Location: Terre de Haut, Les Saintes

Today we had the option of going on an early sunrise hike up to a fort in Les Saintes, called Le Chameau, and those who went got to see the breath-taking sunrise at the peak of the hill they had just climbed. The only drawback was the 4:30 wake-up to reach the summit before sunrise, but it was worth it. When they got back, they were greeted with an almost completely asleep crew and an amazing French pastry breakfast, complimentary of Amy, who spent an hour making them beforehand (wink wink), and they were gone almost immediately. After breakfast, we picked up anchor and moved closer to port, which the anchor crew did smoothly and fantastically, and started dinghy runs to shore, as we had half the day left for free time to do whatever we wanted. Once ashore, many students first picked up their freshly cleaned laundry, as they hadn’t had been able to send theirs to a laundry for at least a week. Then they formed small groups based on who they picked up laundry with and headed their separate ways, with many venturing to a supermarket or two to pick up snacks and cold beverages to quench their thirsts. After many different French lunches and adventures, they all met back on the dinghy dock at 2:00 to be taken back to the boat. When they were back on board and all corralled, we had a large organized group research time where each team of student researchers was able to get a lot of their group research done and collect data for their upcoming rough draft due date. After group research time, we had dinner. After that, we had to get prepared for our night out, where we were able to go around town to explore some cute bars and restaurants and have some drinks, some staying classy with wine and fancy desserts and others going for some beers and pizza.

Pictured: Sunrise Hike photos, Ocean Star from shore, Group research time