Cammi's Blog

Back to School in Portsmouth

2010-08-31T09:18:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! I can't believe that it's already time to start eighth grade! It feels so long ago when we left on Zen, heading for the Caribbean; but Tonga feels like only a couple months ago even though it's been a whole year. The whole trip was absolutely amazing, and I loved every moment. Lots of people have asked me if I would do it again. My answer is always "yes"!! There was really nothing I didn't like. Things like no internet, having to conserve water and electricity, and living in such a small space made me appreciate what we have even more than I did before. I never realized how privileged everyone in this beautiful country is. Yesterday I was washing some pans in the sink and I was thinking about how wonderful a dishwasher is!!

About a month ago, we moved into a new house in Portsmouth. It's only 10 minutes away from our old townhouse, and is right on the water. We absolutely love it! It's also our first single-family home, in a real neighborhood.

As I said, school is starting this week for both Cole and I. Cole is going back to Saint Michael's School in downtown Newport, and I am doing homeschooling. I decided that I didn't want to go straight into a crazy schedule with school all day, then lots of homework, and dance every day. Homeschooling is just so much easier!

This year I am dancing 6 days a week not including rehearsals. On Fridays I am taking classes at my very first studio in Newport, which I am really excited for! All of my other classes are in Providence (about 35 minutes away from our house).

Well, that's about it. I'm sitting at the dining room table right now eating some really yummy muffins for breakfast. Mmm!!

As a last note, I'll add some random stuff at the bottom. Bye!!

Favorite Place: Aitutaki, Cook Islands and New Zealand

Would Love to Live In: New Zealand

Loved: going swimming every day; the beautiful weather; whales

Appreciate: the dishwasher; the washing machine; internet

Total Miles Sailed: 20,000

Countries Visited: 20

Cruising Boats Met: a lot

I've been sitting here for 5 minutes and I can't think of a name for this blog.

2010-03-14T21:19:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone! It's crazy how quickly things can change. One day we were in New Zealand, the next we were on a plane to New York. One day we were in Florida, and the next we were at our house in Rhode Island. Right now I'm sitting in my room in Portsmouth. This time last week we had just arrived into RI after a 3 hour flight from Florida. Today, we just returned from a really fun dinner at Miss Erica and Scott's house (for those of you who don't know who they are, Miss Erica used to be our babysitter, and Scott is her husband). Tomorrow I have dance class at Festival Ballet up in Providence! Actually, less than 24 hours after we arrived into RI, I was up there taking classes. I'm now dancing Monday through Friday and I really love it. If it all works out, I may even be able to do culmination, the end of year show! Very exciting. Well, this is only a quick blog, and I've got to go to bed. Good night!

Back to the Tropics!

2010-02-13T11:25:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! I just realized that a blog that I had sent a few weeks ago never got posted and I can't find it anywhere on my computer, which stinks. Anyway, right now I am sitting at the dining room table in Nonna's house in Florida. It's in the high 60's and I am planning on going swimming as soon as I finish writing this blog. I love the warm weather! I have to say though, snow is really fun as well.

Last Tuesday, Cole and I left Pennsylvania to fly to Florida. At the time there was still snow on the ground after a medium sized blizzard where we get 18 inches of snow. It was so fun! The flight out of PA was pretty uneventful. We arrived into FL around 4:30 and were at Nonna's house by 7:00. Even though it was raining, walking out into humid air was so nice. The next day we went to the grocery store with Nonna to get some food into the house, and got Cole some flip-flops and a sweatshirt. On Thursday we went to Justice so that I could get some summer clothes. I had no shorts that fit, and only 3 shirts. Luckily, I can now actually choose what to wear, and don't have to wash my jeans every night so that they are clean to wear the next day. Nonna and I had fun, but I think that Cole would have rather been somewhere else. That night I went to take a class at a dance studio I might go to. It was ballet, and at the end we did a little bit of pointe. Yesterday was Unkie's birthday! He was supposed to go sky diving over Satellite Beach, but sadly it was raining and he couldn't jump. Instead, we went to see Percy Jackson and the Olympians the movie. It was a great movie, but a lot of the book was cut out and the story line was changed a bit. It was still a great movie though and we really enjoyed it! Today I'm going to go visit another dance studio even though I won't be taking any classes as of yet. If I go to this studio, I will only be taking ballet and pointe 2 times a week, but I will also have jazz, lyrical and musical theater.

Well, that's all for now. I'm off to go convince Cole to come swimming with me. Should be fun. :)

Back to 'Real' Life

2010-01-22T08:20:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone!

We are having a great time here in PA. It's kind of funny to get back into 'real' life, but I really like it!

I just finished a big series of tests and today I get to go back to a regular day again! I have 7 dance classes a week (2 on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, 2 on Thursday and 1 on Saturday). They are really fun and all the other girls in my class are really nice. I'm having a really great time!!

Cole is looking at cars on the internet right now while we wait until 8:45 to drive Lolly to school. He is doing karate classes on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. The dojo is great and Cole is still a brown belt. He loves his classes, and is really happy that the school teaches Kenpo as well as many other different kinds of karate.

Lauren is reading right Fudge-a-Mania by Judy Blume right now and really likes it. I remember reading Judy Blume's books! We went to her class yesterday to watch them do presentations on their ancestor's home country. Lauren did Italy, there were a bunch of Irelands, a Native American tribe, and a few others. They did a great job! Also, on Wednesday, we went to her lower school to see the science fair. Katherine, Darlene and I helped Lolly make her science project and stood at her booth for a while. It was really funny. There are so many kids in that school!!!

Katherine is already at school....she starts school at around 8 o-clock just like Cole and I used to. Today is her Roman Day at school. Everyone gets to dress up in togas and gladiator costumes, they have no official school work to do, no homework for the weekend, and they get to have lunch with their whole grade while watching a movie. She is so excited! For her costume, she is wearing one of Pete's long t-shirts, a brown belt, leggings and my island flip-flops which have black straps and a braided bottom.

Pete stays here all day while he works, which is really good. He comes down for lunch and for about an hour he hangs out with us.

Darlene works 3 days a week, but she's been really busy because there have been lots of meetings that she had to go to. It is really fun when she is here though, because we can go places after school.

Abby, their 1 year old yorkie-poo is so cute! She is just like a younger Harley! She, of course, thinks that she is bigger than all of us and is the queen of the house. Oh, and she is also a serial killer.......of stuffed animals. Step one: rip out the eyes........Step 2: gouge all the fur out of the faces........Step 3: kill it in any other way thought of. It's really funny!!

Well, that's about it for us. I'm going to go read my book. Bye!

Our New Home

2010-01-05T12:58:00.002-05:00

Hi everyone! We arrived into the Barkman's house in Pennsylvania last night, and have just finished school. It is a little odd....our best friends, Kak and Lolly are at school and our parents are here with us, while we do homeschooling in their house. So we have basically claimed their house as our own, and moved in. We have also stolen their dog, Abby.

Well, not really, but close. Abby is the cutest puppy in the whole world and is just hysterical. She has 'puppy spasms' when she runs around the house randomly at top speed while barking her head off. It is so funny!

I've gotta go find something to do with myself for the next 2.5 hours while my poor friends suffer through their 7 hour school day. Luckily Kak and I have dance class tonight at 5!!! :D Bye!
--
Camo

It's not over yet

2009-12-28T16:45:00.001-05:00

I cannot believe that this time last year, we were sitting on the deck of Zen in the beautiful San Blas islands off the coast of Panama. It feels like so long ago. Lots of people have asked if I enjoy living back in the States. My answer is probably yes. It's great to see friends and family, and go to the places that we missed for 2 years, but it's hard to choose between the two, very different life styles. Cruising, or land life? We don't have to worry about that yet though. Next week we will be driving up to the Barkman's house in Pennsylvania. Cole and I will live there with our best buddies for about a month while Mommy and Daddy go back to New Zealand and get the boat ready to go on a ship. Zen is now blue, and has a few interior changes. Then, we will all fly to Florida where we will stay for 6 months while we wait for Zen to arrive on the ship. There are lots of things planned for the next couple of months. I will join Katherine's dance classes, and Cole may join a karate dojo. Then, in Florida, we will do both karate and dance. Possibly even piano. It should be fun!

We're back!

2009-12-15T16:35:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! I would like to announce that we are sitting in our house in Portsmouth, RI this very minute! Today we went to school at Saint Michael's and had a great time. It feels like we never left! Well, this will just be a quick blog update, but I just wanted to say that we arrived safely. The flight here was really long, and a bit boring, but it was fine. Dance class at All Star Dance Academy is tonight! I did ballet and pointe yesterday...it was fun. It's really great to see all of our friends and family, and hopefully I'll be able to see everyone from Festival Ballet soon as well! Okay, that's about it. Have a great couple of weeks...merry Christmas and happy New Year!

Namaste!

2009-12-11T06:20:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! If you're wondering, namaste is the way that you say 'hi' in India, where we are now! We arrived into India last Monday, but not before a quick and unexpected trip to Bangkok, Thailand.

Okay, so how can a trip to Thailand be unexpected? Well, when we arrived into the Thailand airport we went to the desk where we were supposed to receive our transfer tickets into India. Unfortunately, we had some problems with visas and were forced to stay at a hotel for the next 3 days while we waited for our visas. At first I was disappointed that we weren't going to be able to go straight to India, and go to my aunt's wedding, but it ended up being really fun. We stayed at a hotel on the Chao Phraya river, which is about an hour away from the airport. It was super warm, and I ended up having to pull out my sun dresses. Of course, we had to see the dance show and buffet the next night. It was a really cool show and was very different from the South Pacific Island's shows. The woman had really long finger nail extensions and everyone had big, tall, gold head dresses that looked like the tops of some of the buildings we saw. Also, the food was so good. I've never had such good Thai food in my life. That day, we explored the city by train. It was like a monorail that goes just about everywhere you need to go. We went to the huge 'weekend market' and explored there for about an hour and a half. We saw lots of cool things and even some puppies and bunnies! After that we went to a huge mall called 'Siam Paragon' where we had lunch. The food court was humungous! Our last day rivaled with our passport extravaganza in Boston before we left the States two years ago. The only difference was that we were looking for visas, Mommy didn't have a cast, and we were sweating our butts off, not shivering. The main idea was that it was really hectic. We did finally get everything settled and made it to our 5 PM flight to India that evening.

The next day we started our journey in India. We met our family here in New Delhi and basically ate and talked all day. It's still crazy to think that all these people I am meeting are my aunts, uncles and cousins! The next day we took our 5 hour drive to Agra where we visited the amazing Taj Mahal. It was so beautiful. We had a great guide that knew everything there is to know about India and was really funny at the same time. First, he took us to a huge fort that was built in the time of the Moghals. It was really cool to actually stand in a place that I just studied about in history! After that, we visited the Taj Mahal. It is just so big! There was amazing detail and everything was thought of. For example, there are four spires on each corner of the Taj. Each one is leaning out at a different angle in case of an earth quake. If an earth quake over 8.5 was to hit the Taj, each spire would fall at a different time, making it so that none of the mosques near it would be hurt or damaged. Amazing right? Inside, there is just unbelievable decoration. All sorts of little tiny stones with really brilliant colors were placed by hand into the marble to form thousands of little flowers. There was blue, red, orange, green, brown and even some yellow! One red stone called carnelia glowed if you put a flashlight up against it. The workmanship and preciseness was just amazing. I really, really enjoyed that part of our trip.

But right now, we are back in Delhi. I hope to see everyone soon!!!!

Bye!

Lolly Stock Down Under

2009-12-11T05:50:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't written in so long! It's actually been a few weeks since Lolly Stock ended, but I'll post some of my journal entries about my favorite parts of the trip. If you're wondering, Lolly Stock Down Under was when the Barkmans came to visit us in the New Zealand! We rented two campers and drove all around the South Island for 8 days. We had so much fun!!

Okay, so this is probably the most crazy filled day:

Day 5: We did the craziest stuff today......well, I guess more crazy for the dads and my mom, but still crazy! All of us went up a really steep chairlift to the top of a mountain. At the top, we got our tickets and took another, smaller ski lift to the base of a small cart track. There, we got really cool, little carts that you rode down the mountain on. Kak, Lolly, Cole and I went down 5 times each and loved it. We went really fast and crashed into stuff. Typical. When we were done, the dads announced that they were going to do the bungy jump next to the cart track in preperation for the bigger canyon swing that they would do later that day. The jump was 100 meters down, and you had to do a dive, as if into a swimming pool, off the platform. We were so scared for them. Daddy went 1st and loved it. Then Pete went 3rd. Both were so glad they did it and had a great time. We then went to the upstairs buffet to have lunch (which was soo good). But we had to eat fast for fear of missing the bus that would bring us to the canyon swing, which is a really big swing attached to a line that goes accross a canyon by bungy cords. No, I didn't do it, but Mommy, Daddy and Pete did. Below the 300 meter high platform that these crazy people were going to jump off of, were sharp cliff-rocks and white water rapids. Daddy, again, went 1st. He, of course, jumped off the platform backwards, freefalling for 3 senconds before starting the ark of the swing. He loved it, and while in swing, anounced that he was 'deffinitely doing this again'. Mommy was next. She went off the cliff a bit more careful than Daddy and just stepped off the platform. Screaming the whole way down, she also loved it. Pete was next and jumped off forwards, but pretended to run as he fell as if he didn't mean to jump. He really enjoyed it too. After two other 20 someodd year old girls went, Daddy and Pete both took a second turn. They both decided to do the scariest jump that you could do....head first. Yeah. But, they both really liked it and we all laughed hysterically at the pictures. So that was day 5. You can imagine what the rest of the trip was like! Some of the other highlights were a trip to a really huge glacier (miles long and high), a jet boat ride, 45 minutes at a hot tub place that overlooked a river, and a 6 hour drive along a tiny, winding, dirt road along the 'Valley of Death'. It was really funny...a sign at the beginning of the road warned us that 'no campers are allowed'. We had lots of fun.

Well, that's it for now! Bye!

Australia!

2009-11-11T17:42:00.001-05:00

So a few weeks ago we flew over to Australia. But don't think that it wasn't uneventful. Cole and I believe, that for some reason, airports do not like us. To start off, Daddy had a stomach bug, and was not in the mood to drive for 3 hours, and then fly for 3 more hours. So Mommy, Cole and I went to the airport in a taxi, while Daddy stayed at our house for one more day. When we arrived at the check in desk at the airport, the lady asked us if we had our Australian visas. Well, we were only going to be in Sydney for 5 days, and didn't think that we would need visas. When we told her that we had no visas she told us that we needed to run (emphasize the 'run' part) down the hall and get one for each of us. So once we had our visas, had our tickets and were ready to go through security, it was about 30 minutes before our flight left. Luckily, security was really fast and our flight was also delayed a few minutes.

Anyway, we arrived to our hotel in Sydney at around 7:00, and we were hungry. Not really wanting to go and sit at a restaurant, we ordered some food off of the huge room service menu. But let me tell you, our room was amazing. We had a view of the bridge, bay and opera house. We could watch the ferries going across the harbor, and see the people walking over the bridge. Also, there was a full kitchen, washing machine, dryer and dishwasher in the room! There were two big bedrooms with their own bathrooms, a desk overlooking the harbor, and a little living room with a TV. It was so cool.

So the next day we went to meet our friends from the boat Carl Linne who had rented a little sailboat and wanted to take us around the harbor. We had a great time, and met Daddy the next day.

Because we had heard so much about it, we took a VIP tour of the zoo. We got to go into the 'backstage' of the zoo with a guide and pet some of the coolest animals. We got to pet a kangaroo, and put our face right next to a koala! We also saw other animals with the weirdest names like the quocca. It was the most amazing zoo experience I've ever had!

After our two days in the harbor, we went to live in a little Bed and Breakfast near my Mom's high school friend, Mudgie. We spent Halloween with Mudgie and her family, and had a great time trick or treating.

And to top it off, we had to go to the Sydney Opera house for a tour. It was beautiful. We learned all about the architects, how long it took to build and a bunch of other stuff. There were 7 small theaters! We only got to go to 3, but each was perfectly designed. Everything was thought of.

Then, it was finally time to go back to New Zealand. Luckily, Daddy had been feeling better and we had a very nice, and uneventful flight in the biggest, most luxurious airplane in the air. It had two stories, a personal TV on the back of each seat and a full menu to chose your meal from. It was so nice.

Well, we are in our house right now getting ready to go to the boat. Bye!!

PS. Today is Mommy and Daddy's 15th anniversary!!!

Land Life in New Zealand

2009-10-24T18:15:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone!

Sorry that it's been so long since my last blog, but we've been busy getting settled here in New Zealand! We are already in a house in one of the suburbs near the main town/port here, Whangarei. It's so beautiful....it's green everywhere with lots of cows and sheep.

About two weeks ago, when we sailed into New Zealand, it was morning, and we pulled into a marina called Marsden Cove. As soon as we tied up to the dock, customs and immigration people came on board to check us in. After about an hour of official stuff, we were ready to go to the 'Town Basin', which is where we would sit until Zen was pulled out of the water. The Town Basin is a very protected harbor that is at the end of a river that goes into Whangarei. Thanks to our new friend Ian, we were at a dock right next to town. The town is really cool, and after being away from real civilization for 18 months, this is pretty cool. So anyways, we were at the town basin for about 4 days while we looked for a house to rent while Zen was getting worked on. Finally, we found a home only a few minutes away from town. Then, a few days ago, Zen was pulled out of the water by a crane. I wasn't there, but I saw pictures and it looked pretty cool. There were two straps that were attached to the crane and were hanging in the water. Mommy and Daddy then drove Zen into the straps so that she was floating directly over them. Then, once everything was secure, the crane pulled upwards and Zen came out of the water. She is now sitting in a shed, getting prepped for the work that needs to be done. She'll be painted, the sails and canvas work will be changed and we are working on finding some new material for the inside cushions and chairs.

Anyways, right now Daddy and I are sitting at our dining room table enjoying high speed Internet while Cole finishes up school. We plan on going to a zip-lining/outdoor adventure place later today once Cole is done. It sounds really cool! Tomorrow I have ballet class at a new studio that I just joined last week. I'm having a great time and the kids and teachers there are really nice. Also on Monday, Cole has his second karate class in New Zealand which he is enjoying too. Then, on Wednesday we go to Sydney, Australia to visit friends, and explore the big city for a few days. We'll only be there for 4 days, but our schedule is already packed with something to do everyday. It should be fun! Once we get back from Australia, we'll only have 2 more weeks until the Barkmans come to visit us for 10 days! While they're here, we are going to rent two campers and drive around the South Island (or Southland as it is known down here). It will be quite interesting driving on the wrong side of the rode, sitting on the wrong side of the car, and shifting with the wrong hand (am I doing what I think I'm doing?)! Then, after the Barkmans leave, we'll stay in a hotel for two days before we fly out to India where we will visit our family. Then on December 10th, 11th, 12th, or 13th (not sure which), we leave India and live on a plane for two days.........................until we arrive back in RI!! Yup, we're pretty excited for all this traveling. The only problem is that we will have to cram in as much school as possible before all of this excitement starts so that we will finish before September of 2010! Well, I think that I'm going to go enjoy high speed Internet...bye!

New Zealand Here We Come!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-07T00:03:00.000-04:00

Okay, so today is the two-days-before-arrival-to-New Zealand mark! I can't believe that we are so close...I guess that after knowing that this is where we wanted to get eventually for my entire life, it's a little exciting, overwhelming, but still sad. It's exciting because we're finally gonna get there and NZ is supposed to be amazing. Also, it is the first first-world country that Cole, Daddy or I have been to for 8 months. It's overwhelming because, as I said, I've known, for my whole life, that our family dream was to sail here..and now we're here. I don’t really know how to explain it. Last, it's sad because it is the end point of our sailing life in the Pacific. Anyways, when we get to NZ (in 2 days!!!), we'll move into an apartment in the middle of Whangarei so that the boat can be hauled out of the water, painted and have some other jobs done (such as re-doing the interior cushions, and moving fuel and water tanks around). After settling in, Cole and I hope to find a karate dojo and ballet studio where we can take classes for the two months that we will be in NZ. I've found a studio already, but I don't know much about it. Well, right now we are going about 7.5-8 knots with a full jib and a reefed main (reefed means that we haven't put up the whole sail because there is strong winds...don't worry, we often reef and conditions right now are good). The waves are a bit big...8-10 feet, but since we have been on passage for about 4 days, we are used to them now. Lately, I've been learning a lot about meteorology (the study of weather and its patterns) because of the unusual weather between NZ, Tonga and Australia. It can sometimes be tricky to find a nice, long 'weather window' (or period of time when there is good weather to make a passage), and you could get stuck in high winds. Lucky for us, we are in the correct month for good weather, are a fast cruising boat and have a good meteorologist on board (Daddy). We found a good weather window that suits our speeds and carries us to the exact place we need to go. Also, we communicate with Commanders Weather, which is a company in the States that predicts weather for cruising boats like us. They are very helpful and have pointed us in the right direction many times. Another thing that we had hoped for and gotten, was to have a few other boats sailing with us. Right now we have about 5 other boats on our same path with whom we talk with on the radio every day to check in and see how everyone is doing. Well, other than that, now that we are going south to where winter is still going on, the climate has gotten colder. It's about 69 degrees inside the boat now, but outside it's a bit colder because of the wind. At least we will be more prepared for the New England winter that we will throw ourselves into this upcoming Christmas!

