhile, a bigger team consisting of Coco, Amelia, Lia, Bella, Heloise, and Siena worked with Julie on the tortoise enclosure. The tortoises are a BVI-specific breed and are a favorite for all GoBeyond students. In the last session, we added an extension to the original enclosure, and in this session, we focused on the finishing touches. Julie had the team redo the bathing pond, build some grow beds on the outer wall to give the tortoises some more natural food, and some more general securing of everything to make sure they did not get loose. Lunch consisted of PB+J, goldfish, granola bars, and some fruit. I opted to go for a quick snack and continue powering through on the boat project. We had an earlier end of the day today in order to make sure we could get to the fleetwide BBQ. After a quick Hibicleanse shower, we got underway from Spanish Town up to Leverick Bay, still on Virgin Gorda. Annabelle took the helm and expertly piloted us on our quick steam east. Hagan Time went briefly on the dock to get some fresh water, get trash off, and allow everyone to get some much-needed shore time. There were a lot of new snacks and apparel that made its way back to the boat, even with only 40 minutes onshore. Once everyone got back onboard, phones were passed back out, and final preparations for the BBQ commenced. I hope everyone was able to speak with their family and friends onboard and got to hear some amazing stories about our experience so far. Hard to believe we are already six days in, but it is going to start going by even faster. The barbeque was a great time. Full DJ, good food, good atmosphere, and great people. It was nice to catch up with some people I had not seen in a few days, and I am sure the rest of Hagan Time enjoyed getting to make some new friends. After a very long day, everyone was excited to get back to the boat to get some much-needed rest. To everyone in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas affected by Tropical Storm Debby, I hope everyone fared well and that no major injuries or destruction occurred.