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Location: Trellis Bay, Beef Island
This morning the hammock sleepers were all awoken to music instead of the rain, which was a blessing. We also had a great breakfast of bagels with cream cheese alongside guava-flavored yogurt with granola, which Lily adventurously tried first. After breakfast, everyone on board got prepared to sail to another part of Tortola, where we would do our community service at the island’s College of Marine Studies. During our sail over, Chris, Avah, Lily, and I were enjoying sitting in the front of the boat reading during the short trip. When we arrived, we all headed into Lava (the dinghy), where after a short motor over to the docks, we all loaded into a big green taxi. At the community college, we split into three groups of four which shortly became one group of four and one groups of eight. The group of eight—including Liam, Shaila, Anna B., Surya, Anna S., Lily, Hannah, and me—started out by painting a classroom white. This brought on some struggles when the paint was splattered all over Shaila’s face (she also accidentally put her hand on the wall that we had just finished painting). Anna B. also ended up with a clump of paint in her hair. Shortly after, Anna B., Hannah, and Shaila saved a baby lizard from the room we were painting. The other group, Morgan, Griffin, Avah, and Chris, were sent over to help restore the mangroves (that were previously destroyed by hurricane Irma) by creating mud and planting baby mangroves into the mud mixture. When the painting group was on our water break, we all noticed that the mangrove group was covered in dirt, Morgan, in particular, having dirt on her face. After our lunch, where we finally had jelly again for the PBandJ’s, we were taught how to use an emergency life raft. Liam, Griffin, Chris, and Lily all pulled one of the painter ropes on separate life rafts. The life raft that Liam tried to pull open was set up improperly and made the loudest noise while it was struggling to fill up with air (we are glad that life raft isn’t being used by anyone anymore). We also all tried some life raft ration water which tasted gross, but Shaila claimed that it tasted better than the water on the boat. After lunch was over, the groups switched a bit so that Hannah, Shaila, Anna B., and I all went over to create more mud and plant mangrove trees. Our group decided that the shovels were making it harder to create mud, so we decided to use our hands (our group compared it to making slime). The other group finished painting the second classroom, and then we all washed up before getting back into the green taxi because we were all either covered in paint, mud, or a weird mixture of both. Before we went back onto Lava, we stopped into Aragorn’s studio (we will be doing service work with the owner tomorrow). When we all got back, we took a quick shower, and then Liam, Lily, Morgan, Anna S., Anna B., Shaila, Hannah, and I talked on the bow while Griffin and Surya made thanksgiving dinner. Now that dinner is over, everyone is just relaxing around the boat until nighttime. Currently, though, I am with Morgan and Shaila in the saloon writing the blog for the day. Also, Anna B. almost just dropped her Oreos off the side of the boat. There is never a dull moment here, but that makes it so much fun!
Hi Mom and Dad! I miss and love you guys so much. Send a letter to Katie at sleep away camp for me, and tell Bayleigh and Marley I love and miss them so much! I’m having so much fun and cannot wait to tell you everything, even if you’ve read all the blogs!!