Our trip from Blanquilla to Tortuga

Finally, we have left Blanquilla! I was starting to get bored there. Now we are in a little island called Tortuga. It took us about 12 hours to get here. This (on a good day) would normally be very slow for us, but due to weather, waves and wind direction, this all changed. 

When I woke up on the 8th, I thought we were underway, so I went up to the main salon to look at where we are. It turned out to be a squall, with lots of wind and waves, LOTS OF WAVES. Daddy, Mommy, and Cole were already up and were looking at the charts and wondering if we should leave to Tortuga. After hearing Chris Parker, a guy who does the weather on our SSB (Single Side Band radio), we decided that this would be the perfect time to leave this rocking and rolling place. 

If you have ever been on the little kid rides (sometimes called the pirate ship) that go up and down, and back and forth, you know how I felt that whole trip. Chris and Daddy's weather charts both said that the wind should change throughout our trip (a good thing). This never happened. The waves were huge, the wind never changed, but luckily, no one got even close to sea sick. "Yes" I thought, when I looked at the chart and saw that we should be in our anchorage at Tortuga at 7:00 p.m. Well, 7:00 came, and I couldn't even see Tortuga. 8, 9, 10:00, still nothing. Then, at 10:30, land came up on the radar. Cole and I were so excited and ran outside to see it. Since it was dark though, we couldn't see a thing. 11:00 came, and we were finally in the anchorage, just about to drop the anchor, when suddenly we got attacked by mosquitos. Everyone ran inside to close up the boat and put on bug spray. Cole and I decided to stay inside and spray the whole inside of the boat with Baygon (our trusty bug killer). When we thought that all the bugs were dead, and the anchor was down, everyone came inside and said goodnight. Mommy and Daddy were really tired and went to bed right away, but they said that I could finish the anklet I was working on (the anklet is pink, yellow, and of course, purple), and then go to bed. Finally, I went to bed. When I woke up that morning I went to the salon and looked around. When I went to step onto the salon floor I was totally grossed out at the number of dead mosquitos lying on the floor. I quickly went and got Mommy and Daddy, who cleaned the salon. When I finally got a chance to look around, I found out that we were in an anchorage with more that 20 boats, and there was a beach that surrounded us, a little, one house fishing village, and a couple fishing boats. It was a very nice anchorage, but we decided to go around the island to get away from the mosquitos. After breakfast, as we lifted the anchor we spotted a boat from PORTSMOUTH, RI! So we went over to them and talked with the guy who lives on it. He gave us really good information on PLC (our next stop, on the coast of Venezuela). Then, Mommy said that she was going to make bread in the pressure cooker when we were underway (not something she has done before). We were all very excited to have home made bread for  lunch, and thought this was a great idea. The bread was done ten minutes before we go to the other anchorage, but Cole and I had lunch anyways because we wanted fresh, hot bread. I can't even start to explain how good chicken salad/ currie is with homemade bread. When we arrived at the entrance to the anchorage, we discovered how shallow it really is. We went from 100 ft to 8 ft in about 10 seconds (don't worry, we draw 3 ft). When we got into the actual anchorage, we saw two boats rafted and another boat that had left the other anchorage an hour before us. The water wasn't beautiful there, but it didn't make us stop from swimming. But, before we jumped in the water, we came up with a wonderful idea. The idea was to make cake in the pressure cooker. It turned out wonderfully. It was a somewhat healthy chocolate cake with Mommy-made icing on top. It was amazing!!! It was more like chocolate fudge because of the texture, but it was still really good anyways. Mommy is now talking to a person in PLC to make sure that we have a slip at the dock (we do), in what Cole and I call Spantaliano (a mixture of Spanish and Italian). Tomorrow we will be leaving for PLC, and on the twelfth I'm going to meet the girl on the boat Someday Came. I am so excited. Her name is Caroline, we do the exact same homeschooling, and will sail with each other all the way to Australia and New Zealand! I am really excited to meet her. I'll write about our trip, and meeting Caroline in a couple days, but for now that's all. Bye!

I am writing in Tortuga right now, but since I don't have internet connection, it will be sent in PLC.