From May 9-13, we had the opportunity to go on the Spirit of Bermuda to live and sail for five days.

It was different living on a boat, but at the same time had similar features, just more compact.

We learnt many valuable life lessons on the sloop during our five days aboard. We focused on the seven habits of highly effective teens; the main one for me being helping others.

I feel that being on a boat with lots of tasks to be done, we all need to work together to have a productive day.

On the first day, we were taught how to put up the sails that our watch group was in charge of. It was really rewarding on the second day when we remembered what we had learnt and were able to put up the sails with less help.

By Friday, our team was able to do it without any assistance and we all helped each other to ensure everything ran smoothly.

While aboard the sloop, we also learnt about and took part in helming — steering the boat. It was really exciting and an adrenalin rush, because you were in charge of the ship.

We learnt how to tie four important knots: reef, figure eight, clove hitch and bowline (this was my favourite).

We also went snorkelling, which was really cool because we learnt about all the different fish in the local waters and their names. We went for a tour of a large Dutch sailing vessel, named Oosterschelde. The crew were very friendly and knew everything about their vessel. It had a huge dining parlour and beautifully designed staircases and was much bigger than our ship!

After our tour, we invited them to come and tour Spirit and we took great pleasure in showing them the ship that had become our home for the past three days.

We fired our cannon as a show of gratitude to the Dutch sailors for showing us around their vessel as we sailed out of St George’s. On that same day, we went for another tour, on a French vessel, Étoile, whose name means star.

Finally, we went cliff jumping on Diving Board Island, which was really fun. Everyone was encouraging each other to do higher and higher cliffs and everyone had a wonderful time.

I would really recommend this trip to anyone. I loved my experience because we learnt so many interesting things that we just couldn’t learn on land.

I am really appreciative of everything the crew has done and taught us. It is an experience that I will remember forever.