Colorado Springs School (Day 6)
St. John, USVI
3/8/25
…the struggle is real... *ahem* Hi, it’s A Watch, here to give you a rundown of today! Let’s get into it!
Today, after we woke up and had breakfast, we hauled back the 135 feet of anchor while singing many sea shanties such as ‘Patty, Lay Back,’ ‘Wellerman,’ and others. We set sail towards St. John, an island to the right of St. Thomas, a popular tourist destination in the U.S Virgin Islands. It was a long voyage, so we got to do many things. First off, we saw whales! At least two we think. We believe that they were humpback whales which is so exciting! Later, Todd caught a large tuna and we got to have a little anatomy lesson with it. It was quite messy, but we learned a lot from it. After, we got to outline our route from Jost Van Dyke, a tad bit north of St. Thomas and St. John, back down to St. Croix. We used many methods for this, involving quite a lot of math. Ow, my brain hurts… Anyway, we got the chance today to go out on the bowstrip by watch group, the very front of the ship. We had to wear a harness because we were standing over an open section into fast moving waters. Out in the front, we also saw a collection of severed hanging fish tails, to which Todd added one too soon after. Suddenly…
“THIS IS A DRILL! MAN OVERBOARD!!” alerted us all in the middle of the day. While still a drill, we all moved urgently as if it were real. Our watch group was moving to adjust the sails, B group were spotters, and C group was throwing life rings and setting up the boat to pick up our subject. Who was our subject? Our good friend Oscar; poor, poor Oscar… (disclaimer: Oscar is a soccer ball, do not fret). Later, Sophia (the engineer, not the other two), taught us about desalination through reverse osmosis. We also learned about the freshwater system on the ship and overall, it was a great learning experience. Also, it was Mak’s birthday! We celebrated by eating cake and having mak and cheese (with chicken nuggets) later that night at dinner. Turning 25, yet doesn’t look a day over 20. Happy birthday! We eventually anchored down in Francis Bay near St. John and got a nice swim call to explore our surrounding areas. We had many races, all of which I, the writer, lost. Sadness. After we were done, Tristan (yours truly) and Keeton picked up two guitars and started to sing, sing, sing! We’ve been told it was a nice change from the soft ambience of the sea. After, we had a game night and watched the sun gloriously go down, my favorite part of each day. What adventures lie for us tomorrow? Stick around and find out! This has been the Associates Group, and we’ll see you next time!!
