We took our lil road trip to Namibia and it was SO amazing!!!! OMG the sand dunes were crazy beautiful!!! It took a full day to get there and we stopped in Windhoek which is the Capitol then proceeded to Swakopmund. Arnold has a beach house there so we stayed there a couple nights and also went to his farm. His farm is this massive piece of land about 18,000 acres and we drive alllll over it. We saw baboons...zebras...meerkats...giant rabbits... No giraffes tho :(. We went sand boarding one day and OMG it was SO fun!!! It looked crazy steep but it wasn't so bad. I'm just glad I didn't chicken out after lookin over the edge! The bad part was that they have no lifts so u have to climb the dune every time to get back up. What a view tho! After sand boarding we rented 4 wheelers and played on the dunes some more. My first time on a 4 wheeler and it was crazy fun!
We came back in the country only to find that they don't give another 90 days for the visa. They only gave us 7 days so we had to come back to Cape Town after we got back and showed them flight papers and we were in an out in 5 minutes...crazy...
We finished prep week and practiced man over boards, picking up mooring balls, docking and stuff to get ready for the exam. The examiner Russell got there Saturday morning and we took our exam. We went over the safety briefing first then he appointed me in the helm first and asked me to take us out and then dock us stern to.....STERN TO!?!?!?!? I bout crapped myself!!!!! Haha we never practiced that!!!!!!!! I was sweating it so bad but turns out its not that hard and there was no wind so I nailed it! Sort of.... We went for a sail to Saldana bay after that and I had to blind nav us there so I stayed below deck and told em what to steer and all that. I got us to our destination perfectly! Then we picked up mooring balls and had lunch then sailed to langebaan. We picked up more mooring balls over there since you use a different sail when you have current and wind. Then we anchored and had a snack before I navigated us around Jutten island in the dark. When we got back to Mykonos we made a feast of a meal and went over colregs and lights. We also showed him our sights from the sextant and my sights were really good for some reason. I think it was a fluke. They aren't supposed to be that good on the first try. Sunday morning we made him breakfast and OH I found tortillas here!!! So we made breakfast tacos!!! Yum. Anyway Ty me and JJ took the oral exam for the oceans part of it. We talked about what it means and how it works and all that. Then he asked if we feel comfortable crossing an ocean now and of course we all said yes! He said ok then at the end of the day you have to be the judge so you all pass! I do have to say the day of the exam was the absolute most fun I have had sailing yet.
So that's it we now have our yachtmaster oceans certificate!!! We went out straight away for our celebration. I can't believe it's over already. We have been waitin for this day for a year and its already come and gone...so strange... Now we just need to find a delivery that will take on 2 crew instead of one. We finish our fire fighting this week and then we are done completely and we will hang out in Cape Town and stalk captains at Tui marine until one of them gives us a chance! Haha ;)
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