Dive Tonga

2009-09-22T21:06:00.000-04:00

Wow I haven't written a blog in a long time! So many things have gone on.
First, there was the Vava'u Regatta. Vava'u is the name of the group of
islands we are in right now. Anyways, during the regatta we participated in
all sorts of activities that were held (kids day, corn hole tournaments, and
a race). It was really fun! Then at the end of the week, Ami and Rick on the
boat Tara Vana came to stay on Zen for a few days. We met them in Cartegena,
and since they were back in the States for a little while, they had some
free time to come and visit us in Tonga. They aren't really sure whether or
not they want to sail across the Pacific themselves, so apart from visiting
us, they were able to understand what the Pacific is like. We had lots of
fun, and Daddy, Ami, Rick and I went on some awesome dives together. On one
of the dives, we got to go into a really cool little air bubble about 50
feet below the surface. It was just a little cave underwater, but if you
went up to the top of it, there was a little spot where you could take out
your regulator and breath regular air! It was so cool and the water in that
one spot was really warm. At the end of the 10 days that Ami and Rick were
with us, they went back to town and stayed at a hotel for a little while to
experience land life in Tonga as well. When they were in town, we explored
many of the 'outer anchorages' where there are no people. All of the
anchorages are really amazing. Right now we are in a little bay called
Manamita with our friends on Dosia and one other boat that I don't know.
It's just a little, protected lagoon surrounded by a reef. Today, while the
adults went snorkeling and Cole and I did school, we all saw a couple of
huge humpback whales breaching right outside the reef! I've never seen
anything like it...the whales came diving out of the water and, as if in
slow motion, fell back into it sideways. It's so cool to watch the whales
play. Also, even though you would think that something so big would make a
really low sound, their 'songs' are actually really high pitched. Sometimes,
while we are swimming, you can hear them. Anyways, I'm just so amazed at how
fast the trip has gone! We will be in New Zealand within the next three
weeks depending on the weather. A few days after we get there, we will move
into an apartment so that Zen can get hauled out of the water to get some
work done (we're repainting the hulls and redoing some of the interior
stuff). Well, Dosia is here so I've gotta go, bye!

Asian Feast on Zen

2009-09-01T23:08:00.001-04:00

August 31: So right now we are underway to another anchorage where we will
meet up with Bravado, but last night we had an Asian feast on Zen with Brick
House, Flashback and Dosia. There was delicious food; rice noodles with
vegetables, chicken and a sauce on top...traditional Indian dhall and
rotis...3 fish curry and a pineapple, banana and Nutella spring roles. But
anyways, I'll start from the beginning: When everyone first arrived, and was
just settling down, Jeff on Flashback looked out the window and said 'oh
shoot'! Margie on Dosia also looked out and said 'Hey Julie! Your boat's
floating away!'. We all ran out onto the back deck, and sure enough,
Flashback, the big boat, was floating away. It's anchor must have broken
free from the sand, dropping off the ledge that the boats were anchored on.
So the guys went out to save Flashback while we started setting up dinner.
Luckily they got the boat back and safely anchored. We all had a really
delicious dinner, and everyone lived happily ever after. The End.

Cocpaw Goat Island

2009-09-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

September 1: So I bet you are wondering what Cocpaw means. It is actually a
mixture of the two words coconut and pawpaw (papaya), and is the name I gave
to an island that Mommy, Daddy and I just explored. It was pretty small, but
had lots of cool trails to explore. So Mommy, Daddy and I (Cole was doing
school) went ashore to the little, uninhabited island and started to
explore. When we first arrived, we walked into the center of the island
where there were a few trees and bushes, but looked as though it had been
burned from a bonfire. We saw a bunch of coconuts on the ground and so Daddy
went to try and break one open so that we could eat and drink the meat and
water in the center. Because coconuts are really hard, and have an extremely
strong outer coating, we were unable to break it open without a knife, but
settled with taking a bunch and putting them in the dinghy for later. The
next thing we discovered (much to Mommy's delight, and not much to mine) was
a pawpaw tree. It was a smallish tree, but still had multiple pawpaws that
were easy for us to grab. We also took about 6 of those and put them in the
dinghy for us and our friends. Not seeing any other treasures around us, we
decided to try and circumnavigate the island. We started on the beach,
walking along the sand and broken bits of coral, completely dry and happy.
But the road started to get a little rough and we eventually found ourselves
in mid-thigh deep water, walking on the slippery coral beneath us. We were
still having fun..everything around here is an adventure. On our left side
was a wall, about 10 feet tall, of coral/rock that had been beaten away at
by the waves. We soon came to an opening that you could climb up through and
get to the land part of the island. Daddy climbed up first and surveyed the
area. I couldn't see him from below, but he said it looked like there was a
trail that we could follow. So Mommy and I climbed up as well and followed
him. There was a goat trail (there was goats on the island so it really was
a trail made by goats) and we followed it to the other side of the island
stopping every once and a while to look out to sea and try to spot
whales..we didn't see any sadly (there was a whale watch going on and we
wanted to participate..we had spotted one whale earlier that day, but were
hoping to see another). Soon we came to a small, but slanted hill that went
down to the beach..where we had hoped to get to eventually. So we slid down
the hill, trying not to get covered in the soil that would easily stain our
clothes. Back on the beach, walking to the dinghy, Daddy saw a goat. It was
a big goat with big horns. "Well this guy is worth taking a picture of"
Daddy said. Whistling a little bit, Daddy coaxed the goat toward us so that
he could take a picture. As we started to walk away, Mommy came up behind us
and also started whistling at the goat. Well, he came right onto the beach
and started to come at us slowly. When we started to walk back to the
dinghy, he followed. Okay, so when you are being followed by a goat who's
back is at your waist and has 2 foot horns with pointy points, you tend to
look behind you a lot when you are walking. Daddy realized that the goat
would't come near the water. Well, I ran for the water. Upon reaching the
dinghy, the goat started to rub his head against it. "He's going to pop the
dinghy!" Daddy said as he grabbed an oar to whack the goat with. Anyways,
Mommy got the dinghy in the water while Daddy fought off the goat with an
oar. It was scary at the time, but hysterical when I think about it now.
Well, we just arrived back into the main harbor and the sails are coming
down..gotta go, bye!

Cart Tours

2009-08-28T19:59:00.001-04:00

Hi everybody! So August has been a crazy month so far, full of birthdays and parties (happy birthday Lolly!!!!!), and we haven't had dinner on Zen since we have arrived in Neifu, Tonga. Also, there being lots of adult birthdays, Cole, Jet and I have been babysitting for the two boys on Love Song. It's really fun, and the kids are really funny. Anyways, yesterday was Allen on Love Song's birthday and they planned a cart tour around the island. The carts were little, open go-carts that fit two people each. Daddy and I rode in one (the one that turned off every 20 feet) and Mommy and Cole rode in another (the newest, shiny yellow one with no problems). Dosia, Wayward Wind, and Flashback also came with us. The majority of the tour was on back paths that cars wouldn't drive on. We stopped at 4 different places, each with it's own unique scenery. The first stop was on top of a huge cliff overlooking the ocean; the second was a beach; the third was another cliff where we saw tons of huge bats; and the fourth was a little cliff that overlooked the ocean and waves crashing into a really amazing reef like structure. The roads we drove on also had all different scenery. One road was paved; another was dirt surrounded with plantations; another was also dirt surrounded by tall, green trees and jungle; and the last was still dirt road surrounded with pine trees and small bushes. It was so cool! On the way back from the last stop, the guide said that Cole and I were allowed to drive. So we both climbed into the drivers seats and took off. At first I was hesitant, but at the end, I felt much more comfortable and was having tons of fun. When we got to the main road, we had to go back to the passenger seats, but the two little kids on Love Song got to sit in their parent's laps and drive with them. We got lots of pictures and had a great time. So today we are going to head off to another anchorage and lunch is coming up soon. Gotta go, bye!

Apia, Samoa

2009-08-21T06:49:00.001-04:00

Hi everyone! Sorry that I haven't written a blog in so long, but we have
been busy. So we left Western Samoa yesterday, but I'll back up and tell you
about the tour that we went on.
So we woke up at around 7:30 and were down the dock, ready with bathing
suits and snorkel gear at around 9:00. Daddy had found a tour guide that had
a van and was willing to take Flashback, Karma, Qayak and Zen on a tour of
the island. He also agreed to take us to lunch at one of the hotels and to a
few places where there would be some cool activities for us to do
(snorkeling in a trench, swimming at the base of a waterfall, sliding down a
rock slide, etc.). The tour started as a drive around the town explaining
the history of Samoa and going by a few historical or interesting places.
Some of it was interesting, but after 3 hours of it, Cole and I were bored.
Before heading to lunch, we stopped at a view point where you could see half
of the huge island below you. It was amazing..it was like a big green
pattern of farmland and rainforest. Then we piled back in the van/bus and
started driving (in the now pouring rain) to a hotel on the beach for lunch.
Lunch was chicken curry with rice...mmmm. Because it was kind of cold, warm
food tasted good. Our next stop was the 'trench'. When we arrived it was
still drizzling, but it was warmer so we all got out and headed to the
little stand where you payed an entrance fee. The trench is a big hole in
the ground that goes down maybe 60 feet. So we climbed down the ladder and
jumped into the surprisingly warm water. Daddy had brought his mask in with
him and started snorkeling around looking for anything cool. He soon found a
place that you could swim through. After going through once, he informed us
that you just had to swim for about 10 seconds underwater before you popped
up in a cave. Once in that cave, there was another ledge, about 2 feet wide
that you could go over or under and lead you to the ocean. It was really
cool and after Cole went I also went through. After going through another 2
or 3 times, Mommy told us that everyone was waiting in the bus...oops! So we
scrambled back up the ladder and back into the bus. Sadly, we didn't get to
go to the spot we had been looking forward to most (sliding rock), but it
was still fun.
We just arrived in Nuitoputapu..an island off of Tonga. It was a short
passage from Apia, Samoa, but both Mommy and Cole were seasick. Also on this
passage we passed over the International Date Line!! That means that August
10th turned into August 11th! There is also a time difference, but only an
hour and I'm not sure if that's backwards or forwards yet. Well, Mommy is
cooking a big lunch since we are always hungry after a passage (normally, we
don't eat much on passages since it makes us sick so we are always really
hungry once we arrive...most cruisers call passages diets..haha) and we are
going to start the audio book 'The Secret Man'. Gotta go! bye!

Hey! We Know You!

2009-08-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

So yesterday we arrived into Neifu, Tonga..one of the bigger groups of
islands in Tonga. When we pulled into the anchorage we were amazed at the
number of boats. It was almost like one of the anchorages in Panama! There
is almost constant traffic on the radio and there are currently two boats
pulling in and one leaving. We were told that there are about 22 common
restaurants and probably more. But most importantly, almost everyone we have
met in the Pacific is in this anchorage. Yesterday, starting about an hour
after we arrived, Cole and I swam, or dighied over to our friends' boats and
caught up with each other for the rest of the afternoon. I was so happy when
I saw Jet on Bravado! I haven't been with a girl my age for a month or two
now and we spent a lot of time swimming, laughing and talking. It reminded
me of the times when Kak and I catch up with each other! It was her 12th
birthday on the 19th, but since we missed it, she is having her party later
today. It's going to be just girls...I'm excited! Yesterday was Kathy's (on
Love Song) birthday, so a bunch of the adults in the anchorage (including my
parents and Jet's parents) went ashore to celebrate her birthday with her at
one of the restaurants. Since she has two little sons, she asked if Jet and
I wouldn't mind babysitting. Of course, we said yes. Morgan is 5 and Wyat is
3, so we watched 'Milo and Otis' before they went to bed. Once they were
asleep Jet and I talked for a while. It was fun. Also last night, Cole slept
over on 'Monkey Feet', a boat that we met in Panama and haven't seen since.
He had a great time too. Well, Mommy and Daddy are ashore right now taking
care of some boat stuff and Cole and I are on the boat finishing up our day
of school. Gotta go! Bye!

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Solar Eclipse

2009-07-23T01:31:00.001-04:00

So we had planned to leave today, making yesterday the 'goodbye day'.
Anyways, we were saying goodbye to the couple on Karma around dinnertime and
just happened to be on their top deck. Everyone forgot that there would be a
solar eclipse, but we were just then watching the sunset. All of a sudden,
the sun started to split into two pieces..what was happening? Then Daddy
said: 'The solar eclipse is going on right now!'. It was so cool to watch
the sun slowly disappear beneath the horizon in two different pieces. Then,
right as the last of the sun went below the horizon, a green flash happened!
A green flash is when you see a tiny bit of lime green flash out from where
the sun had just set. It was especially awesome because, since there were
two suns, there were two green flashes. Anyways, when we woke up this
morning, there was no wind and we didn't end up leaving. Instead we took the
whole anchorage to another island here called 7 Islands, for the day. It was
a beautiful spot with amazing snorkeling and a sandy bottom. We all played
on the two kayaks that we had for a while before going to shore to see the
whale bones. So the bones were really big and you could sit in one of them
like it was a chair! In one spot there was a whole chain of bones put
together like pieces of a puzzle (on my way to the bones, I ran into a
tree). Finally, after a delicious pizza lunch made by an Italian couple that
came with us, we headed back to the main anchorage. Because the sun was in
our face, and the visibility of the water wasn't so great, I got to hang out
on the spreaders and look for shallow spots. We are now on a mooring and
prepared for the 2 night trip that starts tomorrow at the crack of dawn.
Well, I'm gonna go read..bye!

Cruise Ships in the Cooks ???

2009-07-20T20:36:00.000-04:00

So today, we woke up in the morning to find a huge cruise ship called the
Paul Gaugin approaching Suwarrow. This was expected, since the cruise was
planned last summer and the family ashore warned us that they would be
coming. Even so, the cruise ship was so big compared to our small boats and
so tall compared to the palm tree height island, it just didn't seem
possible that it could be here. Luckily, the draft of the cruise ship was
too deep and it couldn't come into the lagoon, but the ships' 300 passengers
would be. Their plan was to bring all of the people ashore via a smaller
boat, and then spend the day here. The family ashore were still quite
confused on what they were supposed to do..are they supposed to give them
lunch and tours..are they supposed to act like Indians and go flying around
in the trees with paint on their faces? Well, we were hoping that they were
going to host a big dinner on the ship and invite all the cruisers (we would
of course say yes, but the chances of that happening were small). Anyways,
when the first tender was spotted we all scrambled to the binoculars. It
turned out that the ship was only bringing some supplies to the family, and
telling them (much to the family's relief) that: 'Because of the big waves,
we are not going to be coming ashore..instead we are going to be leaving the
island in the next hour'. Well, after days of cleaning and preparing the
island, they just left supplies and went..that's not so bad! So, soon the
cruise ship was no longer in sight.
Anyways, the boys on Whisper are over on the boat now and are playing Legos
with Cole, the couple on Qayak just left (they brought us M&Ms'!!) and
Mommy is making what smells like a delicious lunch. I think that I'm going
to go and make a bracelet..bye!

Scooters on Aitutaki

2009-07-17T17:55:00.001-04:00

This was written earlier in July-So we are now in the Cook Islands at an
island called Aitutaki. It's a small island surrounded by a beautiful blue
lagoon with very shallow waters and few boats. A few years ago the TV series
'Survivor' was filmed here. Anyways, we left Bora Bora on the 30th of June,
and after a bit of a bumpy passage (3 days with 12 to 25 knots of wind and
15 to 20 foot seas), we arrived in the pass of Aitutaki on July 2nd. Because
we arrived at around 6:30 pm, we had to drop the anchor in the most
convenient spot for the night before the sun went totally down. Dosia was
already here, and helped us put down our stern anchor before coming over for
a delicious chili dinner cooked by Mommy. The next day we went ashore to
check in and explore a little. Once we were cleared, Margie and Drew on
Dosia took us to the scooter rental place where we got two mopeds to explore
the island on. Margie and Drew already had a scooter and had explored the
island a little before us, so they gave us the tour of the small island
ending with a yummy dinner at one of the local restaurants. On the fourth of
July we had Dosia, and another boat, Big Air over to Zen for dinner. It was
really fun..we watched some funny parts of a movie that Dosia brought, and
JP, a single hander on Big Air brought over some amazing home-made garlic
bread. The next day (my birthday!) we stayed on the boat the whole day and I
practiced playing my flute that I had gotten as one of my presents. On the
6th, we took a tour around the lagoon with a few other couples from hotels.
The lagoon was so beautiful and there were areas where you could walk in
waist deep water for a really long time. My favorite spot was a big sand bar
in the middle of the lagoon surrounded with deeper water, where we jumped
into off the top of our tour boat. After relaxing on the sand bar for a
little while we went snorkeling in the place where huge oyster shells were
grown..they really were huge. Finally, we went to One Toe..I mean One Foot
Island where we had a delicious lunch of fresh fruits, vegetables and fish.
Finally, we got back on the boat after 3 hours on the island and headed back
to Zen. A few days later, we went to one of the resorts to see the coolest
fire and dance show that I have ever seen. There was a really yummy buffet
with all sorts of traditional foods, and then a crazy fire show with about
10 people swinging around fire on batons. It was amazing. Before the fire,
there was a short dance show and Cole and I were invited to dance.

This was written on July 17th-So after a few more days in Aitutaki, we left
on a 2 night passage to Suwarrow. Suwarrow is an atoll that has not been
touched by man, and is a Cook Island national park. A family of 6 (the
parents have 4 boys ages 8 to 13) are the park rangers of this atoll and
help to preserve the wildlife in Aitutaki. They are really friendly and had
every boat in the anchorage come to their open air home for a potluck dinner
last night. It was really fun, and Cole and I played soccer with the 4 boys
ashore and the 2 boys on the boat Whisper. There are many sharks here, but
there are only black-tips in the anchorage and you don't really have to
worry too much about them. But on the other side of Anchorage Island, the
main motu, the boys feed black-tips, white-tips and grays. It's been raining
all night, but it looks like there is sun now! Being closer to the Equater
than Aitutaki, we are getting 82 degree weather again, which feels really
warm compared to the 75 degrees that we were in only a week ago. Well, I'm
going to go read..bye!

Suwarrow

2009-07-17T17:55:00.000-04:00

So after a few more days in Aitutaki, we left on a 2 night passage to
Suwarrow. Suwarrow is an atoll that has not been touched by man, and is a
Cook Island national park. A family of 6 (the parents have 4 boys ages 8 to
13) are the park rangers of this atoll and help to preserve the wildlife in
Aitutaki. They are really friendly and had every boat in the anchorage come
to their open air home for a potluck dinner last night. It was really fun,
and Cole and I played soccer with the 4 boys ashore and the 2 boys on the
boat Whisper. There are many sharks here, but there are only black-tips in
the anchorage and you don't really have to worry too much about them. On the
other side of Anchorage Island, the main motu, the boys feed black-tips,
white-tips and grays. It's been raining all night, but it looks like there
is sun now! Being closer to the Equator than Aitutaki, we are getting 82
degree weather again, which feels really warm compared to the 75 degrees
that we were in only a week ago. Well, I have a bit of a fever today, so I'm
gonna go read..bye!

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Bora Bora..the Land of Hotels

2009-06-24T17:10:00.000-04:00

So we are now in Bora Bora, and have discovered that it is the land of
hotels having at least 20 of them. When we first arrived we were amazed at
the beautiful hotels with their over the water bungalows (yes, they are over
the water) and crystal blue waters. By now we have seen many of them, but
are still marveling at the Four Seasons which we all (the four boats in the
anchorage) went to dinner at a few nights ago. It was amazing and we had
really good Pad Thai which we hadn't had in a long time. Anyways, we first
arrived in Bora Bora a week and a half ago at the Bloody Mary's restaurant.
Apparently this is a famous restaurant that many famous people have gone to!
I did know this until I saw the two walls full of famous names. After
spending two or three nights there we moved to the Bora Bora yacht club and
stayed there for a week where we enjoyed wonderful live music at the yacht
club and dancing and yoga classes at the nearby Pearl Hotel (a sister hotel
to the hotel that we stayed at in Taha'a), where we met the spa manager.
After ordering a needed spare part from the States, we moved to the opposite
side of the island to wait. Here we met up with a few of the other cruising
boats that we had been trying to find for a while. We are now anchored
in-between two hotels: the Four Seasons Resort and the Saint Regis Hotel,
with the boats Flashback and Karma. A few nights ago (when the boat Dosia
was still with us) Mommy invited over the other three boats for a really fun
potluck where we had a really yummy dip for chips and bread, vegetable and
chicken spring roles, some cheesy popcorn, delicious risotto, chocolate cake
with vanilla frosting/sauce, and some really delicious apple cinnamon roles.
We had a great time! Well, Daddy is over on Karma helping to clean the
bottom of their boat (it's a big bottom to clean!), Cole is finishing
school, Mommy is doing laundry and I'm going to go play my piano. Bye!

