THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS!
Of course it was beautiful. Of course it was fun. What specifics do I remember? Not much. There were a lot of highlights, but the most important part was going to sail all these islands with our nearest and dearest friends from MIT.
For nine days, we sailed all of the BVIs on a large, beautiful boat with ten other good friends from the program. We were led by our fearless skipper, John, and the amazing Tom Sanderson, who did all of the planning.
The amazing Tom
The fearless John
We flew into San Juan, Puerto Rico on a red eye and then took a flight to St. Thomas shortly after. From there, we took a ferry from St. Thomas (the US Virgin Islands) into the BVIs and hooked up with our lovely sailboat...TOP SECRET!
She was large and in charge. The largest in the fleet of 28 boats that the MIT group took out and about. The first night was about provisioning, meaning SO MUCH FOOD for 12 people for nine days and nights. It was chaotic, but one thing that's always great about LGO's, they always help.
Sarah Cooper-Davis, storing our beverages.
From there, it gets fuzzy. I mean, I like warmth and sun as much as anyone, but beaches sometimes just all look the same. But, I can make some commentary from the pictures that I have swiped from other folk.
We sailed for a few hours at a time every day. The first big adventures were snorkeling and climbing around in an area called The Rocks. As you can imagine from the name, there were large rocks.
Beginning to sail...why am I the one not paying attention?
Everyone is ready to go
Jumping off a rock
The water is THAT clear
Lizzie and I had fun with salt water baths under the boat
Gawd, we are soooo precious
Artistic, nes pas?
(did I spell that right?..I don't speak French)
We also did great amounts of snorkeling in several places. All of it was beautiful and magical and all amazing adjectives that I use. I wish I had better specifics, but I figure, I will just pepper in stories here and there, to give you the idea of the fun we had.
One of our many delicious meals on the boat. Except for the night John asked me to chop up 12 garlic hearts...luckily, I found his mistake for 12 garlic cloves....chefs out there know what I'm talking about.
One of the traditions of BVI, apparently, is stealing other boats flags. So, Tom stole another boat's flag.
Ah, paradise! Imagine you are on this beach. Then imagine a boat mate leaves the deck to go to the restroom. Now, imagine the smell of methane. Yes, we were the smelly boat of the lot, Paul's and my room specifically. There was something wrong with the toilet system so every time someone flushed, the rankest smell was emitted, no matter what type of bathroom needs you did. And since our room was the worst, we were known as the Smelly Meggses who smell like Eggses. I really just made that up, but you get the jist. Gross times.
This doesn't show it, but this day, we had Sloan Olympics. This is where I try to put on a happy face as competitions or some other happen. I was in charge of the sand picture, so I made Paul into Tim the Beaver (MIT's mascot). No pictures came from this (??that I know of??) but Paul made a good scuba diving beaver.
The next few photos are of our snorkeling fun times. We went to a couple of places that were fantastic, but this one area in particular was fun. Paul and Lizzie had the brilliant idea of putting our old, moldy bread into Ziploc bags, ripping a hole in the end, and feeding fish underwater. This made the fish CRAZY! They were everywhere and I even got to pet a few.
I'll be honest.
I was trying to catch them. It's very frustrating when you want to grab one and THEY JUST WON'T LET YOU! It's like they're scared or something.
Paul's so brave. After the Sloan Olympics, our boat raced to anchor at a beach with an infamous bar called Soggy Dollar. We were able to get extremely close to the beach (with 5 feet clearance between the boat and ground). Paul started jumping off the boat and of course, instigating others to join him. Which Tom merrily joined Paul. And then pencil dove into the 5 ft. water and he's around 6 ft. tall. No surprise, Tom now has a sprained ankle.
Always fun with my bear :)
The last night, we went to this old boat bar where you have to jump off. Traditions are important. We all jumped obviously.
Us jumping
And that was it! This trip was mainly for bonding with friends in our last couple of weeks together, meaning not as much commentary as you might have hoped for. But, be assured, we had a great time.
Tom and I trying to help our feet out at the Boston airport.
But there was one really upsetting moment for me on this trip. On May 27, my Grandpa Linke, at the age of 90, passed away. It was sudden and not something that any of my family saw coming. Besides some pain, he seemed pretty healthy and I never imagined that while I was in such a beautiful location, something so acutely painful was happening to my family. Although I know that he is at peace, it will be difficult to go visit without checking in on him and seeing his smile for me. I will always have the memories though. When I go to Germany in a couple of weeks, I will get to see the places that he loved and be nearer to him. So, I will get to be close to him again very soon.
Thank you to all my friends who were so kind to me at this time. I appreciate your sweet words and thoughts for me and my family.
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