What a full and beautiful day! Starting with our first 7am swim then straight into chores and breakfast after a quick hot freshwater shower. Then line handling lesson, then anchor raising lesson, then steering lessons, then sail handling, then ship maneuvering under sail, then riding the bowsprit all before lunch! After a relaxing delicious pumpkin soup, lovingly prepared by Connor the wind picked up and we practiced what we had learned. Tacking upwind in a surprisingly stiff westerly breeze. Wow what a sail! Tired but exhilarated we arrived at our destination, the Black Rocks. Nap time? No way. Tom lead a Navigation lesson while we waited for our special guests. The Researchers from the TriOceans Institute. Myra and Thibaud arrived in a very cool inflatable research vessel and taught us all about Whales and fish and…. more about whales! and we took turns driving their submarine to look at the whales! Well we didn’t see any whales but we did see a ton of beautiful fish and learned about the reef. Buttered chicken and rice for dinner, such a well deserved feed. Tonight we will do some book work and share stories on today’s adventures. We’re looking forward to our sleep tonight. Another day of activities tomorrow, we can’t wait. Until then. Mā te wa.