Haul Out...Move In

2009-06-02T21:14:00.001-04:00

So we are currently in Raiatea staying at a beautiful hotel called Le Taha'a. No, we didn't just see the hotel and leave Zen sitting at anchor. Zen is now sitting on the hard getting painted and worked on while we enjoy air conditioning, TV, and comfy beds in our 3 room beach bungalow. Not bad right? First, I'll tell you about the haul out. So we arrived in Raiatea after a 12 hour sail from Moorea, and anchored right next to a small 'motu' in about 6 feet of water. It was beautiful and we could see straight down to the bottom as if the water was 2 feet deep. Due to an emergency haul out (another boat lost a rudder and had to be hauled out before us since they couldn't steer), we stayed at anchor for an extra day or so, enjoying our peaceful anchorage. When we finally got called on the radio by the marina, we set up lines, and prepared ourselves for something we have never done...this is not your regular haul out. Step 1: We drove Zen up to a ramp where divers tied lines from Zen, onto a platform below us to make sure that the boat wouldn't move. Step 2: After we were secured tightly, the platform moved up a few inches, on what looks like a big, fat railroad, so that our mini keels were resting on the platform. Step 3: Some final checks and tightens were done, to make sure that we wouldn't move. Step 4: The Big Move...the platform then moved up a steep, concrete ramp, so that Zen was completely out of the water. There was only one little thing that freaked me out a tiny bit: we did a 'test run', and tried to pull the boat out of the water twice. The first time that we tried, Zen did a wheelie, and our bows, from the keels up, were completely out of the water, making the sterns dip really far down...it was quite interesting. Anyways, we are definitely enjoying life at Le Taha'a. We have our own bungalow on the beach, and look out over a beautiful, blue lagoon. Well, I everyone has decided that we are going to have a table tennis contest...I better go practice, I'm sure going to need it!

--
Camo

Stingrays with Grace

2009-05-27T14:55:00.000-04:00

So we are now in Moorea and have been here for only two days. When Mommy was
on the plane on her way back to Tahiti, she met a girl and her mom. The
girls' name is Grace and she is two weeks older than me, and her mom's name
is Maelisa. They are really nice and live in California. They have been to
French Polynesia 20 times and have gone to the Hibiscus Hotel in Moorea
every time. Grace and her mom are now friends with the owners and took us to
the hotel restaurant for free. Grace is really nice (Sylvie-she's a lot like
you!). Anyways, when we met up with Grace and Maelisa, they told us that we
should really dinghy over to this place on the reef where we could feed
stingrays. We thought that that sounded awesome, so we all piled into the
dinghy and took along some tuna to feed the rays. When we arrived there were
tons of rays swimming around the dinghy. Grace just jumped in and started
swimming around. It took me a few minutes, but then I jumped in too. After
we all got used to the fact that we were swimming with, petting and
sometimes kissing stingrays, Daddy started to dish out the fish. As soon as
the tuna hit the water, the rays went crazy and started smashing into each
other to get the food. When they discovered that it was gone, they went to
every person and bumped into them as if to say 'do you have any food?'. It
was so cool. Soon the rays found out that Daddy was the one with the food.
They would bump into Daddy and push their open mouths in his face. Then
Daddy could just drop a piece of tuna in their mouths! It was so much fun.
We could just stand in one place and the rays would come up to us and allow
us to pet them and play with them! Soon we got cold and had to go back to
Zen. That night we went out to dinner with Maelisa and Grace at the hotel
restaurant. It was delicious! Well, gotta go, bye!

Tour Tahiti

2009-05-22T16:06:00.001-04:00

So a few days ago we went on a really cool tour around Tahiti. We got up at around 7:00 and went ashore to play soccer for a little while with Liam (12 years old) on the boat Flashback. Liam and his dad are visiting for a week, so normally there aren't any kids on Flashback. After playing a really fun soccer game for about an hour, we walked to the gas station to wait for our tour guide to come and pick us up. Soon we saw our truck coming. The truck was a pick-up truck with seats and a pull back roof on the flat back. When we got on the bus we met our tour guide Allen and three other people on a boat called Song of the Sea. Anyways, the tour started out kind of slow and we were just driving down a paved road, but when we turned onto a dirt road with tons of potholes, I knew that it was going to be fun. The first stop was a view point where we could take pictures of the amazing views of a huge waterfall and beautiful green mountains. After that Allen drove us to a river where you could swim and jump from rocks. The water was really refreshing and cool. It was really fun trying to swim up the current in the river and touch the rocks at the opposite end. After everyone was back in the truck, we got back on the road and headed for a waterfall. While on our way to the waterfall we went through rivers, over rusty, old bridges and past lots of cool flowers and animals. When we arrived at the waterfall, we all put our suits back on and hiked for about 5 minutes to the river. Once at the river, Allen told us that there were some natural slides that we could go down. At first I didn't want to go, thinking that the slides were going to be super tall and freaky, but after some encouragement I followed Daddy and Cole. The first pair of slides were small but fast. The slides were just like water slides at a water-park, but made of rock. The first slide you go down shoots you down from one pool to the next and flips your feet above your head when you meet the next pool. It was really fun! The next slide was a bit longer and shot you into a shallower pool (Daddy liked this slide because if you sat in the small pool right below the slide, you get a shoulder massage). Finally, we got to the biggest slide. 'Yikes!' I thought, 'this slide is straight down and bigger than the other ones!'. After watching a few people go down, it was my turn. I sat at the beginning of the slide looking down and telling myself to let go. All of a sudden, I accidentally slipped and went shooting down the slide...it was so much fun!! I climbed back up with Cole and went again. When I got back down we had to leave, so we all climbed out of the river and got back in the truck. The next place we went to was a hotel in the middle of a inactive volcano called Tahiti-Iti. The view was amazing. It was really cool to be sitting in the middle of a once active volcano while eating steak-frite (steak and french fries). It was a great meal followed with coffee ice cream. So after lunch, we made our final stop at an archaeological site like the one in the Marquises. The difference though, was that at this site, people had recreated what it would have looked like years ago. It was really cool and we got to see the ancient carvings. When we finally got back to the boat it was 11:00. The tour ended at around 5:15, but since we went to a restaurant, we arrived much later. The tour was so much fun!!

Tahiti

2009-05-19T03:37:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a while, but we have been busy! So we are now in Tahiti and are getting used to full on civilization again. There is a really nice marina, a big anchorage and mooring field packed with boats, a busy airport with big planes, a huge grocery store called Carrefour, Internet, laundry, hotels, and tons of restaurants. Crazy huh?! A few days after we arrived, the wind picked up and, since we didn't have a great anchoring spot, had to go to the marina for a few days. It was nice and we were next to Carl Linne. Then, after finding out that you could sail down to another anchorage in Tahiti and watch a Billabong surf competition, we left the dock and headed down to that anchorage. When we left the anchorage, there was close to no wind and we had to motor sail. Then the wind picked up and we could sail with no motors. All of a sudden, like a wall hit us in the face, we had 40 knots of wind on the nose with seas and had to turn around and go back to the first anchorage. Not wanting to go back to the dock, we anchored in a shallow area of the anchorage right behind a hotel. Mommy left a few days ago for Florida because of Nanna. After falling and breaking her hip, Nanna is in the hospital and has taken a turn for the worst. Well, other than that, everything is going well. Our friends on the boat Love Song are here and we might go by their boat today or tomorrow to hang out with the two little boys (3 and 5 years old) and their two dogs. The day before yesterday (the 14th..Mommy left that night) was Cole's birthday and we celebrated with homemade chocolate cake and a huge breakfast. Also, on Mothers' Day, we went out to one of the restaurants at the marina and had some really tasty pizza. Yesterday we went sailing on Carl Linne when they tested out their new spinnaker. It was tons of fun. We got to sit up on the nets on the bow of the boat that are attached to the bow sprit. I think that there are some pictures on my parents blog of us on the nets. For the next week or two Cole and I are doing testing in homeschooling. Thankfully, this is the last group of tests for me for 6th grade. Daddy is ashore getting fuel for the dinghy, and Cole is playing with his new local friends on the dock..I'm the only one on the boat. Well, it looks like it's going to rain so I've got to shut the hatches..bye!

Tahiti!

2009-05-09T22:04:00.000-04:00

So the day before yesterday we left our friends on the south of Fakarava and
went to the north to prepare for the passage to Tahiti. (We had fun weaving
our way through the uncharted buoys after going through the amazingly
charted pass.) Once there we met up with a boat called Wayward Wind who we
took pictures of while passing them in the Marquises. After a delicious
dinner of quiche and French fries (I know..they really go together), which
was a treat since we haven't had French fries for a really long time, Daddy
pulled up the weather and realized that this anchorage was about to get
really choppy. So, we changed our plans and decided to leave for Tahiti the
next day. If we didn't, we'd be stuck in Fakarava for another week, which
would not be good because we have a reservation to haul out in Raitea.
Anyways, we left yesterday morning and started praying for wind. During the
beginning of the passage we had no wind, well unless you call 0.2 knots wind
that is. Then last night we were able to put up our sails and cruise along
at around 8 knots before the wind died right before I went to bed. Finally,
when I woke up this morning we were able to turn off the engines and sail at
9 knots using the wind of a squall behind us. Soon we were able to see
Tahiti, a big mountainous island that is a lot like Grenada in terms of
population and commercialism. But unlike Grenada, Tahiti is just a newer
version of the Tuamotus. It has a small reef around it and the mountains, in
millions of years to come, will eventually sink into the ocean, forming an
atoll. So the Marquises are just mountains, the Tuamotus are just reef and
Tahiti, Moorea and Raitea are a mixture of both! Well, right now our plan is
to go and anchor right off a hotel like we did in Antigua and stay there for
a few days to chill, and provision before heading off to meet our friends on
Blue Dawn in some other anchorage. We should be going through the pass
around 5 tonight (1 hour from now) and then anchor down at around 5:30,
6:00. Well, I'm on watch so I've gotta go, bye!

5...10...20...Sharks!

2009-05-05T21:20:00.000-04:00

So a few days ago, our friends on the boat Bravado arrived in the anchorage
and last night Yet slept over! It was really fun. The day before, all the
kids went to the beach for an hour or so and then everyone went over to
Bravado for dinner. While on Bravado we played a really fun guessing game
with Yet and her brothers (Hein is 9, Eltjo is 6) until their mom served a
really yummy risotto with chicken. Finally, just as we were about to leave,
Yet and I asked if Yet could sleep over that night, and everyone said yes!
When we got back to the boat it was almost 10, so we went to bed after
laughing while having a pillow fight. The next morning we were all up at 6
and talked about books while Mommy made pancakes for breakfast. After
breakfast everyone had to do school, so Daddy brought Yet back to her boat.
Around 11:30, everyone said that they wanted to snorkel the pass, so we
postponed school for a little while and went over to Bravado to pick up the
kids (the kids, Mommy and Daddy went in our dinghy since it was more
powerful and would carry more people easier than there's) and their parents
followed soon after us. Once at the pass we all put on snorkel gear and
jumped in the water. The first thing I saw was three sharks, one grey and
two black tips circling below me. It was really freaky, but so cool. Soon we
had counted over 10 sharks and there was still more in front of us. When the
sharks became too curious we decided to go back to the boats for lunch. As
we left the current picked up and started to go out so it was a fast and
furious ride back to the boats...lots of fun. Well, we are now just chillin'
on the boat. Cole and Daddy are watching videos that we took on the video
camera and Daddy offered to take us scurfing later...sounds good to me! I'm
going to go watch the videos too..bye!

Flyin' High

2009-05-01T01:53:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. Sorry that I haven't written in so long, but we arrived in the
Tuamotus a few days ago, making our passage 2 days long. The first Tuamotu
that we went to was called Makemo. It was one of the bigger atolls, with a
width of 40 miles. Oh, so if you are wondering, an atoll is basically a reef
that surrounds a big lagoon. A long time ago, there was a big, mountainous
island where the lagoon is now, but slowly, the island sank into the water.
Anyways, we stayed there for a while and met some new people on a boat named
Migration. They were a really nice couple, and the guy, Bruce Balan, is the
writer of one of my favorite books, Buoy! It was so cool to be able to talk
with a children's book writer! Well, they have been in the Tuamotus for a
few seasons now and were heading backwards to the Marquises. A day after
they left, our friends on the boat Tigre, who we met in Grenada, arrived
from the Galapagos. We hung out with the girls for a few days before leaving
yesterday. Now we are motoring to the main atoll called Fakarava. I'm not
sure how big it is, but I know that it is the main port for ships and other
big cargo boats to go. Fakarava is also known for its amazing diving, so
Daddy and I plan to dive there in a few days. Anyways, we left the main
anchorage in Makemo yesterday and motored up the lagoon to an anchorage
closer to the pass. While sailing through the lagoon, though, you have to be
very careful. There are little reefs that will pop up out of nowhere if you
aren't careful. So I got the idea of going up the mast to look for the
'coral heads'. It was really fun. I got out the bosons chair and Daddy
lifted me up just below the spreaders (spreaders are poles that come out of
the mast). Cole wanted to come up too, so he got out the air chair and Daddy
pulled him up right next to me. We had lots of fun looking for coral heads
and swinging around the mast. It felt like flying. So soon we arrived in the
anchorage and decided to stay the night there and then leave the next day at
2 PM. So today at 2 we picked up anchor and headed for the pass. This time I
went up the mast again, but using the air chair which is more comfortable.
Since the sun was directly in our face it was hard to see the coral heads,
but luckily we made it to open water without hitting anything. When we got
to the pass the water was at high slack, meaning it was just hitting the
highest of high tides and there wasn't much of a current. Although there
wasn't big waves, I was moving around more than I was comfortable with up so
high and was glad when Daddy brought me down. The pass was very easy and
followed what the charts said to the inch. What a relief! Well, I'm going to
go to bed so that I can be up early tomorrow morning. Bye!

PS. I heard that it was 90 degrees in RI....that's an easy 10 degrees hotter
than it is here!

Tuamotus Here We Come!

2009-04-21T22:39:00.000-04:00

So right now we are under way to the Tuamotus. The Tuamotus are islands near
the Marquises and all of them are atolls. We just passed the first atolls
and will be arriving to Makemo tomorrow if we keep up speed (we are going
7-8 knots regularly, but in the beginning of the trip we were going 12-15).
This is our second day sailing and it's pretty calm.
Anyways, since the weather wasn't so great when we planned to leave, we
ended up staying in Fatu Hiva for an extra week, making our stay in the
Marquises exactly one month. While in Fatu Hiva, we did another waterfall
hike with Hipnautical and Mommy and I did a hike up to 'the cross' with a
bunch of other boats in the bay. The waterfall hike was much steeper than
the first one we did, but shorter and most of the path was paved. After
about 20 minutes on a trail where we did lots of climbing and crawling under
things we arrived at the waterfall. Since it had rained the past 3 days the
waterfall was rushing and would send a cool spray all the way to where we
were sitting. We soon jumped in the water and enjoyed the freezing cold but
refreshing water. It was so beautiful and the boys had fun jumping off a
little cliff like thing that you could climb to. After a lunch of Mommy's
homemade mini-pretzels and mustard we headed back to the boats. It was a lot
of fun. The hike to 'the cross' was a much longer hike that Mommy and I did
the day before we left. The hike went up a paved road on a really steep
angle for about 2 hours. Then it flattened out and we could see amazing
views of the bay and village from a little shack type thing with lots of
construction tools around it. We hiked with 3 other boats in the harbor. The
boys (Cole, Robin and Daddy) stayed on the boats to finish school and work
on the boat. Since we had to leave at 5 AM the next day Mommy and I arrived
back on the boat at around 2-ish to have lunch and swim. Finally around 5 PM
we shut down the boat and tried to sleep.
Well, the wind is picking up again, so we just pulled out the jib to get
more speed. We have a bailout island to go to if we go too slow, but want to
get to Makemo since Tigre will be there and we are all excited to see each
other again. Cole and I are doing day watches all by ourselves now and it's
my watch so I gotta go, bye!

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Excitment

2009-04-16T22:57:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody. So yesterday was very interesting. Our day started like any
regular day, have breakfast, start school etc. Anyways, Mommy and Daddy had
to go ashore to do something and so they left Cole and I on the boat to do
school, something we do often. While they were ashore some new boats came
into the harbor. We heard them chatting over the radio, and figured that
they would just come in, anchor, and be fine...it was about the opposite.
When the new boat came in, they anchored right in front of the catamaran
next to us. Soon they realized that they had picked up someone else's anchor
and announced it on the radio. A split second later I looked out the window
to see the cat next to us coming straight at us, with no people on board. I
quickly called Daddy (who had a handheld VHF radio) and told Cole to go get
the fenders, which he was already doing. I told Daddy what was going on and
then ran outside to help Cole. Next, our neighbors came over and helped us
out by jumping on the other boat and helping us tie the two boats together
so that they didn't smash into each other. It became obvious that the new
boat had picked up the other cat's anchor. Once we were tied together and
not bouncing together like bumper boats, Daddy, Mommy and Roger on
Hipnautical came over in the dinghy. After our neighbors (the boat's name is
Obsession) told Daddy what happened, what we were doing and what we should
do, everyone started shouting from boat to boat planning what to do. It was
decided that Daddy would, using Hipnauticals' diving gear, dive on the cat's
anchor and try to unhook them from the new boat. Once underwater, Daddy
found the anchor quickly and was above water soon. He then said that the
boats were clear to go and that the new boat should take up their anchor and
wait until we were settled before they anchor again. By now the owners to
the other cat were here and we de-rafted while they brought up their anchor.
Everyone is now in 3 different corners of the anchorage..we are in the back
right, the new boat is in the back left, and the cat we were rafted to is in
the front and center. It was quite exciting! Well, we might go on waterfall
hike tomorrow if the rain stops. It's been raining on and off for a few days
now, and we are anxious for sun. Oh well, the islands are so beautiful and I
think we'll get over it (hahahah). Mommy is making something in the kitchen
and it smells so good! Gotta go, bye!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-15T02:40:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! Sorry that I haven't written in a while, but we have been doing
lots of sailing, school and lots of other things! First, we are now
surrounded by lots of boats. The "Puddle Jumpers" group has arrived and
brought lots of boats with it! Luckily, with the big group came lots of kid
boats (Bravado..11 year old girl and 2 young boys, Hipnautical..10 year old
boy, Whisper..10 year old boy and 7 year old boy)! Cole actually has Robin
on Hipnautical on Zen now for a sleepover. Nice kids. Well, we are now on
the island Fatu Hiva and it is raaaainy! Mommy, Daddy, me, and Robins'
parents just went to a really cool, local dance rehearsal. The dancing was
really unique and a little bit like what we saw in the first island we went
to with all the other people. Okay, I'm getting a bit off track...anyways,
we met up with our friends on Brickhouse for a while and hung out with them
in Ua Huka. After leaving them we went to the island Tahuata. We only went
to one small bay where we met all the kid boats and did a really fun
bonfire. The beach was so beautiful and we didn't get attacked by the
annoying, tiny mosquitoes called "no no's". For Easter Mommy made a really
good alfredo pasta dinner accompanied by some chocolate, nut bars and thin
ginger cookies. After a quick dinner we invited everyone (all the boats in
the harbor) to come over to Zen for coffee and dessert. Everyone agreed and
brought some type of dessert (mostly brownies). After a really fun party
that lasted until 11:00, everyone went back to their own boat to sleep. The
next day was the bonfire. It was set up by the kid boat Bravado, who had
arrived that morning. It was planned to start after dinner at around 6:00
PM. It was so much fun and Mommy brought the bread to roast on a stick like
we did in the San Blas. After playing in the water for a long time with
Robin and Yet (the girl on Bravado) we got back in the dinghy and went to
sleep. Today we sailed to the island Fatu Hiva, it was a 6 hour long sail
right upwind and was pretty bouncy. I read most of the time, but once I
finished my book I went up to the cockpit. Once we arrived we had lunch and
invited some people on the boat next to us to come over (I don't know why,
but Mommy and Daddy just shouted to them across the decks to dinghy on over
if they felt like it). Once Hipnautical arrived (we had sailed here
together) us kids played for a while on their boat. Then, we went to the
dance. It was really fun and I met some local girls. Once it started to rain
(again) we went back to the boat. As we were dinghying back, we picked up
the boys who had been on Hipnautical while we were ashore since Robin is
sleeping over. Well, Mommy's making dinner so I've gotta go, 'night!

Let It Rain, Let It Rain, Let It Rain

2009-04-04T02:14:00.000-04:00

"Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain! Oh the weather outside is
rainy.........lalalalala.............."

It rained for almost two days straight! I know that in Newport that can be
very common sometimes, but this is the longest period of rain we have had on
the boat for basically 8 months! We filled our water tanks all the way just
from the rain! It was awesome! Also the past two nights we played Monopoli
(one game yesterday, one game tonight). Our Monopoli board is a New England
Patriots board so it's really cool.
Well, other than all this rain, we swam under the 3rd largest waterfall in
the world and met another kid boat! First I'll tell you about the kids.
There is a family of four onboard the sailboat named Chtimagine. There is a
13 year old girl, Naeva (yippee!) and an 11 year old boy, Nicola. They are
from France, have lived on their boat for 7 years and have never been to a
real school. The family is so nice and will be traveling with us on more or
less the same schedule all the way to New Zealand! They have friends on
board right now who are also really nice (another family of four with a 4
year old girl and 7 year old boy).
So about the waterfall. We were going to hike there with Chtimagine, but
since Cole and I had to do school, they left a few hours before us. After
beaching the dinghy we hiked along a small river for about two hours. Soon
we came out of the woods and arrived in a large, open meadow filled with
small, yellow flowers. The grass came up to our knees and it was surrounded
by tall, flat, rocky mountains. It was beautiful. Daddy said "when I look up
I feel like I'm in New York City made of rock and flowers." Finally we
rounded a coner and saw everyone on Chtimagine swimming in a small pool next
to the waterfall. The waterfall had just a small streem of water flowing
down from the top of the mountain due to no rain, but we still couldn't see
the top. As soon as we arrived at the waterfall I pulled off my sweaty
clothes (we had to wear long sleeves and pants because of the bugs), grabbed
my sandwich and waded knee-deep into the cold, but refreshing water. It was
wonderful. After finishing my sandwich I followed Mommy, Cole, and Daddy
through the pool and over a boulder type thing. Next we were in another pool
covered by the mountain. This was where the waterfall deposited. We all went
and swam under the waterfall, feeling the water pound on our shoulders.
After some pictures we decided to go back. This time we all went back
together. The 4 of us older kids ran ahead and did the two hour walk in just
over an hour. When we got back to the dinghies, we decided to swim in the
ocean while we waited for the parents. It was so much fun!
We are now in a bay called Controller Bay and just finished a game of
Monopoli. We moved here yesterday and since we didn't move again today due
to the bad weather I finally finished my group of tests that I have been
studying and taking for the past couple of weeks (YES!). Well, Daddy is
reading Star Wars to Cole and Mommy is reading a sailing magazine. Good
Night!

