Gifft Hill School (Day 3)

March 18, 2026

18૦18.167 N

65૦17.459 W

We woke up to the boat already sailing away from Vieques. The waves were very rough, and we could hardly stand up. Despite this, we were still able to do chores and a short lesson on tying knots. Some knots we learned were the clove hitch and the square knot. After this, we learned about poetry and even wrote a poem ourselves about Bioluminescent bay. After we powered through the rough waters, we made it to Culebra and did a lesson about the stars. There are 2000 stars in the night sky along with 88 constellations. We also talked about the magnitude scale 0 being the brightest star and 6 being the dimmest star. A cool trick was putting your hand across the horizon to find our coordinates. We imagined the stars shining in the sky like a ruby. After the stars lesson, we found out that we couldn’t go to tank beach, which was a huge letdown for all of us. Even though this happened, we were still able to have some fun doing a splash competition in the water. After a short break, we started to go aloft, or climb up the mast. Most of us either made it to the top or climbed halfway. The view from the top was beautiful and you could see the whole bay from below you. The feeling on top was calming and impactful. Next we did an evening muster and prepped for dinner. Our three meals were huevos rancheros for breakfast, tortillas and rice for lunch, and hot dogs and beans for dinner. Before dinner, we were able to cram in some time to sing a sea shanty. Something we are looking forward to is watching the movie on the sail Thursday night.