Colorado Springs School (Day 3)
Vieques, Puerto Rico
3/5/25
Written by students Dominique, Koyla, Sophia, Tristan, Bella
Today’s log was written by Watch Group A, the Associates; our funny group name. Today was such an excellent day! We saw many sea creatures, learned many skills, and get to see a magnificent bioluminescent bay. Let us tell you all about it!
Before setting sail, we had a delicious breakfast of french toast, sausages, and various fresh fruits which was curated by our cook, Jen. We began our journey by setting sail from Green Key, which is outside of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands to Isle de Vieques, a Puerto Rican island, at 7:40 AM. Using our excellent teamwork skills, we hoisted the sails with the crew, continuing our education on becoming mariners and improving our communication and teamwork skills. We talked about our emergency procedures for a man overboard, a fire onboard, and abandoning ship, covering evacuation strategies and our specialized roles in helping our group. Our student groups will help by getting fire extinguishers during a fire, help adjust sails during man-overboard situations, deploy personal flotation devices, and cover the role of the spotter which finds the people overboard.
After, we began our almanac on navigation, creatures, and engineering; for those who don’t know, an almanac is a logbook which builds an informational session which we will teach our peers about later. Soon after, we saw a pod of pilot whales off the starboard side of our ship on our venture to the island. Along with whales, we saw flying fish and a dolphin in the bay. This was an incredible encounter with these majestic beasts. A part of this day was rotating watches. One of these was the active watch which involved getting to steer and navigate the ship, plotting coordinates, checking the bilges, and setting a course. We also went swimming for a little while when we anchored in the afternoon, how fun! We finished off the day by visiting the bioluminescent bay which will be talked about more in detail tomorrow. Today was an extravagant and tiring day, but well worth it and a testament to our teamwork skills and knowledge on the ship. We hope tomorrow is even better than today! See you next time!
-A Watch