Just Sayin' Hi

2009-03-28T22:54:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody. Nothing much has gone on here except for a few things.
1. The day before yesterday we moved to a bay called Anaho and planned to
stay there for a while. It was a beautiful bay that was really calm since it
was so protected. While Cole and I were doing school (still studying for a
bunch of tests) Daddy jumped in the water to clean the boat and check the
anchor. Soon he told us to forget about school and "come see all these cool
fish that are swimming around me". So since Cole and I will do anything to
avoid studying (and it was hot) we pulled on our suits and jumped in the
water. We ended up being anchored over and little bit of a reef and had lots
of fun snorkeling with all sorts of cool, Pacific fish that we had never
seen before.
2. We had to move back to this bay since Don had to catch a plane back to
Denver. So yesterday we picked up the hook and came back here. Don left this
morning.
3. At the same time that Don went to the airport, Mommy and I went to a
local's house to get some fruits. The family we went with was really
friendly and the grandmother gave me hot chocolate and a baguette! It was so
delicious. After we had all had our snack, Mommy and I followed a woman
named Bernadette and her 5 year old daughter. When we arrived at their house
they gave us tons of fruit picked right out of their backyard. The family
was so friendly.
4. After we get a package we are waiting for we might go to another island
nearby called Ua Pua. It is one of the smaller islands, but is supposed to
be beautiful and have really good boulangeries (bakeries in French). \
5. Lately I have been playing my piano a lot and are now working on a song
called Prelude. I'm almost finished learning it and it's a really cool song.
Also, Cole has started learning how to play his guitar and once he learns
the notes I have a book of songs that we can play together!
Well that's about it on Zen. We are really taking a relaxing day today
(Daddy is snoring behind me, Mommy is lying out on the tramp and Cole is
probably playing something electronic). We are all going to church tomorrow
to hear the singing that will be performed by the locals for Palm Sunday. I
can't believe that it's almost Easter!! Well, I've gotta go, bye!

Dancing in an Ancient Village

2009-03-26T21:08:00.000-04:00

So yesterday at around 11:00 we headed ashore to find the local dance show
that would be happening for the cruise ship that came in this morning. After
asking a few locals how to get there we started up the dirt trail that lead
to the old archeological area where they would be performing. As we were
walking up, a pick-up truck came up behind us filled with the performers.
They asked us if we were walking up to the show and when we said yes they
offered to give us a ride! We said yes and jumped in the truck. When we
arrived we walked around the site while waiting for the performance to
start. After walking across a short bridge made of logs and sticks we found
ourselves wandering around a big open courtyard with different layers of
rocks. The courtyard happened to be the home of an ancient tribe that died
off in the early 1800's. There was three different columns and on each
column there was two to four layers of rock. Depending on your importance,
you were told to live in a certain spot. In ancient times there were houses
on top of the rock layers where the people lived. There was a small statue
on the highest rock layer accompanied by smaller still carvings on two
pieces of wood. We assumed that this was where the priest or leader lived (I
learned about the houses and stuff when we followed a tour group after the
dances for a little while). After exploring a little bit more we walked back
across the bridge and back to the place where the dancers would be
performing. The backdrop by the way, was a huge tree that is over a 1
hundred years old. It has so many thick roots that it looks like multiple
trees put together! Anyways, when we got back to the 'stage' there were tons
of tourists. Much more than we expected to come on a boat. We never saw
their boat, but we are guessing that they came on a cruise ship and not a
little boat like in the Galapagos. Once everyone found a rock to sit on the
dancing began. There were three four men and one woman. They were all
dressed in grass skirts and headdresses and had lots of palm fronds. They
performed the traditional pig dance and war dance. The dancing was
accompanied by the men who were saying/singing chants in a low grunting
voice. It was really cool. When the dancing ended we followed an English
speaking tour for a little while before heading back to the boat. Since it
was about noon, we decided to stop at a little tent with people serving all
sorts of food on the side of the road for lunch. We ended up getting chow
mien and it was really good. Finally, we got back in the dinghy and headed
back to the boat. Since we hadn't seen any sharks in this bay, we all went
swimming before school started again. Once our swim was over we all took
turns showering off the back off the back of the boat. I ended up slipping
down the steps and cutting my back. It didn't hurt and I didn't know that it
was bleeding until Mommy looked at it and said "Okay! Your fine, just rinse
off, your fine, your fine". After having a slight panic attack because there
were a few wasps I managed to get inside. It was really pretty funny. Well,
we are just leaving the bay now and are going to a bay about 30 minutes away
called Anaho. It is known for being a beautiful bay so we are excited to get
there and check it out. Cole is negotiating to watch a movie...looks like
he's watching Nemo. Well I want to watch too, so I gotta go, bye!

Food Food Food!!!

2009-03-26T00:03:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! We are now in a different bay and are having such a good time
here!
After a really nice pizza dinner in the first bay we and went to (Taiohae
Bay) another bay called Hatiheu Bay. It was only a 3 hour motor and we soon
arrived. As soon as we put the anchor down though we were visited by wasps.
Since I just love bugs (not really) I ran inside and immediately locked
myself in by putting down all the screens and closing any windows that
didn't have screens. When I was done I realized that everyone else had
slowly moved inside to avoid the wasps too. Once anchored and settled in
Mommy sat down and said "everyone get your school books!". Before we knew
it, it was 5:00 and time to go over to Carl Linne for drinks and snacks.
After about an hour on Carl Linne we all went ashore to our already-reserved
traditional Marquisan dinner. When we got up to the dock we knew that it was
going to take some effort to get everyone ashore. The dock was cement and
very high and slippery. Also we had to deal with major surge and rocks.
Using the two dinghies we managed to get everyone except the two captains on
the dock. After some planning Daddy and Greg managed to get the dinghies
onto a mooring and then through a line to shore so that they could pull
themselves back ashore. Once everyone was ready we started our walk to the
restaurant. It was a short walk along some dirt roads lined with beautiful
flowers and palm trees overlooking the beach. At the restaurant we learned
that they were already cooking a pig (which they took us to see and it was a
full pig..like head, skin, eyes, everything) and that the dinner would be
ready soon. After a first course of all different kinds of delicious fried
fishes the pork arrived. It was served in handmade palm frond baskets and
really yummy sweet potato. There was so much amazing food! After arriving
back on the boat we fell right to sleep.
It was such an amazing experience and we had a great time. Bye!

Sharks!

2009-03-23T22:24:00.000-04:00

So we have finally gotten ashore and seen a bunch of really cool things!
One thing we discovered was that all of the girls wear white flowers in
their hair. The flowers are really beautiful and you can just walk up the
street and pick one off the tree! There are pink, red, white and yellow
flowers all over the place. If you put your flower on the right of your
head, that means you are married, and the left means that you aren't. This
morning Mommy and I picked our own flowers today.
Also, our friends on Carl Linne (who are also here) brought us to a really
nice hotel restaurant. There is even an infinity pool on the porch of the
restaurant overlooking the harbor. We went there last night and had some
really good deserts. We had chocolate lava cake with ice cream and lots of
whip cream! It was delicious!
Oh! I forgot! When we first arrived a nice Australian couple came by to
welcome us to the harbor. They are on their motor boat and have been here
four times already. They were very friendly and gave us some good
information, one of them was 'do not swim off the back of the boat'. They
told us that we couldn't swim here because of all the hammer head sharks
circling the harbor! Isn't that freaky?! Daddy even saw a shark swimming
around the boat this morning.
Well I just finished learning as much French as I can shove in my head and
studying for a grammar test (adjective and adverb fraises are really hard!).
We just restarted school after a two week vacation. Dinner is at the pizza
place tonight! Gotta go, bye!

YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

2009-03-22T19:35:00.000-04:00

Yippee! We have finally reached land! This morning was the first time that
we could see Fatu Hiva and it is beautiful! It is extremely mountainous and
very green. The whole island is made of mountains and there isn't one low
spot. The coastal area right in front of the town is lined with palm trees
and a rocky beach. There are tall green trees mixed with the palm trees that
weave through the colorful shops and houses. The green mountains rise up
really fast right after the town and are sharp peaks at the top. Above the
island lots of fluffy clouds are hanging there dripping little showers of
rain. At the entrance to the bay there are towers of rock protecting the
bay. As you enter the turquoise/blue water becomes really flat and calm.
Right now we are pulling into the anchorage while experiencing a short sun
shower. It is not as populated as I thought it was going to be, but the
houses are all spread out on the hills and it's really cool. Since the
anchorage is surrounded by mountains the wind funnels in and there is a nice
breeze to keep us cool. This morning was spent cleaning the interior of the
boat and we now all smell like Pine Sol. Mommy is taking all sorts of
picture and video so you will probably see lots of pictures soon. Well we
are just about to put the anchor down so I gotta go, bye!

LAND HO!!!!

2009-03-22T00:28:00.000-04:00

Land ho! We have finally spotted a little piece of land. Since the wind
changed a bit we ended up changing our destination to make it a calmer ride.
We are now going to an island called Nuku Hiva (you say it like nookoo
heeva). It is a little farther away than where we were supposed to be going
to, but we will arrive in about 15 hours, 30 minutes and 17 seconds (we
would have already been there if we went to Fatu Hiva). We are glad that the
wind changed though because Nuku Hiva is the main island and is where you
check in. We are also waiting for a package to arrive there. The anchorage
that we are going to has the 3rd largest waterfall in the world! We can
anchor right next to it! I'm so excited. It is supposed to be really
beautiful. For a little bit of background, the Marquises Islands are owned
by the French and part of French Polynesia. They are supposed to be really
tall and mountainous and our populated on almost all the islands. We are so
excited to go ashore and buy fresh baguettes and croissants.

Cole, Daddy and I just finished a game of monkey in the middle with Cole's
hacky sack. It was really fun (other than the part when Daddy whacked me in
the eye with the ball and even that was funny).

We think that it is almost 11:30 at night in RI, but it is only 7:30 here
and we just finished dinner. Mommy made an attempt to make fish tacos with
chips instead of tacos, but it was nothing like what she had hoped to
make....it was so good!! I have been wanting tacos for a while and Mommy
said she'd try to make fish tacos with the tuna we caught this afternoon.
Like I said they didn't turn out to be anything like tacos..more like
marinated fish in a Mexican sauce with cheese and chips. Sounds good right?
For desert we had mini chocolate bars (mini Snickers, Twix, and Milky Way).
It was delicious.

Well, we've got 100.573 miles to go! Bye!

4 more days!!!

2009-03-18T20:25:00.000-04:00

Yippee!! I'm so excited to get there! We will arrive in 3 or 4 days to our
destination in the Marquises called Fatu Hiva (you say it like fatoo heeva).
We did a contest today and everyone guessed how many miles we would cover in
24 hours. The winner would be able to pick the movie we all watch tonight. I
won! We were especially surprised though that I guessed the exact number of
miles we traveled, 200! I chose the movie Center Stage. Mommy will probably
watch with me and Don too since he's never seen it before. I know that Cole
doesn't want to watch but I have a feeling that he will. I don't know about
Daddy. We are playing the game again and I kept my same guess since the
weather should stay the same. Who knows what will happen though. Since
there's been lots of wind we have been averaging a speed of about 9 knots or
more (that's really fast for a monohull and a little bit over regular for a
catamaran). We even hit 24 knots when surfing on a wave! Oh, and I'm not
sure exactly, but in the past two weeks I have read 9 or 10 books. All hale
the ebook. I don't know what I would do without my ebook. We are taking a
little break from school, but are starting back up again when we get to
land. Mommy has been making bread the past 3 days and it is so good! We were
sitting at lunch today waiting for the bread to finish and it was torture
since you could smell it from the table. It was so yummy! Well, it's been
really hot here..it's currently 4:30 and 85 degrees. It doesn't really make
sense to take a shower because 10 minutes after you finish you're sweaty
again. I tried taking a shower today and with the boat moving around so much
I slipped and fell 3 times! It was really funny. It's my watch now so I
gotta go, bye!

PS. We are 4,563.656 miles away from Newport if you were to travel in a
straight line from us to there.

More Pics

2009-03-16T19:59:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone. Here are a few more of my drawings. Not much has been going on
here lately. The wind just picked up and we should be able to sail at decent
speeds for the rest of the trip. We should arrive in exactly one week (I
hope)!!! Bye!

Day 10....Still Sailing

2009-03-14T21:33:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone, I've been doing some sketching lately and so I decided to post
them to the blog. Here is one of them...I'll put the rest of them up with
each blog I send. Pictures are too big to send over the sat. email and so I
can only send one at a time.
I tricked Cole into writing a blog! It's a miracle! Check out his blog, it's
already posted.
Anyways, Cole and started shifts! Mine is from 3 to 6PM and Coles' is from 7
to 10AM. Daddy gave us a lesson on what to check when on watch. I started
two days ago and it's really fun. Cole and I are now official crew! During
our watch we need to log some information in the ships' log and then put our
position down on the chart on Daddy's computer. I also get to do the net
during my watch. We will be doing watches so that Mommy and Daddy will be
able to sleep more when Don is gone. The spinnaker is up now since the wind
came up a bit (we were excited to see 1.5 knots of wind). Well Cole, Mommy
and I just finished watching Spider Man 3. It was a cool movie even though
I've seen it multiple times before. It's almost 5:30 here (there's a 3 hour
difference from the middle of nowhere, aka us, and Newport , aka you) and so
Mommy is making dinner. Rice, lentils and curry...mmmmm. Smells good. Gotta
go, bye!

PS. We went swimming 1500 miles away from anything!!

Still Sailing

2009-03-09T21:56:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone! We are still underway to the Marquises and will be for the next
10 to 14 days (hopefully 10). There isn't much going on, but here are some
interesting things that have happened so far:

1.My new job is to do the nets. When you do the nets you give your report on
where you are and stuff on the Single Sideband Radio (SSB). Every morning
and night a bunch of cruisers get together over the radio for safety and
communication. One person controls the net and calls to the other cruisers
saying "any vessels underway, come now." and other things that he or she may
want. Then, if I am underway, I would say "Zen" into the radio and wait for
net control to tell me to give my check-in. Once the given the okay to give
my report I say our lat and long, wind speed and direction, course and
speed. We give reports on the net so that other people know what the weather
is where we are and if we are in trouble they can take an educated guess on
where we might be. Also on the net I can write down the positions and
weather of our friends to know how they are doing.

2.A new thing that we have been using is life tags. Life tags are little
orange things that you strap onto your arm or wrist and will set an alarm
off on the boat if you fall overboard. Cole and I are wearing them all the
time except when we sleep and everybody else wears them when they are on
watch. They're pretty cool.

3.I have been studying French a lot lately. I have a game that teaches me on
my DS and a program on my computer called Rosetta Stone that teaches me too.
It's really fun and I enjoy learning the language. We are going to have to
speak French for the rest of our trip until New Zealand so I figured that I
should start now.

4.Something funny that has been happening lately is watching the flying fish
fly over the boat. Yes, flying fish have been landing in the cockpit and all
over the deck! I feel bad for the little fishies so we always try to through
them back into the water before they die. Another thing landing on the deck
are little, tiny squids. When they land they make little black ink spots on
the boat and they seem to like the tramps. They're really gross looking
though.

5.My sleeping pattern has changed. I tend to wake up at about 7:30 in the
morning and stay awake until about 3 in the afternoon. At 3 I fall back
asleep until around 5 PM. After dinner Cole and I normally stay up during
Mommy's watch, which goes from 7-11. Cole normally falls asleep around 10,
but I can't fall asleep until 10:30, 10:45. It's really strange, but the
motion of the boat makes me tired.

Okay, that's about it. I can't wait to get there!

Is It Possible to Get Hypothermia In the Galapagos?

2009-03-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! We are now currently underway to the Marquises. This will be
the longest passage of any of our lives, 15-20 days long. So far the seas
are down and there is exactly 2.4 knots of wind at the highest. We are just
burning fuel now until we get farther south and find the trade winds
(trades).
Anyways, before we left the Galapagos we did some cool tours. One of them
was a day tour to the island Isabela. It was pretty cool. We woke up at
around 5 AM and then took a two hour boat ride with some friends on the boat
Carl Linne to Isabela. While there we did a nature walk, snorkeling, and
some sightseeing. There was a cute little town with dirt roads and few
people. Finally, after lunch, we got back on our boat and headed back to
Santa Cruz. While on the ride back Cole and I took naps and the folks on
Carl Linne invited us to come over to their boat for drinks. We all wanted
to see the boat and so we agreed. After an nice evening on Carl Linne we
finally got back to Zen and fell immediately asleep. It had been a great but
tiring day.
The other trip that I did was a diving excursion. Only Daddy and I went
diving. For multiple different reasons the others didn't want to go and so
they planned a snorkel trip. Anyways, at about 6 AM Daddy and I woke up and
got ready for our dive. About an hour later the boat came by Zen to pick us
up. After quickly shoving some pancakes in our mouths we jumped on the boat
and were off. On the boat we met the people we would be diving with. A girl
from New Hampshire who was on vacation to see her friend was coming to get
certified and another guy from somewhere in Europe who had done 150 dives
around the world already and hadn't yet been to the Galapagos. We would also
be diving with a guide and another girl from the dive place who was also
from New Hampshire and was taking a year off of college to live and work in
the Galapagos. After a 45 minute ride to an island off of Santa Cruz we
suited up and dove in. Since we had already been fitted for our gear it was
just a matter of pulling on wet suits (which if they happen to be two piece,
long suits, that is not very easy). Once we jumped in the water the first
thing I thought was "is it possible to get hypothermia in the Galapagos?".
The water was the coldest water I have been in since last spring. I was
freezing. Although we were all really cold, the first dive was pretty cool.
I saw three different sharks and a few rays. There wasn't any coral but
there were some colorful, little fish. Once our hour was up we all got back
in the boat and motored into another little cove where we would wait another
hour before diving again. After having a little sandwich one of the guys
jumped back in the water and swam around for a bit taking pictures of some
animals. When I noticed that he found a couple baby sea lions I jumped in
the water and swam over. The water on the surface was really warm and since
I still had my wet suit on I barely knew I was in the water. Once I got to
the seals I noticed that there were three babies and their mother was on the
rocks a little while away. They were so cute! They posed for a while and let
us take pictures while their mom played with us underwater. It was so cool!
Soon we had to go back and go to our next dive. On this dive I put on a wet
suit hat and gloves to be warmer. This was much better and I enjoyed the
second dive much more. On this dive we saw sea turtles, rays and tons of
little fish and starfish. I had a great time. Back on the boat again we had
lunch and then headed back to Santa Cruz. It was so much fun!
Well, we are still cruising a long, waiting for the wind. We are now trying
to figure out how to charge Cole's Ipod. Gotta go, bye!

Tours in the Gallapagos

2009-02-27T20:31:00.000-05:00

So now we have been in the Galapagos for about a week now and our just
starting to plan some tours. We didn't plan tours earlier because we thought
that our agent would help us get an autographo, something that would allow
us to sail around to islands legally. Even though it would cost some money,
we decided that it would be the best choice. Now there are some rules on
getting an autographo and we did everything they needed.

Anyways, our agent lied to us telling us that we could get an autographo and
then came back with nothing done. One thing led to another and we got a
different agent.

Now that we are checked in we have signed up for a day trip to Isabella and
to go diving. We are all going to the island Isabella this Sunday on a
little tour boat to do some cool stuff there. On that tour we will be with
another motor yacht we met called, Carl Lind. They are really cool people
even though we only met the crew and there boat is really cool too.

In Isabella we are supposed to have breakfast and then go do some snorkeling
and shark spotting. After lunch we will take a walk to see some penguins and
flamingos. Then at six PM we get back on the boat to come back to Santa Cruz
for dinner. We are really excited and are told that Isabella is one of the
most visited islands in the Galapagos because of its penguins and volcanoes.

Next we planned a diving tour for Daddy and I. We decided to go next
Wednesday to a spot known for its sharks, manta rays and other big sea life.
I'm really freaked out to see a shark but also so excited.

We just turned on the engines and Mommy and Cole are both trying to tune
Cole's new guitar. Dinner is coming out soon and a movie is planned for
later. Bye!

