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Location: Sandy Spit
With our earliest wake-up call yet (6 am!), we set sail for Jost Van Dyke to visit some local teenagers around our age. Our arrival at Jost Van Dyke was probably most meaningful to our fellow shipmate Rashid, as it is originally where he is from and where he resides. After some expert sailing by the shipmates and steering by yours truly, we hopped aboard our dinghies and motored ashore to a small dock just beside the famous Foxy’s Bar and Restaurant. This meeting spot, we met the teenagers from Jost Van Dyke and the director for the Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society, Susan. We split up into groups consisting of a mixture between Jost Van Dyke and Lifeworks kids to explore a little of the island. On our walk, they showed us tons of fruit and flower trees (papaya, mango, banana, hibiscus, shaka shaka, etc.). They explained that when the fruit was ripe, they would pick them off if they were passing by, and snack on them.
We thought this was soooo cool, and when we found the only ripe fruit tree (Ginips – similar to a lycee or a longan), we climbed to pick some Ginips. They were VERY tasty J After our little tours, we all boarded the catamaran to motor to the reefs of Great Tobago to snorkel with our new friends. We each had a buddy while they were on board. Maggie and I shared a buddy who we nicknamed Batman. At Great Tobago, we experienced some of the best snorkeling most of us have ever seen. There were large rocks down under, creating numerous large cracks to house various cool underwater creatures. Sam even saw a stingray! Aboard the catamaran, Junior, a Jost Van Dyker showed us some card tricks and we played some card games. I must admit, I was a little surprised to discover that we knew all the same card games despite living in very different places! We returned to Jost Van Dyke to drop off our friends and had some shore time to explore all the little stores in the area. A couple of us bought some souvenirs from Foxy’s and some ice-cream (I had coconut – it was the bomb.) After that, we sailed to a tiny island (literally you could run around it in less than 5 minutes) for a BBQ dinner with ActionQuest. Overall, it was a fantastic day! We had so much fun getting to know local kids our age and just have fun with them while we explore deeper into the BVIs. I think everyone is now beginning to realize just how little time we have left here, and it will be sad to say goodbye to everyone and this paradise. To end this on an entertaining note, while getting into the hammock to sleep tonight in the pitch black, I flipped over and fell off, landing hard on the cockpit floor Â…Hahaha; it was rather entertaining for the rest of the shipmates as we all knew someone was eventually going to fall off on this trip. I guess it had to be me!