Location: The Bight, Norman Island

… 4:30 am, the sound of screaming roosters rings throughout the valley where we are docked in. This is how I was awoken this morning; now, I must address that the actual sunrise did not occur until an hour+ later. How can roosters even mess that up? It’s a giant fireball… Well since I wasn’t going back to sleep from the serenades of the valley rooster. I made the most of my time walking around the roof of the boat and thinking.

We started the wheel of jobs the night before, and it turns out that I am today’s skipper, meaning that I’ll get to sail the boat as well as lightly boss people around. We started sailing after our morning talk with the infamous Mike, director of Action Quest and GoBeyond. We eventually got to ‘The Bight’ on Norman Island, where we ended up the mooring.

Now that we had all made it to the BVI’s without a major hitch, it was time for our swim test, where we had to lap the boat and then tread water for a bit. I am having a hard time imagining people even signing up for the trip without knowing how to swim.

As news to both of us, I passed! And this called for a celebratory (planned) snorkel trip. Now we had a few minor difficulties with one of our boats, but it was no match for our resident boat slinger, Nazz. Now here is where the fun begins, or so we thought… As we are pulling up to dock our dinghy, we hear a little girl crying about something that we didn’t put too much thought to until we had been swimming for a few minutes. The first one was on the side of my hand, and I immediately recognized the sting like a jellyfish, or maybe known to some of you as the bees of the sea. This sting was only a preface of what was to come during our snorkeling adventure.

Well, we all made it back to the boat in one piece, some of us bringing a few opaque friends with us. Now we are just chillaxing before our hike and sail trip tomorrow.

Staff note—ALL students were fine from minor stings. Most chose to stay in the water to keep looking for cool fish amidst some stings now and then.