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Galloping to the Galapagos

2009-02-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! We have officially arrived in the Galapagos. We have already
been here 3 days, but Daddy informed me that now we are fully checked in.
First of all our trip was basically 4 days and 5 nights long. If you wanted
to be exact you could argue less but that's the basic idea.
Anyways, when we saw the first island in the Galapagos we were amazed at how
big and green the mountains were. From miles away we could see the island
clearly. As we got closer we started to see other islands and some cool sea
life like puffer fish. Soon we had breakfast and had the anchor out and
ready. Mommy pulled out the video camera and started talking to herself
about the Galapagos. As we were about to round the point and head into the
anchorage we started to see what looked like tires floating in the water.
When one of the tires stuck his head out of the water we realized that they
were really sea turtles! All of a sudden we were surrounded by huge sea
turtles poking their heads out of the water to check us out. Seeing the big
white hull scared them away but some didn't care and we got to see them up
close. Next seals joined the sea turtles and started to jump all around the
boat. Seeing some fins out in front of us and wanting to see a seal, Cole
and I went and sat on the bow with our feet over the edge. As they got
closer we realized that they weren't really seals. At first they looked like
a bunch of little fish. We wanted to see the fish closer up so we leaned
over a bit. As they got closer though we realized that they weren't fish at
all. They were huge manta rays. There was three of them and they must have
been at least 10 feet across. Screaming in surprise, Cole and I pulled our
feet up and started to do our panic dance on the tramp. Soon we calmed down
a bit and pulled ourselves together enough to look over the side and watch
the rays fly through the water. Oh, by the way, the whole time Cole and I
were freaking out Mommy, Daddy and Don were asking us 'what's going on?! Are
you okay?!' and also freaking out. Once we told them everyone frantically
dashed around the boat looking for them. It was quite the sight but it was
so cool to see them.
Anyways, we are now anchored, with two anchors so that we don't hit other
boats in the anchorage. The town is much bigger than we thought with
internet, supermarkets, restaurants, resorts, and ice cream places. We have
already downloaded our Rosetta Stone French lessons onto my computer and
have started French in preparation for French Polynesia.
Yesterday we went to a beach that had really fine sand and huge waves. We
were so happy to find the waves since we haven't seen waves like that for
months. To get there we had to walk about 2 miles from the dock. There was a
really nice little path that lead to the beach. There was basically nobody
there except for a few surfers. It was really nice. Before the beach we had
taken a cab to something called 'the lava tubes'. The lava tubes were made
when lava rolled down the mountains and froze on the outside sooner than the
inside. When walking through the tubes you look up to a really high ceiling,
and walking over big rocks. The tunnel must have been at least a 15 minute
walk through and needed a flashlight. It was so much fun! For lunch we went
to a little place on the street where all the locals go. It was really small
but the food was amazing and cheap. I had rice, chicken and beans. From
lunch we went to a soft ice cream place and then to the beach. For dinner we
decided to go to a place on the water that everyone said was really good.
After waiting a really long time for the water taxi to come we arrived at
the restaurant. Soon we ordered and were just waiting for our food to come.
All of a sudden the head chef came out to tell me that he wouldn't be able
to cook my curry for me but he could do some type of curry instead.
Surprisingly he spoke English and was from Canada. He was really nice and
explained that he was sorry but didn't have the supplies to make Indian
curry that night. Of course, I had only gotten the curry because it sounded
good with the rice, so anything else sounded fine to me. Anyways, a few
minutes later I decided to go to the bathroom to wash the bug spray off my
hands and found a place where I could sit and watch everyone in the kitchen.
After quickly washing my hands I went back to the table to tell everyone
what I had found. Mommy, Cole and I then went to sit and watch them cook.
David, the head cook, didn't mind us watching and even gave us a taste of
the tuna tartar. It was so good! I was so excited for my food to come. Soon
we watched our food be made and then followed our waiter back to the table.
The food was amazing. The curry was really spicy but it was so good! For
desert I had a little piece of all the cakes and a scoop of maracuya
(passion fruit) ice cream. At around 11 at night we were finished and very
content that we had had a wonderful meal. Before we left David came by to
ask us if we like it. Of course we all said yes. Next he asked us if we
wanted to do a special package thing for tomorrow. He told us that the meal
would last 3 hours and we would have 6 courses. We wouldn't have to order,
he would chose what we ate making sure that we got to taste a bunch of
different flavors. Of course, we all said yes.
Tonight we are going back to the restaurant to enjoy a dinner decided by the
cook. I am so excited! We are also going to the Darwin museum to see all
sorts of animals that are only in the Galapagos. We've got to reset the
anchor, bye! Oh wait, I have just been informed that in the past 2 hours we
have picked up the bow anchor, set the bow anchor, set the stern anchor,
picked up the stern anchor, and set the stern anchor. Now we are going to
pick up both anchors and set the bow. Oh yeah, and it's 10:00 in the
morning! Oh wait it gets better....Mommy is going to wash clothes while we
set the anchor! Okay, Bye!

Swimming In the Pacific

2009-02-20T19:52:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone! So today is our fourth day on our trip and is really calm and
peaceful (other than our really loud engines). There is absolutely no wind
and hasn't been for a couple days. No wind though means calm seas and being
able to read and play games without getting seasick. It also means being
able to stop the boat and go for a swim. We got the idea of swimming in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean from our friends on Lightfoot, a boat we met
before we left in Panama. I don't remember if I told you about them, but
they have two kids on board, Jes a ten year old boy and Haley a thirteen
year old girl. They are really cool and are doing about the same trip that
we are just a little faster. Anyways, since they have a tighter time
schedule than we do they had to leave Panama as early as possible and have
been giving us info about the passage while they went. One thing they told
us was that it would get really calm and you'd be able to stop the boat.
They also said that the water was very nice and if we got a chance we should
jump in for a swim. Well yesterday we did just that. The water was an
amazing blue that seemed to go on forever and sparkled with the sun. There
was a little bit of a current, but the boat went along with it too so we had
no problem. Mommy was the first to jump in and said that it was really
refreshing and not too cold. Hearing this I jumped in and then Don and Cole.
Oh by the way, Don has decided to stay with us until Tahiti! We're all
really happy that he could stay and Cole and I decided that now that Don has
stayed with us, Carla should too (watch out Carga, we have plans set up on
when you and Mike are going to come and how much fun we are going to have!).
We swam around for a while and Daddy took some pictures. Since he had taken
a shower the day before he decided not to swim and to save us some water.
Since the engines were off it was silent and you couldn't see anything or
anyone. I decided to jump off the bow while Don was using the underwater
camera to take some pictures of the boat from the water. He was near the bow
and I was still too freaked to be swimming in the middle of nowhere and
couldn't see anyone. It was really fun for a while but there were these
little things in the water that sting so soon we got out and all took
showers on the back transom. It was about mid-afternoon and so soon we all
air-dried and had a snack of chips and salsa (something I had been craving
for the whole trip). The rest of the day I spent reading and playing DS. The
basic day on a passage that's not rough. Today I finished the series of
books called the Young Wizard Series. It was a great series and I'm going to
try to find the 8th book on the internet if we get any. I also finished the
game Mario Party on DS with the help of Cole (I wouldn't get anywhere
without the help of Cole on my DS. I've even made a few strategies on how to
get him to do really good and help me beat the game!). I also did a bunch of
school and should be done with 6th grade and onto 7th grade math in April!
Well, we just finished a really good dinner of hamburgers and French fries
on the grill pan and I'm being called to wash the dishes (Cole and I wash
the dishes every night for dinner). Gotta go, bye!

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To the Galapagos!

2009-02-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

So right now we are underway at the end of our second day sailing to the
Galapagos. It has been beautiful sailing weather so far but a few hours ago
the wind died and we had to turn on the motors. This wasn't a surprise
though since this is what the weather is said to always be like in the
Pacific: no wind. There still is a little bit of left over swells so the
blog might be quick so that my stomach doesn't flip but I think we'll be
good. Anyways, the day before we left Daddy was looking at the weather and
noticed that there was a great window to go and that we should skip the Las
Perlas. Since we had already been to those islands and knew that there
wouldn't be another window like this for weeks we had our last meal ashore
and left the next morning. The first couple hours of the trip we had no
wind but soon it picked up to about 25 to 30 knots. The seas weren't too
comfortable but we were going fast and covering lots of ground. When we woke
up this morning (believe me when I tell you that you get so messed up on
time while underway you can't tell if its' midnight or 4 AM) we found that
the wind had died a little bit and according to the weather charts, would
keep going down until the wind just disappeared. At the moment all I could
think about was 'yay! No more big waves!' but I guess other people thought
differently. Daddy said that it wasn't good that the wind would go away
because we'd have to motor the whole rest of the way and now that I think
about it, no wind means really hot. Well the day went by slowly and the wind
did eventually die. I think that everything that we've done so far. Coming
up though we are going to cross the Equator! I'm really excited but we don't
know how we're going to celebrate yet. Well I've gotta go, bye!

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Happy Valentines Day!

2009-02-15T11:55:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentines Day everyone! So yesterday was pretty calm. Except for Cole doing his tests we didn't do much school. Since we had a problem with our dinghy engine we had a bunch of people working on it for a while. They came on Friday, but since it was Friday the 13th they weren't very productive and had to come back yesterday. Luckily they did finish and everything is fine. I'm trying really hard to finish this huge composition project for school since it needs internet I have been spending whole days on the computer. It's not so bad though since composition is my favorite subject and the internet connection here is really fast. Anyways, the restaurants always have really loud music and it drives you nuts but it's in English which makes it okay. I know, this blog is really random. Anyways, I don't really know what else to write about. bye!

--
Camo

Isla Del Rey

2009-02-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

Hi! Right now we are bouncing up and down on the waves going about 7 knots
with 16 knots of wind. We are headed back to Panama to re-provision and fuel
up for the trip to the Galapagos. We just left Isla Del Rey in the Las
Perlas this morning. A few days ago we decided to hop in the dinghy and
explore the 'amazing river with waterfalls'. Since it sounded so much fun
from what our friends told us we decided to explore before we left for
Panama. So we all jumped in the dinghy and started to motor over to the
entrance. After maneuvering through shallow water and floating logs we found
the river. It was a beautiful, wide river with mangroves on either side and
all sorts of birds above you. Soon the bees started to attack and we had to
keep going since Don is allergic to them. After motoring a little farther
the river started to get more shallow and skinny but the bugs went away
(that could be because Mommy killed us and the dinghy with bug spray but who
knows). Anyways the surroundings soon became trees with amazing roots that
spread from the tree ten feet off the ground. We kept looking for monkeys
and sloths but only saw a few birds. Soon we came to a curve in the river
where we had a choice. One part of the river had a log lying across it but
just enough space to pass it, and the other was a bit tight but wider that
the first path. Since the river had now become really shallow and tight it
wasn't really living up to its name. Since we all wanted to see the
waterfalls we took the more open path. Soon we came to the end of the water
and ran into multiple logs. It was time to try the other path. After passing
the log we found another dead end. Oh well we thought. After motoring back
to the boat Cole and I pulled out all of our water toys (surf board, water
skies, stuff like that) and attached the wind surfer to the back of the
dinghy hoping that it would pull both Cole and I sitting down on it. After
multiple tries we had to paddle back to the boat and grab the water skies.
Since the boots on the skies are a little too big for me I had no trouble
putting them on and was soon flying across the water. I had so much fun
going outside the wake until my foot came out of the boot and we had to go
back to the boat to readjust it. Since it didn't go any tighter I did a
couple more circles of the anchorage and then went back to the boat to get
the surf board. Lucky for me, Cole wasn't in the mood for water sports and
so I basically had the rest of the afternoon. Since scurfing isn't my
specialty I decided to knee board. On my first lap around I performed a
beautiful 360 sideways spin off the board and splashed into the water
laughing my butt off. Daddy and Cole soon circled back so that I could grab
the tow rope and they were laughing pretty hard too. Soon my knees got tired
and Daddy wanted to water ski. In the hopes that the dinghy had enough power
to pull him out of the water he pulled on the skies and put Cole at the
wheel. Sadly, our dinghy isn't strong enough and so we had to put everything
away for the day. It was time for dinner. Well our speed has increased since
I started writing this but so have the waves. If I keep going I'm gonna make
my stomach flip, bye!

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Panama Canal

2009-02-07T15:54:00.000-05:00

Oh my goodness! I haven't written a blog on the Panama Canal! Well, we are
now in the Las Perlas islands and just anchored after and beautiful sail and
catching a fish. It's really nice here and tomorrow we are going to explore
a river that's supposed to be really cool in the dinghy.

So after sitting in the marina for a few more days after Costa Rica,
we quickly motored through all the huge ships to a little anchorage right
outside the canal called the flats. We waited here for a couple hours for
our adviser who would stay on the boat during the transit and help us get
through the locks and lake. Before leaving the marina that morning two of
our friends, Frank on Anemos and Andre on Tigre, as line handlers. They
would tie, loosen, and tighten the lines as we went up and down in the
locks. They would also stay onboard for the whole transit (two days) and
then take a taxi back to the marina where they would return to their boats.
Once the adviser arrived we served everyone dinner and then made our way to
the first pair of locks called the Gatun Locks. After finishing dinner our
adviser told us that we would be rafted to another catamaran and there would
be a ship in-front of us in the lock at once. Soon we came close enough to
the other cat to raft up and we were soon waiting for the ship to tie up so
that the two of us could also enter the locks. The other cat had three guys
onboard who were doing a delivery to Tahiti from South Africa. Why they came
two thirds around the world instead of just one we have no idea, but they
were really nice and the skipper and Daddy communicated well and neither
boat had the slightest ding. When we entered the lock the people on the
edges of the locks through down monkey fists (a type of knot with a really
heavy ball in the center of it) to the boat. Everyone tied the bigger blue
lines that were provided by the canal to the monkey fist and then the people
on the edge of the locks pulled in the lines. They were then tied onto
really huge cleats and the lock doors started to close. It must have taken
at least ten minutes to close the huge doors. They must have been uhh, at
the very least, 20 feet thick. They were huge! Once the doors were closed
water started to push us upwards. The water enters the lock entirely on
gravity. Of course you might think "Sure, how else?" until you see it. It
got really loud and the water made tiny whirlpools while it shot upwards.
The entire lock was soon filled to the top and we were getting ready to
motor out to the nest lock. This process repeated twice. Once we left the
last lock we had raised over 80 feet and we now floating on the top of the
Continental Divide. Since it was already 10 PM and we weren't allowed to go
any farther, the two boats de-rafted and started for the huge moorings that
we would tie up to for the night. A boat for our adviser soon came and he
jumped on, advisers don't stay on the boat for the night. Everyone was soon
in bed. The next morning everyone woke up to the sound of screeching howler
monkeys. After a large breakfast we were greeted by our next adviser who
would lead us through the last part of the canal. Today's agenda included
crossing the Gatun Lake, and going through the last three locks. After that
we would enter the Pacific. Cole and I both prepared for a long motor across
the lake and stuck ourselves to the roof of the house. Soon we started to
see some trees sticking up through the water where they had been drowned
when the lake was made. After a few hours. We entered the Gaillard Cut. This
cut was known to be quite dangerous for large ships because of its' sharp
turns, but being a little boat it was no problem. After hours of motoring
Mommy soon brought up lunch and we rafted back up with our friends on the
Moorings Cat. So far we had been really lucky with our advisers because most
people say that they can be greedy and not very helpful and both our
advisers had been really nice and very knowledgeable on the canal.
Unfortunately though, the other cat did not have a great adviser for this
section for the canal. We did find it pretty strange though when he all of a
sudden smelled food on Zen and so he invited himself over. Mommy being the
all generous cook offered him some lunch. Since this was exactly what he
wanted he quickly agreed. Since Mommy had no more left when he asked for
more he got Cole's leftovers. Anyways, we were soon in the last three locks
with a small powerboat in-front of us and a ship in back. Going down,
everyone said, was much easier than going up and the doors were soon
entering to the Pacific. Once outside the locks we de-rafted with the other
cat and both set off for either the anchorage or mooring field. We had to go
to the mooring field since it had a dock and availability to taxis. Although
all of our friends were at the anchorage and said that there weren't any
moorings left, we decided to go and check it out anyways. There ended up to
be plenty of free moorings and so after dropping off Frank and Andre we
picked up a mooring. We didn't go to the anchorage because there was a pool,
restaurants and hotel with a TGI Fridays inside it at the mooring field.
While we were there we ended up meeting some people on a the exact same
boat as us, just a few feet smaller. They ended up to be a really nice
couple who built the boat themselves. It was definitely the most beautiful
homemade boat I have ever seen with an unbelievable finish. We did end up
being able to visit our friends in the anchorage before we left for a little
island only an hour or two away. A day later we left for the Las Perlas and
anchored in a beautiful little cove with a really nice beach in dinghy and
kayak distance. Oh! I forgot to tell you that we bought a three person pink
kayak from our friends on Galivanter a couple days before we left. Cole,
Mommy and I love it but Daddy says that it's way too heavy. He also said
that we're going to get rid of it if we don't use it for a long time, but I
think he likes it too. On our sail to a different anchorage today we caught
a really big tuna and will be having fish tonight. Don is a really big help
on the boat and is really great to have around. We all hope that he'll come
to the Galapagos with us. Mmmm, Mommy must be cooking down in the galley
because it smells so good up here which might mean that we eat soon. Gotta
go, bye!

WE'RE IN THE PACIFIC!!!!!!

2009-01-31T09:41:00.000-05:00

Okay, so maybe the title was a bit extreme but it is very true! Sorry I
didn't write a blog on Costa Rica sooner, but we have been busy transiting
the canal, doing tests in school and hanging out with friends as much as
possible. Anyways, prepare yourselves because this might be a really long
blog.

So two days after we got back from Puerto Rico we hopped back on a plane and
took a 1 hour flight to Costa Rica. When we first arrived......oops, I need
to back up. When we arrived at the Panama Airport Daddy realized that he
had only 3 passports and that his passport was at the boat. We had to call a
friend to get Daddy's passport. While we waited for 3 and 1/2 hours we had
lunch, and randomly walked around the airport. Doesn't that sound like fun?
Once we arrived in Costa Rica we got into a taxi van and started for our
hotel in the mountains. We finally got to the hotel at around 10 at night
and quickly fell asleep. Once we got out of our van though, we felt like we
were in Antarctica. It was so cold and our hotel room wasn't much better.
For the first time in a long time, I slept with three blankets on top of me.
The next morning was scheduled for zip-lining. Although the weather was
rainy and cold we got in the tour van and headed off to the reserve. When we
arrived we all strapped on harnesses and met the rest of our group that we
would be with. After a quick hike to the first cable we were off. The
highlight of this day though was absolutely the Tarzan swing. You walked up
a big ladder and onto a platform. Then you get hooked into a cable that was
attatched to a really tall tree. Next the people tell you to bend your knees
and pushed you off the platform. From there you drop about 40 ft. and then
swing out really far. Since you're hooked onto the cable with your harness
you can spin around the not hold on while you swing. Once you start to slow
down some people at the bottom basically stop you like you are the jet and
the ground is an aircraft carrier. By this I mean that they put a bunch of
huge elastics infront of you and then you stop and they unhook you from the
cable. It was so much fun, and we didn't see any animals after that because
I screamed so loud. After 11 cables over 600 meters long and a really fun
Tarzan swing, we headed to lunch and then back to the hotel. Being able to
explore the hotel in somewhat light we found an outdoor pool, tennis courts,
a baseball field, two restaurants, and some rooms to rent. The next day was
a trip to another resort by boat and car. Since we arrived around noon we
walked quickly around the small but nice resort. There was a heated pool and
Jacuzzi, a restaurant, and many little houses that we would stay in. Inside
our mini house was a master bed room and bathroom, a small kitchen with a
stove, sink, and refrigerator, and finally Cole and my room had two twin
beds and a bathroom. Outside the front door was our own tiny pool with jets.
For lunch we went to the restaurant and had some okay food, but not great
service. This really surprised me since the people at the front desk were
extremely friendly and smiley. At this resort you could look out our little
house and see the active volcano, Arenal. Only once did we see the whole
volcano, but it was really amazing. Some really fun activities that we did
was more zip-lining, a tour to the base of the volcano, a wildlife tour
through the Rio Frio (Cold River) on a little power boat, repelling, and the
hot springs. We did a different zip-lining in this resort and I liked that
one better. For one, the weather was much warmer and drier, the cables were
longer, and you didn't have to hike from cable to cable. The tour to the
base of the volcano was a hiking tour. We walked from the parking lot to a
really huge pile of rocks at the very base of the volcano. It was about an
hour t walk there but it was on a really pretty rainforest trail and we saw
lots of cool plants. The rocks that we climbed on were blown from the
volcano a couple years ago and you can climb around on them and get a really
cool view of the volcano and some toucans. The wildlife tour wasn't great,
but we did see some cool animals including a caiman, or small crocodile. We
rode a bus for about an hour and a half and then stopped to get on a little
boat that would bring us down the Rio Frio. After the 3 hour or so ride up
and down the river we got back on the bus and went to a little restaurant
where everyone had lunch. It was some really good typical food: rice, fried
plantains, fruit juice, chips and a bean dip. After lunch was the bus ride
back to our hotel. If you have never heard of repelling, it means to go down
a mountain or waterfall while clicked into a harness. We drove a little
while in a van to the waterfalls and then clicked into a harness and put on
a helmet, gloves and a rain coat with Velcro on the neck and wrists. Then we
quickly hiked to the longest wall. The first one we would be going down. Our
guide taught us how to go down and then off we went. If you have ever been
on a rock climbing wall at those amusement parks or something like that you
know how you come down. Well we did that exact thing except that we let
ourselves down, got wet, didn't climb up, and did it on a real wall. It was
really fun and even though I was drenched in cold, river water I wasn't a
happy as I could be, which meant I wasn't cold until we took off our
raincoats. Oh yeah, on the way up the mountain we rode in the bed of a
pickup truck. After that we went back to the hotel. So you want to know
about the hot springs. The hot springs are basically natural hot tubs
powered by the volcano. One place that we went to had a heated regular pool
and a fun but short water slide, a not heated pool and a bunch of different
hot springs. There was paths set up around the baths with little bridges to
cross the river and then steps into the pool. It was really beautiful and we
were even allowed to get pina coladas! Since the water was so hot though, I
could only put my whole body in the water for about two minutes before
passing out from the heat. It was really weird, but with all the ins and
outs Cole and I just decided to stay in the pool for the whole time and go
down the slide. Also at this place there was a really good restaurant/buffet
that served a different type of food from around the world every night and a
spa that Mommy enjoyed a mud bath in one afternoon.

