mit sloan bvi 2009: one word… amazing

19Jun09

Each year, over a hundred graduating Sloan MBA’s sneak off to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to spend nine days on the open water spreading the Sloan brand across the many islands and ports.  Nine to ten people to a yacht, we sail in the mornings, snorkel in the afternoons, nap in the evenings and party all night long, then rinse and repeat.

Everything is organized by the students from the trip plan to the meal plan to the booze plan.  Take a short ride with me as I recap this AMAZING trip.  The trip I’ll always remember – and if you know me, it must have been good!

On Friday, May 22nd, about 120 Sloanies flew in from various places to meet up in St Thomas, USVI.  But first, we stopped in Charlotte, NC to wait patiently at the airport bar at 9am.  Amazingly, Sloanies weren’t the first to the bar.  But we were a close second.  Alas… no photo-op there.  Suffice to say, we were just getting warmed up.  Keep reading…

Later that day, we arrived in the USVI in time to rush and catch the last ferry to the BVI.  A quick view from the plane!

Two custom check-points later (future travellers take note): one in USVI (! aren’t we still in the US?!) and one in BVI. We made it to our boat, checked it out, sorted out all our gear and the excitement began.  Our boat was a 47 foot catamaran, fully-equiped with a generator and air conditioning.  A generator, you ask?!  Just wait and see… we had a plan.

The sun had gone down, but Bobby’s supermarket (THE primary grocer in the islands) was hard at work delivering our food… and more importantly, our booze.  About 10 cases of beer and about a dozen bottles of rum later, we were loaded up.

Gawd we over-ordered.  Or so we thought.  Little did we know, we’d run out in three days. Whoops?!

The next morning we waved goodbye to real showers and solid ground and set sail.  Oops, but how rude of me.  Forgot to introduce the crew and our fearless skipper, Morgan, and our beautiful chef, Julie.

“Captain” Morgan

“Executive Chef” Julie (left)

Oh… and our boat name?  “Juggernaut B*tch” – from this popular viral video.  Introducing the Juggernauts!

“Indecent” Indy

“Pringles”Jean

“Irene” Eileen

“Token White Boy” Rick and “Shady” Sandy

“Hatan” Ketan and “J-Pow” Justin

and… me… “Joh-dan” Jordan

Now that the characters have been introduced, on on to the trip.  We started with this…

and more of that….

and more…

Which created many opportunities to.. uh… nap, making this a popular view.

Also making the next mornings feel like this…

Each morning, Captain Morgan would be the first up and start the boat out to our next destination.  On the first couple days, we’d be up at around 7am or 8am.  By day four, it was around 9am or 10am.  By day seven?  Captain Morgan would be driving solo until at least 11am.  With some of us even missing the mid-day sun.

Though we snorkelled every day, I don’t have any underwater shots to share, but here’s a few beauties from above sea level.

And, of course, this wouldn’t be my blog without shots of the most important part of the trip.  FOOD! Thanks for “Executive Chef” Julie, we ate well and ate A LOT!  Her home- yacht-made guacamole was an instant hit.  In fact, word of this amazing guacamole spread across the fleet.  But due to an island shortage of avocados, it was strictly for Juggernaut consumption only!

Here’s a sample of the many good eats we enjoyed!

My mouth is watering again looking at these.  They tasted as good as they looked too!  Muchos thanks to sous-chef Jean!

Oh, and before you think sailing is THAT easy.  We did have to burn a few beer calories once in a while.  For instance, cracking open a beer, walking to the cooler and… turning a handle.

Check out these natural leaders. “Harder Justin, harder… that’s it… little bit more… perfect!” (TWIS!)

And after doing that for a little while, it was back to the beaches.

Yes, we ONLY stand in groups of five.

Finally, on a couple nights, we put that generator to good use.  Behold!

That’s right… Rock Band on a boat! Yup, though we’re not all Engineers, a little bit of MIT managed to rub off on us still.

Hope you enjoyed the trip as much as we did! We’ll definitely do this again.  Reunion anyone?

And… to my sponsor.  This blog has been brought to you by…

“Wally the Destroyer”

Though many tried and failed, no one managed to ride Wally.  Undefeated to the end of the trip, he took a steak knife to the dorsal fin and that was the last we saw of him.

Thanks to all of those that made the MIT Sloan BVI 2009 trip a success.  And thanks to the many memories I’ll have with me as we all go our separate ways!  Cheers!

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Tags: 2009, bobby's supermarket, british virgin islands, bvi, catamaran, juggernaut bitch, mit, moorings, scuba, Sloan, snorkel, usvi, wally, yacht