21
Location: West End, Tortola
This session has flown by! We started the session off with escaping the tropical depression while educating ourselves about the world’s plastic issues, working with primary schools on Virgin Gorda to pain rooms and murals, and received our final staff member, Shaun, who came straight from GoBeyond Australia. After Virgin Gorda, we ventured up to Anegada where we filled our days with turtle tagging, snorkeling, and a beach hike/cleanup. Halfway through the session, we had a play day where our shipmates were able to waterski, wakeboard, sail small boats, and learn how to drive our dinghies. For the rest of the trip, we went back and forth in between Jost Van Dyke and Tortola participating in seagrass surveys and mangrove-monitoring afternoons. We also had the pleasure of working and interacting with students on Jost Van Dyke while seagrass monitoring and searching for turtles.
Our shipmates are really what made this trip special. Life aboard was always interesting and unique every day. Spencer always kept us up to date on our facts and never let us waste any food. Harrison and Trevor always kept us laughing with their humor at meals. Henry had some witty comments up his sleeve that also kept us laughing. Neil was so great to have around as an influence from another country, telling us what life is like in Switzerland. Hayley also kept us laughing with her personality and her body rolls. Katie always sat back, witnessed, and just laughed at all the hilarity that happened on a daily basis. Josie was such a nice, sweet, presence on board at all times and also body rolled with Hayley which kept us laughing. Julie always had great stories about her family and is our favorite chef on board. Kylie was an incredible presence on board and projects as well. She worked hard and treated everyone with respect at all times. Zoe always was responsible for everyone’s groceries and got what everyone wanted for snacks. All of our shipmates bonded right away with playing cards for about 22 hours of the day, hanging out on deck way too late, but always being awake and enthusiastic for all of our activities. It’s been a great session! Thanks for everything.
-Gwen, Hannah, Shaun