Okay, I think that that's everything about Costa Rica. Now I've got to write
a blog on crossing the Panama Canal, bye! BTW...there are a ton of pictures
in the photo gallery of our family blog www.sailingzen.com.

Buenas Puerto Rico!

2009-01-17T15:29:00.001-05:00

Sorry I haven't written a blog in so long! We have been doing lots of traveling in January and it's still not over! Well, right now we are in the Orlando airport waiting to check our bags so that we can get on our flight back to Panama. Anyways, we left Panama on January 2nd, and took a flight to Orlando. We had to fly to Florida because it was cheaper than a one way flight, and it worked out really well since we got to meet up with our aunt, uncle, cousins, Nonna, Nanna, Grandma, and Harley! When we landed at 5 past midnight we went down the escalator to find Nonna waiting for us. We were so happy and there was lots of hugs. She informed us that Unkie, Auntie Dana, Sophia, and Giordan had just left a couple minutes ago since the kids were sick and tired. "Hmmm, this could be a problem" we thought. Because we would be seeing Lauren really soon we were being extra careful not to get any type of cold. Anyways, since we were also tired and wanted to go to bed, so we hopped in Nonna´s car and started the drive to her house. On our way there we passed a Mc´Donalds. Before I knew it we were all munching on french fries. Once we got to the house we all ran around hugging everybody. I was so happy to see everyone, especially Harley. Since Grandma had the pink room and Mommy and Daddy were in the elephant one Cole and I slept with Nonna. After two days of family, presents and tons of fun, we were off to Puerto Rico to meet the Barkmans. As soon as we arrived at the hotel we were greeted by Kakky and Darlene. Since we had just been through the airport we took quick showers, and changed clothes before seeing Lolly and Pete so that we were sure that we couldn´t get Lolly sick. Everyone was so happy and we went right to the restaurant and then to the pool. The pool was really huge and had raft things that you could float on. We played for the rest of the day and after a restaurant for dinner, we all jumped in bed (since we can´t be apart for more than three seconds, Kak and I slept in one room and Cole and Lolly got the other.). If I went through our days one by one, the blog would last for ever so I´ll explain the highlights. One really fun thing we did was go to the water park down the mountain. There was three slides and a lazy river one was a curvy slide that you lied down on, the other was a swirvy tube slide and the third was a slide that basically went straight down. They were all so much fun and we spent one whole day at the water park one time. One funny thing that happened was we were all going through the lazy river when we spotted an iguana jump in the river and then back out. We all freaked out and Lolly automatically stuck her self on to me while I tried to get passed it as quick as possible. We also went to a little island called Palomino Island for a little while. I didn´t really like it there since there was so many wasps and all the activities cost so much. We did do the banana tube ride though, and it was really fun. Kak and I sat in the two back seats while Lolly and Cole sat in the front ones. One time when he whipped us, since I was in the very back, I fell off the tube and went flying into the water! Also, Kak was hanging off the side and screaming ¨We lost a chicken, we lost a chicken!¨ It was hysterical and we all laughed about once we got off the tube. Since this trip was all work for Pete, he didn´t do much with us until the last day but he was the MC for the awards ceremony for Certa Pro, and we all got to go. Some of it was really boring but Pete was really funny and everybody laughed. We had planned to do flashlight tag after the ceremony, but we were all too tired so we just watched the movie Meet Dave (which is really funny) and went to bed. Another Certa activity was the Certalympics. It was when a team of Certa guys had to build a raft out of the given materials and go around the mark and back twice without sinking. Since Pete was working, Daddy took his place in the race. It was so funny to watch them all fall apart and sink while they all looked so serious, but the got fourth place out of ten teams. Oh yeah, there´s more about the big slide. As soon as we got to the park Daddy just jumped in the slide and went with Cole, and later Kak then me and finally Lolly. Not so great right? The funny part is that the only reason Lolly didn´t go down first was because she wasn´t allowed to. As soon as the people finally let her go down she didn´t even think twice (unlike me who thought about five times) and just went straight down and then up and down about five more times. I loved Puerto Rico! Now we are in Costa Rica which is just so amazing. I will wright a blog about it later, but now we are going into the little town to walk and have dinner, bye!

--
Camo

Pippin

2008-12-29T17:44:00.001-05:00

Okay, so this is just a quick blog, but I just met a sloth named Pippin. He is 8 months old and the girls that I met yesterday (Kendel and Quin) adopted him after he fell out of a tree and would not go back up. After we download the pictures I'll post one, but I just wanted to let you know. We have to go over to our new friends on the boat Wasabi for dinner. Bye!

Arriving in Panama

2008-12-29T16:48:00.001-05:00

So yesterday we arrived in Panama! As we approached the break wall (entrance) we noticed all of the huge ships surrounding us, so many that we stopped counting. Since the trip here was really rocky and rolly with 15 foot seas and 25 knots of wind, we were ready for some calm water. First we decided to go through the little entrance and sail across the inside, but that was soon changed. As we looked at the entrance we noticed a 500 to 600 foot ship barreling at full speed out the entrance. This, we thought, is not the place for tiny boats like us to go through. So we took a hard right and headed for the main entrance. Using AIS, Daddy looked at all the ships around us to make sure that they were not heading towards the entrance also. Since everything looked okay, he pulled out the video camera. As soon as he walked out the door, he spotted another ship and went in to check it out. Apparently it was 500 feet long, heading towards the entrance and, if it kept it's course, it would enter three minutes after us. Since that wasn't a problem, we just put up the jib and took out the video camera. After making a big seen about how scary it is to be chased by a ship, Mommy made a joke and said that there was a ship coming out of the entrance. Daddy freaked out and turned off the camera. Then we all laughed and put the camera back on. Soon we were thought the break wall and on our way to Shelter Bay Marina (the place that the boat will be staying at for the next month while we are away). I must say that it was pretty scary passing through all those ships so close to their bows. After talking to an American man (this was a big deal since anyone we talked to on the radio for the past couple months was all Spanish except for our cruising friends) on the radio who told us where to go on the dock, it was a frantic rush to get out all the fenders and lines. Once everything was out and ready we all stood on the bow and looked at all the ships, still amazed. Soon we were at the dock and exploring the marina. It's really nice and there is a pool and a good restaurant. Oh yeah, and the people who helped us dock live on a boat here and have two daughters ages 13 and 15! They are really nice and I played with them and a couple other kids until around 6:00 last night. Anyways, after an American lunch at the restaurant, Cole and I hung out with all the kids for a while. So today we basically swam at the pool with all the kids for the whole day. It was really fun, and even though four of them speak Spanish we still kind of understand what they are talking about. Tonight is pot luck at the restaurant, yum! bye!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

2008-12-26T14:57:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everybody! This year's Christmas was really fun! On
Christmas Eve Mommy made a really good dinner and we watched the movie The
Grinch Stole Christmas. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow
since I was really excited for Santa to come. In the morning we (Cole and I)
woke up at 6:00 and ran to the other hull to wake up Mommy and Daddy. Since
Santa had come Cole and I pulled them out of bed so that we could open our
presents. When they finally got out of bed Cole and I immediately started
ripping open presents. My favorite gift was a bead kit. There was all
different colored beads with string and elastic. I have already made Harley
her Christmas gift out of that (I am going to attach a couple of beads to
her collar). After we had opened everything Mommy made a big breakfast and
we ate our new coconut that we got from Fai Da Te (Fai Da Te means do it
yourself in Italian. I have a feeling that it will be a phrase that I will
use). It was really yummy and once we were done Cole and I said "Merry
Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!" on the radio. It was really fun. For
the rest of the day Mommy cooked and all the kids and Dads collected wood
and made a fire. That afternoon all of the boats in the anchorage (33) came
to the beach to do a pot luck. There was all sorts of amazing food and
really, really good deserts. The kids on All The Colors brought their kites
and so did Cole, so for a little while everyone was flying kites on the
beach. Cole got a really cool kite from Santa. It has two handles and you
can steer it. Also it's really huge. Soon our fire was ready and so we
roasted bread on sticks over the fire. The bread was amazing, but it was
really hot and Giulia and I swam afterwards. Once we were dry, we noticed
that all the other kids were playing a type of American football. So we ran
over and asked if we could play. We soon chose teams and they explained how
to play. Here are the rules:
1.the point of the game is to get the ball.
2.If you have the ball, run and pass it to your teammates so that the other
team doesn't get it.
3.If you want the ball then do whatever it takes to get it.
4.Try to have a basic plan for your team.
It was a super fun game and since Giulia and I were really fast, and on the
same team, once we had the ball it stayed with us. Soon everyone had to
leave and so the game ended. As I was getting in the dinghy I had a
wonderful idea. My idea was that since this was my last night with Giulia,
she should sleep over. To make things shorter I will just tell you that we
watched a movie and stayed up until 1:15 in the morning. We had the best
time! The only reason that we went to sleep is that when Daddy came down to
shut hatches when it rained he said "go to sleep or your mother will kill
me". Giulia and I thought that was pretty funny but five minutes later we
were fast asleep. We are now in different anchorages, and tomorrow we will
be moving on to another anchorages (We are going to the states and Puerto
Rico in SIX DAYS!!!). I have Giulia's email and we plan to visit them in
Holand when we get to Australia and New Zealand. After that all of us our
going to stay in our house back in R.I. It should be fun! The weather is
kind of yucky today, cloudy, rainy, and windy. Anyways, Merry Christmas and
Happy Holidays! Bye!

Our Christmas Tree Improvements

2008-12-22T20:19:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody! Today was so much fun! Since Cole had a test today we
couldn't invite anyone over until he was done so that he could concentrate.
After he was done though, I invited Gulia over to play on my piano (she has
been playing for 5 years). After she taught me a couple things we decided to
play around and listen to the songs that were on the piano's memory. In the
end the piano's volume was at full blast and we were dancing, and singing to
the songs. It was really fun (All my best buddies- you would love Gulia. She
has lots of energy just like us! If she didn't' live in Holand, all of us
would be best buds!). After piano was over the Dads came back from spear
fishing and everyone (the whole anchorage except for a few boats) went
ashore for the 5:00 pot luck happy hour. Mommy brought her amazing dip with
some chips. Everyone else brought some amazing stuff too, and we ate so much
that we got back to the boat and didn't eat dinner! Anyways, we met this
other kid boat from Australia that is also going through the canal. We are
going to sail with them through the Pacific, and luckily there is an 11 year
old girl on board named Monica who is really nice. They invited me over to
their boat and tomorrow after school I'm going to go and play Monopoly.
Anyways, after the barbeque we came back to the boat and set up the
Christmas lights. It was really cool, and we set it up like a tree, and hung
it up on the mast. Once we had it up and the lights on, the boat in front of
us cheered. Since they are the "Christmas light boat" we were happy that
they liked our little tree. Time for desert, so I've got to go, bye!

Yoga

2008-12-22T11:37:00.000-05:00

Hi everybody! This is a photo of me doing yoga on the island in front of the
boat. Cole is doing a test today, and we are going to the happy hour
barbeque tonight with all of our friends. Bye!

p.s. Two days 'till Santa comes! YIPPEE!!!!!!!!!!

The Daily Cammi News

2008-12-19T10:20:00.000-05:00

Hello! The past couple days have been so much fun! We did lots of sailing
and are now in an anchorage called the swimming pool (there's another one
called the hot tub, and the island is called barbeque island!). We met a
really nice family on the boat called Fai Da Te. There is an 11 year old
girl, Julia, and two boys, Luca and Sergio. The kids and their parents are
only visiting their grandparents for a month, but they are really nice and
lived on a boat for two years when they were little like Cole and I. They
are also a really cool family because they speak so many different
languages. Also, we met a boat called All the Colors. They have three kids
on board, a girl and two boys. They are from Australia and are completing
their circumnavigation of the world. Anyways, last night we did a barbeque
on the beach with All the Colors, Fai Da Te and Albatres. It was so much
fun, and I learned a new way of making hot dogs. You take a stick and rap
bread dough around the top. Then you roast it on the fire for about 20
minutes or until you can easily pull it off the stick. Then you stick the
hot dog inside. It was really good, and I had one and a half! We also had
fish, and meat grilled on the fire. We had so much fun! Yesterday, after I
finished school I decided to do a composition. This is what I came up with:

How I Would Change My Room
If I could change my room I would make it magical, and huge. The way
I would make it magical is that it would stay the same size, but if I pushed
a button a porthole would open up and I would step in. Inside the porthole
there would be my much bigger and fancier room. First, I would paint my
walls purple, and have point shoes painted on too. Next, I would design all
my furniture. My bed would be a white bunk bed with a purple, green, blue,
and pink bed spread and pillows. I would sleep on the top bunk and so all of
my stuffed animals would be set up on the bottom. After my bed I would
design my desk. It would be white and have little, purple flowers painted
on. Underneath the desk there would be pink, green, blue, and purple canvas
bins for me to put all of my writing and drawing stuff. Next, I would make
an area for my dolls. It would have all different designs of the doll closet
and bed that I had back at home, and there would be three of them. Then, I
would get one bitty baby bed, and two sets of twin bitty beds too. Next to
all the beds there would be an area for my bitty babies to play with their
toys and books. Also, there would be identical areas for practicing ballet,
one for me and one for my dolls. There would be a black floor just like at
Festival, and a full wall mirror. Then, next to that I would have two
walk-in closets, one to put clothes in and another for all of my dance
things. Also next to the dance space I would have a black grand piano.
Also, there would be big windows that showed what it really looked like
outside. The windows would have purple, blue, pink, and green shades that
would tie back to open them. Also the windows would open, but no one outside
would see them. If it were raining or dark, I would use the air conditioning
and overhead lights. On one of the walls would be a corkboard, but wouldn't
look like one. Here I could hang anything I wanted no matter how heavy.
Next, there would be a door that leads into my own bathroom. It would have a
shower that doesn't use the boats' water and a toilet you don't have to
pump. The walls would be the same as the ones in my room. Finally, the floor
would have a white carpet and everything would be impossible to stain. I
know that my room would be impossible, and would cost tons of money, but
don't you love to dream?

Do you like it? Mommy and I are going to do a yoga class on the beach with
some other cruising friends. There is even a woman who lives on a boat here
that is going to teach the class! I am really excited. Mommy needs help on
making homemade bread, bye!

Moons, Stars, Planets and the Weather

2008-12-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

As lots of people may already know, Daddy is the San Blas weather man and I
am the astronomer. Every morning Daddy announces the weather on the SSB at
8:30. Then I announce what I found about astronomy later on the net. It's
really fun, and one person complimented me this morning. It was also really
funny because when people were talking about leaving the island they are at
and going to another one they would always say "....if Tom thinks that the
weather will be okay, and we'll have a fast trip."It was hysterical! Zen is
now the boat to know if you need info (hahaha it rimes!). Anyways, now there
is four kid boats here! Monkey Feet, Anemos, Migo, and Someday Came! There
is only two girls my age, but the boys are nice too. Yesterday really
reminded me of a day in Prickly Bay, Grenada. The first thing I did when I
woke up was run upstairs and grab a piece of Kuna bread with cinnamon for
breakfast (the Kuna bread is amazing!). Then the net came on and I announced
that there would be two upcoming meteor showers (December 14 and January 3).
At around 8:45 I started school. Right before lunch (11:00) I jumped in the
water and swam to Migo with my string so that we could make bracelets
together. Joanna said that she would love to make bracelets, and since I
have lots of string we just used mine. Soon Sophia (her mom) said that she
would be making pasta for lunch and asked if I wanted to stay and eat with
them. I really wanted too, so I called Mommy on the radio. She said that I
could, so soon I was eating this amazing pasta with some type of fish. It
was so good! After lunch Joanna and I finished our bracelets and Blake from
Monkey Feet came by to escape from the littler kids for a while. So
Jonathans' (her brother) decided that we should all play cards. We all
decided that that was a good idea since Jonathan has trouble walking (he has
a disability). After playing lots of different card games we all got bored.
Jonathan watched a movie and Blake, Joanna and I played tag in the water. It
was really, really fun since Joanna kept on tricking Blake to the point
where he had no clue who was it. Just as we were about to get out of the
water Cole and Mommy came by in the dinghy. Cole asked us if he could join
us since he was all alone on Zen (he was on Monkey Feet, but the younger two
boys wanted to go back to their boat so Cole came to Migo). We were happy
that he came because now we had enough people to play a really fun card game
called squares. At around 4:30 Joanna said that she wondered when her
parents were coming back since a boat they knew was coming over to their
boat at 5:00 for dinner. Just as she spoke her parents came back in the
dinghy. I decided that since they had guests coming over in half and hour
that we should probably leave. So Blake took Cole and I back in his dinghy.
Dinner was bananas foster, French toast sticks, pineapple, raspberry juice,
scrambled eggs and bagels. It was really yummy! After Cole and I finished
washing the dishes we all sat down at the table with pop-corn to watch the
movie Master and Commander. It was a really cool movie, but some parts were
really gross. I'm going to go pick up Joanna and see if she wants to come
over. Bye!

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Welcome to the San Blas!

2008-12-10T12:40:00.000-05:00

We are finally near the Panama Canal, which is only two hundred miles away
from where we are now, the San Blas. The San Blas are a bunch of little
islands only and hour or two away from each other and are part of Panama.
The only people living here are the Kuna Indians who only live on certain
islands. The Kuna Indians are shorter people who speak either Spanish or
their local Kuna language. I'm not exactly sure which, but I know they don't
speak English. As I type, a Kuna is coming up to the boat and trying to sell
us something. Mommy is speaking in Spanish and he's speaking so fast I
wouldn't understand him if he was talking in English. I guess Mommy gets it
though. Anyways, we arrived here from The Rosarios on the morning of the
eighth. It was a very quick trip, and we cut of four and a half hours of how
long we thought the trip would take. We left at 4:00 in the afternoon of the
7th in the perfect wind, and five to eight foot seas (eight feet was more
than I liked, but it was okay). Mommy had already made pizza since we were
supposed to have dinner with Tara Vana that night on our boat. We left
without much warning since the wind magically picked up and turned to the
correct direction. We all ran around the boat doing this and doing that, so
that we would be ready to leave. But after pizza dinner under way, Cole and
I went into Mommy and Daddy's cabin to watch a movie (Cheaper by the Dozen).
It was a good movie and by the time we were done, desert was out and ready.
Soon we were all outside on the deck slowly falling asleep, and wondering if
I should do a watch tonight. I ended up being awake for an hour or two, so I
guess that counts. Cole and I slept in the main saloon, because it was
quieter, less bouncy, and much more interesting (you get to listen to people
talking on the radio, and watching the radar and the chart on the computer).
When I woke up the next morning Cole and I started planning what we would
have for dinner (not breakfast, it's not a typo). Here was our plan: the way
Nonna makes scrambled eggs, crunchy French toast, pancakes with raspberries
and chocolate chips, bacon, sausage, English muffins, and bagels. It had
sounded really good when we thought of it, but here is how it turned out to
be (which was much better than just thinking of it): Nonna's scrambled eggs,
pancakes with raspberries, bagels and really good mandarin juice. It was
really good, and our whole day was basically surrounded around thinking
about what we would have for dinner. We arrived in an anchorage in the San
Blas at about 11:30am, and saw at least one boat with kids aboard. We didn't
do much all day, so we met them yesterday. It turned out that there are two
kid boats. The first boat Monkey Feet is a Australian and Canadian mono hull
and has three boys, Talon, Radick, and Blake. They are three, seven and
thirteen years old. It's really funny because they know a bunch of boats we
know such as Tara Vana, Migo, Salt and Light, and one other boat that I
don't know the name to, but I met the girl that is onboard. The second kid
boat was a yellow mono hull named Anemos who are German. They have two boys
aboard who are much younger. We didn't really talk or see them much, but
Monkey Feet knows them. For the rest of the day Cole, Blake, Mommy, Daddy,
and I went ashore to the little islands to check them out and play on the
beach. Monkey Feet had made a lean-to on one of the islands, and since it
fell over we worked on that for a while to repair it. After exploring for a
while we headed back to the boat for dinner. Cole is just rapping up school
now, and I finished a little while ago. Mommy is going to make lunch
sometime soon, and Daddy is on the lookout for logs (these huge trees seem
to be stuck in the current or something, and they keep floating by. Daddy
occasionally runs to the side of the boat with the boat-hook to make sure
the log doesn't hit. It's actually really funny, but sometimes it taps the
boat as it goes by). I'm tired of writing and Mommy is taking lunch orders,
so I gotta go, bye!

