6
Location: Vixen Point, Gorda Sound
Good morning (or evening)! This morning felt very restful and relaxing, a stark contrast to the rest of the day. We hiked through Virgin Gorda for our first community service activity, a beach clean-up. For what felt like a death-defying crawl down the rocky, sandy, and very steep hill, we spent the next two picking up trash and wrestling the true sea monster of the sea: trash. Stella and Nate, in particular, really fought to separate and derange as much of the massive ball of miscellaneous rope and netting in an effort to win against one of the other Action Quest boats in our trash-picking competition. Spoiler alert: We won, but only thanks to Stella, Melina, Luke, Rory, and Nicole for dragging themselves with the netting we pulled (it overfilled two trash bags, not including the other trash we collected) back up the cliff while I was struggling with all the water bottles behind them. A dip in the beautiful water was much needed for our sweaty, sandy selves. A short hour ride to another section of Virgin Gorda with a pause for lunch brought us to The Baths, a beautiful collection of massive piled boulders covered with sandy beaches, beautiful water, and green everywhere (obviously beautiful if Beyonce chose to take her pregnancy reveal photos at that location). We struggled to climb through what an Indiana Jones-esque path to jump off a 15-foot cliff, which was just a very large rock with too many twists and turns. The water was very worth it. Kudos to Natalia for her graceful backflip and Mariana for completing that jump the most times out of any of us. I know I wasn’t the only person who cut some fingers and toes on the barnacles on our way back up again. Back to the boat for a must-needed snack and nap on the way to the other side of the island just to jump back in and swim again after Nate screamed, “SEA TURTLE!”. A delicious dinner graciously made by Olivia and Sadie’s cooking skills, who also turned canned chicken into a surprisingly scrumptious meal, felt ten times better after a long day of moving. The evening ended sitting on the very uncomfortable counter with Luke when we had no space on the floor because of the other boat coming to join us for a failed technology movie attempt. It felt like, overall, a very successful day.
– Emma