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When you smile with a snorkel mask on your face water trickles in through the wrinkles next to your nose and slowly fills up the mask with water. If you are SCUBA diving this means you have to look up towards the surface and breathe out through your nose to clear the mask of water. The more you smile or laugh the more you clear your mask until, if you are playing underwater backgammon against your friend Benny Urmston, you are stuck in a downwards spiral of dice rolling, hand signals (not always polite), laughing, and mask clearing.

Last week, three Island School teachers and a friend sailed from Eleuthera to the Exumas to explore the Land and Sea Park and enjoy a few days off before semester prep.  The crew was Ashley an Island School Literature teacher and our winter sailing trip sailor/blogger extraordinaire, Benny Urmston from the 2004-2005 Crazy Horse Expedition, Nadine the Art teacher, and me (Rob) a Human Ecology teacher.

Ashley, as usual, was completely impervious to seasickness and made some delicious curry for dinner. Benny spent as much time in and under the water as possible as he is about to spend the next six months in Antarctica.  Nadine and I enjoyed spending time on our boat Fishers Hornpipe (FHP) in weather other than the freezing cold snow and ice we experienced on our journey from Rhode Island to The Bahamas last winter.

Overall our trip was fun and relaxing. We finally got chance to experiment with different sail combinations and points of sail and found the FHP to a pleasure to sail in relatively light conditions. The weather was HOT and depending on the bugs some of the crew found it nicer to sleep on deck in the breeze.  Now we are back at school and getting excited for the upcoming semester!

For more information and some wonderful writing by Ashley about our adventures restoring and sailing Fishers Hornpipe please check out: fishershornpipesail.blogspot.com