Nonna- Cole and I have been saying that your scrambled eggs are the best in
the whole world, and we were thinking that it would be cool if you could
make them for us in 23 days when we see you. See you soon, and love ya, Cam

Dolphins, scurfing and going to a different anchorage (all in one day)

2008-12-06T07:16:00.000-05:00

So we are now in a place called The Rosarios. The Rosarios is a bunch of
little islands really close together, with a couple people living on them.
All the islands are really beautiful, and there are no mosquitoes (this is
key to liking a place). Anyways, today we did lots of different things.
First........after I woke up we went into the kitchen to get myself a pastry
thing for breakfast since Mommy was still sleeping. Then I dragged my school
books up the steps into the saloon (this whole time Cole has been up and
doing school so that he could finish early and go play with Oscar). Then
Mommy woke up and started helping Cole with math. About half-way through
math I found a problem that seemed completely impossible (to me, lots of
word problems with exponents in them are impossible). So I got Daddy (who
had been up before Cole to check the weather for today), and he started to
look at the problem to see if he could help me. Daddy couldn't figure it out
either, so he said that now was the perfect time to move to the other
anchorage he had scoped out this morning. So Mommy told me to do all the
problems that I could, and then I would be done with school. The other
anchorage was only on the other side of the island, so it only took about 30
minutes to get there. After we got into the anchorage we saw that Tara Vana
was already there and anchored (Tara Vana came with us to The Rosarios so
that they could teach us how to water ski since they are professionals. Oh
right, I didn't tell you.....back in Cartagena one boat announced that they
had water skis for sale, so we bought them). Tara Vana taught us how to
water ski yesterday, so we thought that we might be able to do a little
skiing today along with scurfing on our new board (we got that in Cartagena
too as an early Christmas gift). After we dropped the anchor, Cole and I
jumped in the water and swam around with Oscar for a while. Soon we had to
go to lunch. At lunch Mommy and Daddy told us that we would be going to the
aquarium to see a dolphin show that was on another island in dinghy
distance. So at 1:30 we all jumped in our dinghies and went over to the
aquarium. As soon as we arrived we could tell that they were closed. We
still all wanted to see when they opened, so we went to find the people who
ran the shows. They told us that the shows were tomorrow, but we could swim
with the dolphins instead. Of course we all really wanted to do this, and
since I have never done it before, I was very enthusiastic. The people told
us that we should come back at 3:30 in our bathing suits. We all decided
that only Cole and I would go. Since Albatres was going to be leaving before
5:00, they thought that it might be too close if they did the dolphin thing.
When we got back to the boat Cole, Oscar and I wanted to go scurfing, so we
pulled out the board and jumped back in the dinghy. Cole got right up on his
first try, and I was up for a little while before I fell. Then I decided to
go on my knees and see if I could stand up. I didn't work, but we were
running out of time, so Oscar went. He went around on his stomach for a
while before we brought him back to his boat. Then we picked up Tara Vana
and went over to the aquarium. Let me tell you that swimming with dolphins
was SO MUCH FUN!!! Cole and I got to go together with two different dolphins
and their trainer (who spoke to us in Spanish, but she was really nice). The
male dolphin was 21 years old and we played with him the most. The female
was 40 years old, but she kind of just swam around. Here are the things I
got to do with the dolphins: pet him, talk to him (and he talked back), he
pushed me around the pool area by pushing his nose against the bottom of my
feet, and feed him fish. It was really fun, and the dolphins were really
cute and loved to play. One of the dolphins loved to come up behind me and
freak me out by knocking me over. Today was so much fun! I have to go to
Tara Vana for dinner now, bye!

Pinch and a Punch!

2008-12-01T11:55:00.001-05:00

Pinch and a punch for the first of the month! Today it is 90 degrees on the first of December (that's the first time that's ever happened, shmeesh). Anyways, I just finished school, and I am looking at a huge cruise ship docked next to the anchorage. I'll give you a basic idea on what I did today already: 1. I woke up and pulled out my reading test. 2.Cole decided that he wanted to detach a line from the dagger boards and swing on it. 3.Daddy detached the line and Cole and I swung on it for a while from the trampoline to the deck. 4. The huge cruise ship came in and docked next to the anchorage. 5.Daddy told Cole and I that we had to start school and eat breakfast. 6.Cole and I put our breakfast (pastries) on the back deck to warm up, and I finished my reading test while cole started math. 7.We got our breakfast off the back deck and Cole ate it with a knife. 8.I finished school, and read Cole two stories for his school day (history and reading). 9.I came to the computer and started righting this. Okay, that is about all I've done today. Oh wait...............we just got a call on the radio from Tara Vana saying that they would like to play Taboo with us this afternoon. Taboo is a game that they have and say it is really fun. I am really excited, and we are going to go over in an hour and a half! I've got to got to get my test pages for Mommy, bye!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-28T12:32:00.002-05:00

So yesterday we had a Australian Thanksgiving party with all of our sailing friends. We called Australian because yesterday was Thanksgiving in Australia, not here. We did it yesterday because today there is a party at the marina for all of the American boats. Everyone (Tara Vana, Albatres and one other person that we just met and I don't know his boat's name)came except Someday Came (they thought that it would probably be too late for Violet, their 3 year old). Anyways, since it was on our boat, after school Cole and I cleaned our whole hull from top to bottom. It was really boring, but it looked much better. Oscar from Albatres and his parents came over at around 4:00, and asked if it was okay if Oscar could play here until his parents finished running errands. Of course, we said that he can absolutely play and that his parents should come back at around 6:00 for the party. At 5:30 Tara Vana came with their food. Soon after Albatres came and then this other person we met on a catamaran. Then from 6:00 to about 11:00 we talked, ran around the boat, laughed and ate. Soon everyone was falling asleep so they all went back to their boat. The meal was so good, and I had such a fun time!

Happy Thanksgiving! (numero dos)

2008-11-28T12:32:00.001-05:00

Okay, now for the second party! So yesterday Mommy woke up sick. She slept basically all day. Cole, Daddy and I kept ourselves busy by watching music videos on YouTube, looking at a really cool website (newmoongirls.com........it's really cool for 8-16 year old girls), and reading books. Soon we decided to go to the big playground with the 'strap-into-a-harness-and-jump trampoline'. We invited Someday Came, Albatres and Tara Vana to come, but for one reason or another only Albatres could come. After lots of jumping, running and climbing, we dropped off Oscar from Albatres on his boat and Cole and I took showers ashore where you can use as much water as you want. When we got back to the boat Mommy decided that she would like to go to the party ashore and that she would love to hear the live music that would be playing ashore. So at 6:00 we all got into the dinghy and met Tara Vana at the marina. The whole restaraunt was decorated with all sorts of lights and red and white tables and chairs. The food was then served. We had turkey, rice, potatoes, bread, green beans, and some local looking food. It was all really good, and cake was for desert. Then, as I was eating my cake the dancers came in. They were really good, and had really nice costumes. They danced to the drums and maraca things that the band was playing. They did four different dances, each with the same six people. I really loved to watch them, and at the end they pulled some people from the audience to dance too. It just so happened that they took Ami from Tara Vana! It was really funny to watch her dance with the team, but she picked up a bunch of the steps and was looking pretty good with all the other dancers. After that they left, and we only stayed for a little while longer. As I was After the party we all went back to the boat and went to sleep.

An Eventful Day

2008-11-23T11:36:00.001-05:00

Okay so here is a list of things that happened yesterday:

1.woke up

2.found Daddy working in the engine rooms
3.ate breakfast

4.sat around and did nothing for a while

5.Albatres came over

6.Cole crashed down 8 feet into the engine room

7.Mommy freaked out and I cried

8.everyone got in the dinghy

9.Cole looked at us like we were crazy

10.Momy and I stopped crying

11.we got out of the dinghy

12.Cole started dancing around on the back deck (he was abviously fine)

13.Mommy put ice on Cole's foot

14.Daddy got back in the engine room to finish working

15.Albatres went back to their boat

16.I sat around and did nothing

17.Tara Vana took us out to dinner

18.we went back to the boat

19.I got in bed

20.I went to sleep

Okay, so that basically covered everything. Cole is perfectly fine (and is back to being an occasionally anoyning brother). I don't really feel like writing any more, so that is my blog for today. Bye!

Zee Fort

2008-11-21T13:32:00.000-05:00

As I ran accross the triangle castle I spotted the enemy. So I called to all the people and told them to fire the cannons. Then I happily watched the enemy ships' mast fall down as they were attacked by Cartagena's armies.

Okay, none of that is true (but it could of been in the 1600s'!). So yesterday our new friends on Tara Vana, Albatres, and Someday Came and us, all went to the big fort in Cartagena. It was so much fun to run around in the tunnels with our flashlights and we learned a lot about Cartagena's history. In a nutshell Cartagena used to be the holder of all the gold found in South America until a Frenchman came and stole it in the 1600's. Because of all the gold, Cartagena made a huge fort so that they could look over the island in which the gold was held. It was made on a hill simply covered with brick. After making a plan it took them 100 years to build it with tons of slaves. Some of their brilliant ideas was tunnels to get from place to place underground, and a slanted wall so that when a cannonball hit it, it didn't crumble to pieces, but rolled down instead. Most of the fort is still the same brick now, and only one part of it had to be rebuilt in the early 1900s' (I think). The best part of the fort was running around in the underground tunnel with flashlights. The worst part was climbing back up the tunnel to ground level and fearing not having enough air to breath (obviously I'm still alive). After the fort we went to Old Town and walked around for a while after watching an African American dance team do a quick performance. As we walked past the gold museum, we decided to go in. It was really cool, and all the gold in the museum was real 24 karat gold. We then left to go to dinner since it was getting late and Violet was starting to get tired. On our way Albatres had to leave and go back to their boat, but Tara Vana, Someday Came and us stopped at a really nice restaurant to have dinner. After having ravioli, we went to the ice cream place. We finally got back to the boat at 10:00 and went straight to bed. Albatres just arrived so I've gotta go, bye!

Cartagena

2008-11-15T10:08:00.001-05:00

So we are now currently in Cartagena. It is basically a harbour surrounded by a huge city. One of my favorite parts is watching the container ships come in and get unloaded at night. It is really cool because there are these big crane looking like things that light up at night and look like it's only a big structure of light. Another awesome thing here is that Mommy and I might get tickets to see a ballet!!!!! I am extremely excited and hope there is a show that we could see. Something weird about Cartagena is that when there is rain (it doesn't matter how much) the streets are flooded and it looks like Venice. A bad thing about Cartagena is that you can't swim in the water (it is so disgusting that even if people said we could, I still wouldn't do it. It is a brownish color and is really polluted). Something really cool about Cartagena is that, since it is their carnival this week, there is all sorts of really cool things going on: people singing on the top of a really old ship, harbour wide water gun fights, a parade of boats going down the center of the harbour with the Miss Columbia people in them and tons of fireworks. Something really awesome about Cartagena is the play grounds. They all have trampolines and one even has go carts, a bouncy house, and an awesome rope thing to climb on! We are going there today after we run some errands. That is basically a summery of what I know so far, but will probably be updated soon! Gotta go, Bye!

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

2008-11-12T18:08:00.000-05:00

-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!

Still Sailing

2008-11-11T15:35:00.000-05:00

So yesterday morning we left Curacao at around 8:00 in the morning and
started our journey to Cartagena. It was a very nice sail, and there was no
waves whatsoever. I was even able to start reading a book to Cole and get a
bunch of homeschooling done. We also got to sail next to Someday Came for a
while. After we got near a bunch of ships, they disappeared off the horizon
and into the maze of ships. After one of Mommy's amazing chicken, rice and
vegetable dinner, everyone went down to bed to get rest before their shifts
(yes, Cole and I started doing shifts with Mommy and Daddy). At 9:00 pm I
woke up to Daddy sticking his head in my hatch and saying my name. When I
climbed out I found Mommy lying on the bow. Daddy told me to crawl up there
so that I could watch the 30 dolphins swim and jump around the boat. It was
so cool and I loved it when they would swim under the tramp and jump out of
the water, getting us wet. They would also come to the surface and talk to
us in their high pitched dolphin voices. Daddy thinks that since we turned
the deck light on that they were attracted to that, because when we turned
it on they came and when it went off they swam away (or it was too dark to
see them). Soon Mommy went down to bed and Daddy taught me how to look for
storms on the horizon. All of a sudden we heard a bang on the side of the
hull. Mommy came running up and I jumped on the couch and huddled there
until the running and panicking stopped. I then helped Daddy look in the
engine rooms for a signs of a leek. All clear! Mommy went down to bed and
Daddy and I sat in the cockpit for a while and looked up at the big, bright
moon. At midnight I went down back to sleep. I woke Cole up, and told him he
was on watch with Mommy, but he just looked at me and went back to sleep.
Since Cole and I get three hours on and six hours off, I slept the rest of
the night (I did have one more shift, but I was only up for an hour or so
before Daddy told me to go back to bed).We are now motoring (there is no
wind) past land and are going to turn in a while. I'm going to go do
something...don't know what but I'll do something. Bye!

PADI.................?

2008-11-04T16:59:00.001-05:00

So yesterday I started something very, very, very, very, very, very, (okay I think you get it) fun. Okay, I'll give you clues, and you have to guess what I started. 1. It is a type of school, 2. you are in the water for a long time, 3. you have a book, take tests, watch movies, have a BCD, and have lots of fun. Did you get it right? I started scuba diving!!! It's amazingly fun, and it started on Monday and will end at Wednesday. Each day starts at 8:30 each morning, an hour to hour and a half lunch break from 12:00 to 1:00, and we end at 4:30. I am being certified for PADI diving. PADI stands for Professional Association of Diving Instructors. Today we did our second dive at the reef right below the boat. We have learned all the equipment, and how to set it up. We have also learned what to do in an emergency, and how to prevent them. Oh yeah, the most important rule of diving is.....................keep breathing! I know it sounds really hard, but when you are in a difficult situation, it's hard not to hold your breath. Why should you always hold your breath? Easy, if you start ascending, you lungs will expand. If you keep going up, you lungs will expand so far they will explode. I'm not kidding. Okay, so you want to know a difficult situation where you want to hold your breath. If your regulator (the thing you breath through) is knocked out of your head, you have to blow out little bubbles while you recover your regulator. I know it sounds super simple, but sometimes it isn't. Okay, so here are some definitions for diving: Regulator-the thing you breath through, BCD- (Buoyancy Control Device) kind of like a life jacket that you can blow up to make you go either up and down in the water, also holds up your tank, Octopus-your extra regulator attached to your tank for buddy breathing, Buddy Breathing-using your octopus to give to your buddy if he/she runs out of air. Okay I think that's everything new. I also found out that Cole and I are only allowed to dive to 40 feet. Today with our instructor Carolyn, we dove to 32 feet and got to see tons of fish and even a baby octopus! It was really fun and we even got to swim underneath Zen and Someday Came. I really loved it. Okay, we are going to go out for some type of Asian food for dinner (yummy!). Bye!

Finally in Bonaire

2008-10-31T16:10:00.000-04:00

Trick-or-treat, and happy Halloween!
Hello, and welcome to Bonaire (a.k.a. Grandma Heaven...I'll talk about this
later). It is now 1:45 and we are just rounding the very point of the
island. Oh cool, Daddy just pointed out some really cool red, white and
orange statue things on the shore. Here is the story of them: hundreds of
years ago, ships would come in to the land to harvest salt from the island.
When they saw the orange, white and red person-tall pyramids on the shore,
they knew where they could anchor. Next to the pyramids were tiny little
houses. These were for the slaves that came from the mainland. They walked
seven hours to go to work on Monday, and back to their homes on Friday to
get the weekend off. But before they left, the ships would go to a huge
conveyor belt-looking-like thing to get the salt on board the ship. Then off
they went to deliver it somewhere. Cool huh? Okay, so I know you want to
know why I call Bonaire Grandma Heaven right? Here is the answer: As we
started to round the corner we saw huge mounds of what looked like perfect,
white sand. This was not true. Daddy and Mommy soon told us that the
mountains of 'stuff' was all salt. Okay, still doesn't make sense right?
Well, Grandma loves salt. Anyways, Mommy said that parts of the island were
totally devoted to getting the salt, while others are quite cosmopolitan.
Ooh! We are just passing some mountains of salt now. They are pure white,
and almost perfect triangles. There is about seven different piles, but only
two are really big. Wow, I can even see trucks taking the salt from place to
place. This is really cool! Now we are rounding another corner, and I can
see the cosmopolitan part of the island. The hills are covered in bright
colors which I'm guessing are houses and buildings. There even seems to be a
small city. Okay, enough with Bonaire, we're moving on to Someday Came. They
were keeping up with us well until they caught another sail fish! This one,
they said, was the biggest fish they ever got on board, and was a whopping
six feet long! This one they got pictures of and we can't wait to see them.
Sad but true though, was that after catching the fish they slowed down and
disappeared on the horizon. Oh well, Daddy says they will most likely arrive
at the anchorage around 5 to 6:00 tonight, which will still give us plenty
of time for our party. Oh, I forgot! We are going to have a party with
Someday Came tonight for Halloween. Someday Came is making cake, and
gingerbread cookies and Mommy, Cole and I are going to make brownies and
Mommy's famous home-made pizza. We are all going to wear our costumes, and
will probably meet up on Zen to eat the goodies. After dinner we are going
to jump in the dinghy and go to each boat to trick-or-treat. We also have
lights that we decorated the boat with for Christmas last year that we might
use tonight. Oh and Cole is going to be Tom Brady from the Patriots. He has
a great costume, but we are not sure what knee he blew out, so we are just
going to wrap up his right. It should be very funny. Okay, after Halloween
fun is over (tomorrow), we are going to explore the island to find a diving
place where one of our friends on a boat named Constance told me to go to
get certified for diving. I'm really excited. The people said that it takes
3-5 days to get certified which is a perfect amount of time. Also, Bonaire
has a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)! I know it isn't the best restaurant in
the world, but since Cole and I haven't had it so long, we are very excited
to go there, and see what it is like (I hope that they have the same food as
back at home). So now we are fully engulfed in the waterfront town, and it
looks a lot like the island Antigua. The chart says 15 minutes and 7 seconds
until we arrive at the anchorage/marina. Yippee! I'm going to go sit on the
bow. Bye!

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From Los Roques to the Aves and Soon to Bonaire

2008-10-30T15:24:00.000-04:00

So today we left Los Roques and we just arrived in the Aves. Someday Came
and us both decided that since the bug issue in Roques was no better at any
anchorage (the mosquitoes were horrible and would swarm the back deck
starting at 4:00 pm), we would leave for the Aves and then onto Bonaire
tomorrow since the people there speak English (yippee! English speaking
people!)and celebrate Halloween (Trick-or-treating here we come!). Anyways,
we left at around 8:30 this morning and put up our Code Zero sail (kind of
like the spinnaker). Someday Came left a little bit after us and so we
weren't able to sail next to them as I had hoped. Oh well. The sail was
about six hours long, and we just arrived at 2:30. Someday Came is behind us
because they caught a fish called a sail fish (?). They had to turn around
and....OH MY GOODNESS HERE THEY COME! Oh yeah, so they had to turn the boat
around into the wind to try to reel in the fish to take pictures because
they said that it too big to catch and eat. Daddy says that most sail fish
are 8-10 feet long. I know that this blog was not very interesting, but I
didn't know what to do so I decided to write this. Oh wait, I have something
somewhat interesting! I changed my costume idea. I'm going to wear a really
colorful bathing suit top, and a couple of Mommy's colorful scarf/bandanas
to wrap around my stomach. I'm going to wear the same bottoms though, and I
might make colorful patches of cloth and sow them to the shorts as pockets
or patches. It's going to be so much fun! I think I'll go swimming. Bye!

Los Roques

2008-10-28T18:02:00.000-04:00

So right now Someday Came and us are in a little cove with two other
sailboats and a yacht. We came here yesterday because of the horrible role
in the other anchorage. Although we are a catamaran, the role was still
pushing us from side to side, and back and forth. It got so bad one time
that I fell backwards into the table when the boat pulled really hard on the
anchor. So after school and lunch was over we headed out. Oh and guess what?
Caroline got to come with us on our hour sail, and we watched her movie
called Princess Diaries! It was a really good movie and by the time the
movie was over, the anchor was down and we were ready to swim, knee board,
or tube for the rest of the day (it was about 3:00). So we pumped up the
tube while Mommy and Daddy went to check out the depth of the water and find
good spots to "tear us around". When they came back they took a quick run to
Someday Came and asked if we could use the knee board, and if anyone wanted
to come. Shannon jumped in the dinghy with the knee board, tow rope and
snorkeling gear (?) and they came back to Zen. Daddy then told me to grab
our snorkeling gear and put the board and tow rope on the deck (hmm, didn't
know we were going snorkeling). After a 45 minute lobster hunt at this pool
thing surrounded by corral, it was 5:00. It wasn't very interesting, but we
did get a little, tiny lobster. We decided that it was kind of late now and
we only got to tube for two turns each. Oh well, I was hoping we could knee
board, but I guess that will happen today. I'm just glad that there is no
more rolling. Gotta go do school, bye!

