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| Hello all, Chris, Andrea and I are about 20 hours into our sail back to St. Martin and pretty much due east of Union. Life onboard Verone is a lot different with only three people and no Dave Mathews or Dispatch!!! Thank god Helio (the autopilot) is helping out, Evan you'd be so happy. With that said we've still had to steer more then half of the time because the winds and seas have been too strong for him. Not to strong for any of you/us but Helio hasn't been through my intensive 32-day training course. Our sail is going great and I will try to keep writing as we sail so you can all be jealous that you're not here with us. The remaining crew of Verone definitely misses all of you guys, and now that I've had some time to reflect on the trip I wanted to share some of my thoughts. As I've mentioned to you guys many times, this was the most enjoyable Broadreach trip I've ever done. You guys were an incredible group and it was a pleasure to work with all of you. Tom and I were reminiscing yesterday and both agreed that things really couldn't have gone better. I want to take this time to remind you of some of the things you accomplished of the last 32 days or so. There's obviously the sailing, but it definitely shouldn't be discounted. Many of you had no idea how to sail when the trip started and none of you knew how to run the boat. However, over the course of a month and with a lot of hard work, you all learned how to sail and operate this boat. That point was really reinforced to me when I took the Grenadines Voyage kids out sailing and was reminded how much you had learned and progressed from the first few days. Another very rewarding point was the last set of man overboards we did off. The first few times we tried man overboard drills you guys had a lot of trouble. Actually lets be honest, you were miserable, but by the end everyone was able to perform one of the most difficult maneuvers on a sailboat. Additionally, as a group we sailed from St. Martin to Trinidad, which was well over 600nm and probably closer to 750nm. It's a passage I've never made and one that many very accomplished sailors would love to do. These are things you should take pride in and cherish. Some other less obvious things that I think you guys should be proud of is how well you functioned as a group and all you accomplished. Both Tom and I kept waiting for the day when there was going to be a huge fight and it never happened. You managed to get along with each other (sometimes better than others) in a very confined living space for the entire trip. Because of our ability to work together and the camaraderie among the group, we were able to spend our time doing fun and exciting activities instead of managing group dynamic issues. Some of the things we did over the summer included a lot of hiking (Ille Fourche, The Quill, Montserrat, Dominica, St. Lucia (twice for some people), Mystique, and Grenada). There was also the community service, which ranged from cleaning up the beach, to visiting the elderly home in Montserrat, and finally working with Brother King. How many people can say that they were part of releasing a turtle back into the wild? We stopped in some really cool towns, visited some awesome beaches, and even got a chance to do some great diving. One thing I always like to point out after the trip is over are some of the everyday conveniences we managed to live without down here and how simple life really can be. First and foremost is the water. The boat had 1000 liters and that often lasted us a week or more. That means about 3 gallons of fresh water a person a day, all of that with me bugging you guys about drinking more water. It is also pretty cool to think that we could have done the entire trip on one tank of gas. That means that we were really sailing and didn't have to run our engine too much to charge the batteries, even though the boys always left their lights on. We also managed to do a great job with our food, after a few early difficulties. You guys did a great job working with the supplies you were provided. I guess one question I would like to ask you guys is how many of you thought six weeks ago that you were going to go for a month without showering, waking up at the latest by 7am (often much earlier) and using the heads and or ocean as your bathroom? I want to thank all of you for helping me have an excellent summer. I couldn't have asked for anything more, and it was the perfect way to relax before going back to school. I love to teach and work with kids. I consider all of you new friends and hope that you will stay in touch. I am always willing to help any of you with anything I can. When I get back home and have access to the Internet I'll send you guys some sailing links I use to try to find jobs and fun things to do on boats. I hope that I've introduced you well to the world of boats and that you will continue to enjoy sailing. If you do it right it can provide you with some awesome opportunities to do really cool stuff. Please stay in touch. Good luck with school and everything else undertake. Thanks again for an awesome summer. Your friend, Peter |
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