Motoring Our Way Through Muck (Happy Anniversary to Mommy and Daddy!)

-Muddy
-Filthy and gross
-Debris is everywhere
-The logs and weeds are floating by
-Brown Sea

Do you like my cinquain? It describes what I see surrounding the boat right
now. Today is our third day on our trip to Cartagena, and we are now passing
through the 'dumping grounds' of the Magdelena river. The river flows out of
the mountains and city in Columbia, and then out to sea, leaving the ocean
as a brackish water, brown and invaded by leaves, shoes, logs, sticks and
weeds from the mountains and city. When we first spotted the dumping ground
it was just brown water on the horizon, but as we got closer we saw the
abrupt change in the color of the water. It was so abrupt that Cole and I
were able to sit on the bow and count down until we passed the line (before
which we had been cleaning the clay off the deck. It was so much fun to play
with though, and we even made Mommy and Daddy an anniversary present). Once
passed the line, everyone was sent on deck to look for logs and any other
floating debris (this included leaves, sticks, weeds, bushes, boats and yes,
even a shoe). The first piece of debris was found by Cole. He found it, but
instead of saying which way to turn the boat he began to yell and point in
all different directions saying "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, did you see that,
it was huge!!!" Mommy got everything under control, and we didn't hit the
pile of leaves and sticks. But this is basically how it went whenever we saw
something floating: #1 point and yell, #2 pick a direction to point at, #3
look at everyone else and ask if they saw it too. Wonderfully organized
process wouldn't you say? After passing a small fishing boat who happened to
be anchored in 700 feet of water (strange), the brown water turned to dark
brown, and then to a more regular, greenish color, but still not blue. We
are now sailing in a third blue, third brown and third green water to a
little anchorage where we will be spending the night at before we wake up
early the next morning to continue our journey to Cartagena. Mommy is
currently making and snack and.........oh yeah! I forgot to tell you about
Cole and Is' wonderful surprise for Mommy and Daddy's anniversary! So after
dinner tonight, Cole and I are going to set up my piano. Next I will play
the song they walked down the aisle to on their wedding. Then Cole is going
to play his favorite song on the piano, The Titanic. After that Cole will
present our clay sculptures of islands (Cole made the islands and I made
their names out of pink and green clay), while I recite the cinquains I
wrote for them. The whole time they will probably be eating dessert knowing
Daddy. I'm going to go eat the wonderful snack Mommy made us. Bye!