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Location: Sidney's, Jost van Dyke
As we woke up with the same tune we’ve all been hearing for our wake up, the gophers set the table for breakfast. After a mix of cereal, PBandJ (well really it was PB and grape jelly: sadly we don’t have any more strawberry jam…), and oatmeal, the preserving paradise crew left the rebuilding island life group (that are now 4 students and 4 babysitters 😉 ) on the docks at Tortola (right at the docks we started off at).
The rebuilding island life crew set off to a private school – “pelican gate school” – to help with re-painting and with cleaning the building a bit. We cleaned with improvised brushes (broken brooms) and water found from overflowing tanks of water. After cleaning the first blue building, some started to paint it. Then the second building was our goal: the green one. When the crew could no longer stand seeing the color blue and green, pink was on its way. A cleanup of the building and then a fresh coat of pink left the group hungry — a quick lunch break and off to the maroon building. Now, with the four buildings complete, cleanup time!!! That included splashing paint from the brushes everywhere due to a strong pressure from the faucet, Elliot picking up a flute off the ground and playing background music, Nazz acting as a commentator as the under the sheet was getting folded, and finally sitting down after long hours of work.
While painting was in process in Tortola, the preserving paradise group set sail to go turtling. The turtling, even if not very fruitful, proved to be fun with people getting pulled by the dinghy on a rope. The crew spotted a turtle and for long moments, chased it. However, it turns out that turtles swim pretty fast. After a quick Mac and Cheese lunch, the preservers went on a seagrass adventure. That means finding seagrass and then measuring it with a quadrat. The seagrass is an important habitat for many underwater creatures, and after the hurricane, much of it was lost and measuring it will show if it has grown or not. Then: tanning session!
The rebuilding group on a dinghy was in view from the roof of the catamaran while the preservers were baking in the sun. Laughter followed the rebuilder as they came onto the boat from a fast and exhilarating dinghy ride from Tortola to Jost Van Dyke. However, before being able to talk and chill together, the preservers got the info that they had to go seagrass monitoring one more time: not a very successful trip (couldn’t find the right GPSS coordinates) but still fun dinghy ride.
We are now all showering for the upcoming BBQ in Jost Van Dyke with all the Action Quest and Go Beyond boats. The good news is that we get to have a freshwater shower and because we are not eating on our own boat we don’t have to do clean up!