Friday, November 16, 2012

Day 4 - BOSS Sailing School Trip - 10/16/2012

The day really started early on the boat!  I woke up at 5:30, as Sadeem was up and mopping the dew off of the boat.  He normal job was to clean the boats when they return from charter or from classes, so he was making sure that he didn't have more work when we returned!  I was surprised how good that I slept on the boat.  The breeze blew nicely all night and the hatch was open above my head, creating a very pleasant place to sleep.  Once during the middle of the night it started to rain, which woke me up, as it was raining directly into my face.  I quickly closed the hatch a little, and fell back to sleep. 

A Moorings Charter boat anchored close to us in the morning.
After a quick breakfast and coffee (I brought some special Costa Rica coffee with me and the guys loved it), we started studying on navigation.  We learned about chart plotting a course, dead reckoning, deviation, etc.  We used a parallel rulers and a compass to estimate distance and bearing.  Later today we will use a hand bearing compass to plot our position on the chart.  Things were actually starting to make sense, and were very logical.  We then took a break, and took the dinghy into the village for some quick shopping for supplies that were missing from the original provisioning.  The village was full of  old Almond Trees, and they were beautify and huge.  They had yellow almonds on them, but they looked very different, as they had the hull covering the part that we see as an almond.  I was also able to find some Diet Coke (Coca Lite), which was really nice!
Tony buying some fresh fruit


Large Almond Tree on the road to village

We then pulled up anchor and headed toward Tobago Cay.  It was about a 2 or 3 hour sail over to Tobago Cay, so it wasn't too far.  As were were leaving Bequia, we noticed (hard not to), a freighter that had run aground between two large rocks.  I believe they had engine problems and drifted into the rocks, a reminder of what can go wrong when traveling in the ocean. 

Freighter that ran aground off Bequia
Once around the point of Bequia, we were out in open sea with fairly large waves.  The winds were running about 15 to 20 kts, and we were making 8 to 10 kts on the boat, as we were running a broad reach for most of the trip.  I started getting a little wheezy, which was strange, as I was wearing a patch, so Tony let me pilot the boat the rest of the way, which helped a lot.  I suspected, but had Tony check, but I had lost my patch the day before.  I think that I would have been fine for the rest of the week, but since I wanted to focus on studying, I put on another patch that night, just to make sure.  This was one of my fears about coming, was I knew that I could get sea sick.  The patch helped tremendously, but I believe after three days, that I would have been OK without it. 
We arrived at Tobago Cay without any issues.  The water was completely light blue and beautiful.  We motored through a couple of smaller islands and anchored behind the reef.  It was strange to anchor with open ocean in front of us,except a small island.  It turns out that the small island is where Captain Jack Sparrow was dropped off to die in the Pirates of the Caribbean.  The water was calling us to go snorkel, so we quickly loaded our gear in the dinghy, and motored it over to a small mooring ball  for dinghies.  We snorkeled for about an hour, but there was a strong current, so we swam back to the boat, pulling the dinghy as we went.  I did see lots of lobster, many tropical fish, and a couple of large stingrays, who were digging in the sand trying to eat something.  The ranger come over shortly after we got back, and we all had to pay $4 for the daily park fee. 

Captain Jack Sparrow Island - Tobago Cay



Andato - Tobago Cay
 After snorkeling, we invited the crew of Andato over for dinner.  We cooked hamburgers on the BBQ grill, and I cooked the Mai Mai for Sadeem.  We really enjoyed the company and atmosphere of being at Tobago Cay as the sun set.  A perfect close to another day.

Sunset at Tobago Cay

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