The Daily Cammi News

2008-10-27T20:56:00.000-04:00

Hi everybody! Today I have lots of news. Number one: It's Mommy and Daddy's
anniversary on the 12th, and my piano happened to have the song they walked
down the aisle to when they got married, called Joy of Man. So, I'm going to
memorize the song and play it for them. They already know that I'm going to
play it, because they heard me practicing it, and asked if that's what I was
going to play for them. Oh well. I already know the right hand part, and I'm
working on the left.
Number two: When Caroline was over yesterday, I was teaching her the song
Titanic (I's one of her favorite songs). When she got bored I asked her if
she wanted to go through the pianos' memory and see if she knew any of the
songs on her violin. Luckily, we found one. I forget the name, but I know
that it is really hard and will take me a while to learn it.
Number three: After two days of yuck and rain, we finally have a sunny day!
The water is turquoise from the white sand, the sky is blue and there is a
beautiful breeze which makes the mosquitoes go away (note to self-that is
another thing to talk about). Also, this means that we have the possibility
of going wind scurfing, knee boarding (scurfing on your knees, on a
different type of board with special spots on it for your knees), tubing, or
spinnaker flying (when the spinnaker (the biggest sail on the boat that you
use when going downwind) is attached to a harness and you are attached to
the harness and then the spinnaker is left to fly off the back of the boat,
and it brings you really high).
Number four: Today we are leaving the outside anchorage and are going to an
anchorage 2 hours away (still part of Roques). This is where we might be
able to do all those awesome activities with Someday Came.
Number five: I have finally figured out what I'm going to be for
Halloween......................a Who! A Who is a character in the Dr. Sues
musical, Suesical (I don't know if I spelled that right). They are the tiny
people who live on a speck of dust. Horton the elephant finds them and tries
to protect them. He gets in all sorts of trouble, but still saves the
Whoville. I was a Who in the Summer camp I did called Camp Broadway in 2007.
The idea is that we are going to be a Who family. I'm going to wear a bright
magenta short sleeve, long shirt, a lime green tank top over that, and neon
blue shorts as my costume. I'm also going to put my hair up really crazy
with bright and colorful elastics. I can't wait for Halloween!
Number six: Yesterday, after dinner, Someday Came took their dinghy over to
watch a movie and have pop-corn with us. The kids ended up watching a movie
called Blank Check and the adults watched another movie. I really liked the
movie it was about a kid who got a blank check and filled it out for
$1,000,000 dollars. Then he spent it all by buying this huge house, and any
other toys he wanted. He pulled it off by pretending that he was working for
this guy called Macintosh, when he was Macintosh. It was really cool.
Number seven: A couple days ago I started a list of all the books I've read
so far on the computer. I figured that if I had a list of all the books I
read, then when looking for other books, I would know the authors of the
really good books I've already read.
Well, Daddy is working on the bow sprit, Cole is going back and forth from
helping Daddy to lying down on the saloon couch, and Mommy is doing laundry.
I'm off to practice Joy of Man, bye!

To the Rainforest!

2008-10-23T16:03:00.001-04:00

So a couple days ago we did yet another adventure with Jorge and Male.
Except that this adventure was a little different though. Luna, Jorge and
Males' deaf Dalmatian would be coming with us. After getting picked up at
9:30 a.m. we drove to the mountain called Santa Fay. The drive was probably
an hour and a half or so to get to Santa Fay. Once at the foot of the
mountain it was another hour to the top. Finally, we made it! The view from
the top of the mountain was absolutely amazing, and we could see all the way
to Margarita. When we finished looking at the view we drove about five
minutes to a restaurant/zoo/place where they give tours. As we drove up we
saw a monkey, about a foot long, holding onto a girl's leg. It was so
adorable and was a reddish orange color. Then a person from came out and
opened the gate for us. Once we were in the place, Jorge went up to a worker
who gives tours and asked what tours there were. They talked in Spanish for
a while, and then came to a conclusion. The idea was to go to the river and
three waterfalls. Yes, Luna would come on the hike too. So we headed out
onto the road to get to the trail. It started as a really easy little path.
It was very green, and had lots of purple, pink and orange flowers. As we
got farther into the rainforest it became a little bit harder. Now there
were big logs to go under and over. After 20 minutes of walking we could
hear the river. Now, this whole time Luna would run ahead, and then come
back to make sure everyone was following. When we heard the river though,
Luna ran ahead and didn't come bounding back. When we got to the river 2
minutes later we found Luna taking a bath in the shallow river. We all
laughed and walked around in the river that was only ankle deep. Then our
tour guide told us that we had to keep going. Okay we said and got out of
the river and back on the path. Now we were walking either uphill or
downhill, there was no in between. We then came to a spot where there was
two paths. The tour guide then asked if we wanted to take the long way and
see more or the short way. Of course, we chose the long way. Soon enough, we
saw a really cool waterfall. Our tour guide walked right up the side and
threw down a rope. Since I was first in line, I was first to climb up. I
grabbed the rope and the vines and climbed to the top. After each person
went, we had to get Luna up. So Jorge went down and pushed Luna up the
rocks. It was quite the sight. After climbing up another waterfall, we came
to a falls, no one wanted to climb. It started in a pool a couple feet deep
at the bottom. Then it went up and up and up...............then at the top
it slanted outwards! It was really cool. After we swam in the pool for a
while, we got onto the path (luckily, we didn't have to climb the waterfall)
and started our uphill hike back to the restaurant/zoo/place where they give
tours. About five minutes into our hike, it started to rain. Big surprise
for a rainforest right? Well, I (lucky me) wore my heaviest tank top. When
we finally got back to the zoo place, everyone was completely drenched.
Since it was around 1:00, we sat down to have lunch. Since we were all wet,
Jorge came up with the wonderful idea to get us all blankets. They were
really soft, and definitely kept us dry. After a really good lunch of
chicken, French fries and salad, we jumped in the car and headed home. But,
the journey doesn't end there. When we got back to the town, Male pulled
into a restaurant thing, and bought everyone a drink called a coco frio
(frio is cold in Spanish). It was amazing. It was made up of basically
coconut, ice and a little bit of condensed milk. I loved it. It was really
filling though, so I only had about half of it, and gave Daddy the rest.
After coco frio, we went back to the boat. It was a really fun day.

Tortuga , a Little Island and Roques

2008-10-23T16:03:00.000-04:00

The day before yesterday we arrived in Tortuga. The original plan was to
sail with Someday Came to Tortuga, and then to Roques a couple days later.
Well, Someday Came had some problems, and so they had to wait an extra 2
days. Caroline and I are very sad that we couldn't sail next to each other.
Well, when we got to Tortuga, we weren't attacked by bugs like we were last
time, but they didn't disappear completely. That night we decided that we
probably wanted to leave on Thursday, early in the morning, to go to Roques
because of the bugs. The next morning we discovered that there was a bunch
of other boats from PLC that we know, and are going to take almost the same
path as us to Roques. After talking with a boat called Living the Dream on
the VHF for a while, we found out that they, and another boat called Migo,
are going to a little island only 10 miles away to shorten the length of our
trip to Roques. So that evening us, Migo, Living the Dream and a bunch of
other boats headed out for the little island. We left a little bit later
than our friends, but we saw two other cats up in front of us. As our speed
picked up to 9 knots, we started to gain on the two boats. Before we knew
it, it became a race to see which boat could put its anchor down first at
the little island. As we flew by the two boats, I realized that I knew the
girl on the "yellow cat". Cool, I thought, we might be able to sail with
them. All of a sudden, my casual parents turned into racers and we pulled
the main down in about 5 seconds (not really, but you get the point). Next
we weaved our way through the reefs and dropped the anchor in the first spot
we found. Yes! We made it! As I looked around at the anchorage I saw an
American flag on a boat for the first time in a while. Also, there was some
people wake boarding and swimmers going from boat to boat. "This is really
nice", I thought "to bad we have to leave at 2:00 tomorrow morning". And
yes, we did leave at 2:00 this morning. Since the anchor is pulled up right
next to my head, I also woke up at 2:00 this morning. Luckily though, I fell
back asleep once we got under way. Our trip was supposed to be a 12 hour
trip, but ended up to be a 10 and a half hour trip because of the high
winds. We arrived at around 12:45, and had lunch right after putting the
anchor down behind a little island and next to two other boats. One freaky
part though, is the wreck of what looks like an old, wooden, fishing boat.
It's bow is high out of the water and its' stern is totally sunken in the
reef. It looks very weathered, and really creepy. Well, now I am drinking
Grenadian coco tea, Daddy and Cole are swimming, and Mommy is making dough
for home-made pizza tonight (my request). Hope all is well at home, bye!

Caroline-hope you had a great trip from PLC to here. If you didn't like it,
the water here will make up for it.

Three Really Good Books-part 2

2008-10-19T18:42:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I finished book 3 of the Ember series yesterday, but I didn't have any time to write the blog. Here is a quick summery for anyone interested in the series.

Book 3-The Prophet of Yonwood

This book is a prequel of The People of Sparks. It is about a girl named Nickie, and her life when she was 11. It was the time in the story right before the "disaster". It isn't as good as the first two books, and not nearly as interesting. I was hoping that it would be about the "disaster" but it wasn't. Oh yeah, the prophet of Yonwood, California was am old woman named Althea Towers. Althea saw into the future from a vision, and became sick for a very long time. She would mumble things such as "no sinnies" which people thought meant no sinners. This actually meant no cities, because in her vision she saw the world on fire with no cities. That is about as interesting as it gets.

I read it because I didn't have anything else to read. Oh well, there are other books in this world that I can read. Caroline is sick today, so I am doing school by myself tomorrow. Gotta go, bye!

An Interesting Visit to a Storm-2

2008-10-19T10:44:00.001-04:00

These rules are for anyone who has never been on a power boat (or cat) that doesn't have a roof, or any living area.
Rule #1-Always wear sunglasses or glasses of some sort (if you wanted to get really funky you could wear those science goggle things)

Example-Picture yourself going down the highway, in a convertible at 60 MPH, with no wind shield. You would want glasses so that you eyes can stay open. Due to the wind, your eyes are either fully open or closed tight without glasses.
Rule #2-Hold on for dear life

Example-When we were going 60 MPH, if you didn't hold on, you would fly away! Especially when you are on the side of a huge storm, with 40 kts. of wind, and waves too. Oh, and less important, when Cole is driving (which did happen).

Rule #3-Go at full throttle the whole time

Example-When you need to go somewhere, it makes more sense to go fast. Such as when you are tyring to get back to land without getting hit by a really big storm.

Rule #4-Never be scared

Example-If you become scared, you will probably let go, and think of other things you could be doing. Oh yeah, and then you would break rule #2.

Okay, so now I will tell you the story of the ride in the power cat. So, when we got on the cat, Jorge told Cole and I to get on the bow and pull out the line that is around the cleat, and attached to the mooring in front of us. Once outside the dock area, Daddy looked at Cole and I, and said "wow, it's really calm today, it will be nice to test this ride out". So as we accelerated through the harbour, a storm was working it's was to PLC. Well, we got up to 60 MPH and zoomed past Jorges' friends on their boat. It was really funny to be on a really fast power boat, going really fast by a sailboat. After circling the sailboat we saw the huge storm coming at us. Since the storm was kind of far away, Jorge decided to take us to a really cool island. He pulled the boat inches away from jagged rock, and told us to get off and look in the cave. So I hopped off, then Cole, the Daddy. Jorge stayed on the boat and went back and forth as we checked out this really cool cave. It was a really deep pool of water that was surrounded by really tall rocks. The water must have been 50 feet deep, but you couldn't see the bottom. So after we saw the cave, we came around the little island and saw that the storm was very close now, and we had to run from the rain. So we decided to go to the outside of the storm, away from the land. We then saw that one storm, had turned into two. So we ended up getting half way to Margarita, an island about 50 miles away from Venezuela. When we went around to the far side of the storm, we all wished that we had gone closer to land. It looked like a 30 minute ride would turn out to be a 2 hour storm dodger. After arriving around the storm, we started to feel the 40 knts. of wind turn cold. Daddy said that the bigger the temperature difference in the wind, the bigger the storm. Well, to explain the difference, I got cold. Even with the spray in my face, rain, 35 kts. of wind, and waves, I never once regretted going. Finally, we could see land again, and the wind died. Jorge then took us to a really cool spot with over 20 power boats inside it. After a quick tour of that, he asked me if I wanted to drive the boat. "No" I said. Well he really wanted me to drive, so he kept asking and asking. Thankfully Daddy jumped in and said "that's okay you don't have to drive if you don't want to". Then he asked if he could drive, and so Daddy drove us back to the PLC dock. After we got back, we waited for Mommy to arrive, and had a really good dinner.

Well Daddy is working in the engine room, Cole is reading his book for school, and Mommy is eating cereal on our back table. That's all for today, bye!

An Interesting Visit to a Storm-1

2008-10-18T21:23:00.001-04:00

Today was very eventful. It started at 8:00 a.m. with Cole telling me that I had to "stop reading that wierd book", and get out of bed to get ready (getting ready includes brushing my teeth, washing my face, making my bed, getting dressed, and cleaning my room). So I crawled out of my bed, taking as much time as needed and got ready. After an amazing breakfast of..................guess what............cereal, I was informed that we would be picked up soon by these really nice people: Jorge and Maralena, who would take us on their power cat, for a test run. Now let me tell you that this catamaran is a third of the size of Zen. Well, one thng led to another, and Jorge cut his hand, and had to go to the hospital. Ouch, right? Well even though he cut his hand, he insisted that he take us out. So while Mommy when with Maralena to go shopping for the third time this week (I guess we are stocking up for our one month period with no big provisioning places), Daddy, Cole and I went with Jorge on his power cat. To be continued (it's to long of a story to put in one blog), I'll put the rest of the story in the next blog.

Three Really Good Books

2008-10-17T18:46:00.001-04:00

So, we are still in PLC, and it is "Africa hot" as Daddy says. Luckily, there is a nice pool that me, Cole, and Caroline go to together every day after school at the Zen academy. Yes, Caroline is doing school with us, at Zen, every morning!! It is really fun, and we get to do awesome projects now that there is more than one person in my grade. Anyways, to the book topic. Caroline brought me two books that are really cool. They are part of a series so, here is a quick summery of each book.

Book 1-The City of Ember

The city of Ember is a city that is underground. It was built because the human race was in danger, and so we had to find another place to live. The book is about how Ember was starting to run out of supplies, electricity, and food. The two main characters, Lina and Doon, are really good friends and both love adventure. One day, after a "black-out" (when all the electricity goes away for a couple minutes), Lina finds directions on how to get out of Ember. So, she and Doon set out to decode the directions and try to get out of Ember. When they successfully escape, Lina wrote legible instructions, and dropped it into Ember.

Book 2-The People of Sparks

After the people of Ember arrive in the real world, they come up to find out that there is nothing in sight. No people, villages, or cars, although they did see a road. The road leads to a small town called Sparks. Sparks is an old fashioned village, in the future. This means that they had no electricity, running water, or sewage. The Emberities soon found out from the Sparks that there had been something called "the disaster". This was when there was three plagues and four wars, and it almost wiped out human race. The only things left from how we live now are toys. When the 417 Emberities enter the village, the Sparks are terrified. They haven't seen so many people their whole lives, and don't know what to do with them. They are forced to all live together, and this doesn't go over well. The Sparks treat the Emberities horribly, and so the Emberities decide to fight back. Since there is nothing around the village, the Emberities decide that they can't go and must make peace with the Sparks so that they can stay in the small village. After a huge explosion, Lina and Doon, help to save the Sparks town from being burnt down. The Sparks realize that without Lina and Doon, their city would be destroyed, and so they decided that the Emberities were allowed to stay.

Book 3-The Prophet of Yonwood

This is the book I am reading so I can't explain it yet, but it is about the "disaster" I told you about in book 2. Once I finish it, I'll give you a quick summery of it.

Well that's all for now. We're off with one of Daddy's friends who is going to take us out to dinner. I'm really excited. The people are really nice, and are designing an amazing boat. Gotta go, Bye!

ps. Darlene-I think Kak might need these books before Christmas.

Twin water spouts...yikes!

2008-10-13T14:44:00.001-04:00

So today we left Tortuga at around 6:00 a.m. and plan to get to PLC at about 2:00 p.m. The trip started off wonderfully. It was flat calm, and we were motoring. The first two and a half hours of the trip were very boring. Breakfast, play DS, sit around and wait for something interesting to happen. Well finally something did happen. Something I have never experienced before. First off, Daddy spotted a 810 foot long ship that would come much to close to our liking if we didn't change course. So from 9:30 to 10:00 we all stood on the deck looking for the ship. "I see it! Over here!" Daddy yelled at the first sight of the monster ship. Let me tell you that not only was it super long, it was extremely wide and tall too. As it got closer and closer everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at it in awe. Then, Mommy decided to go to the stern (the back) of the boat. When she got outside, she looked over our fishing lines to see if we had a fish. "FISH ON!" she yelled. So Daddy went outside to pull the fish in, while Cole and I looked out the hatches (windows) to see the fish. The fish happened to be dead already. It was half eaten by a baracuda or something. All of a sudden the blue sky turned black and it started to rain. After yelling "batten down the hatches" about a million times while we closed all the hatches, everyone came back outside with bathing suits on. Then I looked at Cole's face. He looked absolutely petrified. "Mommy," he said in a shaky voice "what's that?". We all followed his gaze and saw two twin water spouts in the storm miles behind us. A water spout is just like a tornado, made of water. The water from a cloud forms a funnel and goes down to meet the ocean. If you are ever near a water spout, prepare for 180 knots (knots is kind of like MPH) of wind. Since we were so far away we didn't get this crazy wind. Just really loud thunder and lots of awesome lightning. The rain lasted for about 20 minutes, I think (I'm not sure because I was so sucked into the sight of the water spout). Soon the twins vanished, and another one appeared. This one we got to watch it form, and disappear. At first I was absolutely petrified, but when Daddy told me that we were going away from them, I felt much more comfortable. This was probably the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Just picture a black sky, pouring rain, the chaos of getting a fish on onboard, two water spouts behind you, and a huge ship passing across our bow. Yes, it was crazy. Well, the sky turned blue, with some wight fluff, and everything went back to normal. Daddy then taught Cole and I how we are going to tie the boat to the dock, piling, or moring and had us to multiple drills. Basically what we do every time we come to a dock. Now it is 12:25 and I'm going to go have lunch. bye!

Our trip from Blanquilla to Tortuga

2008-10-13T14:43:00.001-04:00

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.

The Past Two or Three Days

2008-10-05T10:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to my first beach fire! It was so much fun. After
snorkeling with Indi, we went to another boat with kids we know called Free
Will, to ask if they wanted to come help us find fire wood on the beach. The
kids said they would, so we all went ashore. Collecting the wood lasted only
about 20 minutes before we all decided to go swimming. After we went back to
our boats, we had dinner and then went to light the fire. We brought candy
necklaces for all the kids, paper plates, and a torch to light the fire.
Indi brought marshmallows!! The marshmallows were so good! We all ran
around the beach and looked for sticks as we waited for the fire to cool
down a bit. Once we all had a stick, we feasted on marshmallows and candy
necklaces. We had hoped that more boats would come, but it ended up to be
only the boats that helped look for fire wood: us, Indi and Free Will. After
we finished the marshmallows, we went on a hunt for huge hermit crabs (not
to catch them). They were really cool. We found about three on the beach.
The fire ended when the rain came, and everyone had to run to their boats to
shut hatches, but it was really fun.

We met two other boats! We met them in Blanquilla, since that's still where
we are. They are both French and have one kid aboard. A 4 year-old girl,
named Dune lives on Igloo, and an 11 year-old boy named Remy, lives on
another boat (I don't know how to spell or pronounce the name). Neither kid
speaks much English and Cole and I only speak a tiny bit of French, but we
can understand each other. Another catamaran with kids on it came in a
couple days ago, and we are probably going to invite them to go tubing with
us today. We haven't met them yet.

The weather has been kind of yucky the past two days, but it looks as if it
is clearing up today. Daddy and Otis from Indi, caught a lobster two days
ago! It was small, but really yummy. We made lobster salad, and split it in
half between the two boats. Daddy and Otis tried to catch another one
yesterday, but had no luck. The idea was that it could be a snack before the
beach fire, but that never happened. Mommy's making pancakes this morning.
Yummy! I've got to go eat breakfast. Bye!

Blanquilla

2008-10-02T13:57:00.000-04:00

Pinch and a punch (for anyone who has no clue what that means, it is just
something funny my grade did last year on the first day of every month).
Wow, I can't believe that it is already October. The weather here hasn't
changed much, but I know that in RI, you guys are probably wearing pants and
sweaters. Anyways, so now we are in an island called Blanquilla. The only
inhabitants are donkeys (that remind us we have to go to bed every night at
8:00), and lots of plants (cactus' come into the story later). If
Independence was not with us, I would probably be very bored. As
entertainment yesterday, we all went to a bay called Americano Bay, named
after and American man, who lived here years ago. The bay is known for its'
amazing caves and snorkeling, and boy is that true. When we first came in on
the dinghy, we saw tons of really cool caves that we could take the dinghy
into. After seeing multiple caves we came around a little point. Around the
point were two small, but beautiful beaches. So we beached the dinghy and
swam for a while. When we got bored of that, we all put on snorkel gear
and snorkeled underneath a really cool bridge made of rock. At first it was
scary. Swimming in the shade, where it was kind of hard to see, and rocks
came out of nowhere. Finally, I got used to it and had a great time. When we
got back to the beach we all climbed over the rocks to the second beach. It
was really cool until I stepped on a broken piece of a cactus and Mommy had
to pull it out of my foot. Next, we all swam around to the other beach
again. After playing for a while and watching Sammy, the little two
year-old, laugh his head off as he was thrown into the waves by his dad, we
decided it was time to go back to the boat. Yesterday was so much fun and I
can't wait to go to Americano Bay again today, but before I go I must tell
you a couple more things. After catching two huge tuna on our way here, I am
totally fished out! I think that Mommy and Jenny on Indi, has made every
type of tuna possible. Of course, we had dinner on Indi two nights ago, so I
have tasted all of them. I don't think I will be eating fish for another
week or so, unless it is the only thing we have (very unlikely)! Tonight or
Saturday we might leave for Venezuela. I'm very excited. Lunch is on! Gotta
go, bye!

Our Beach/Sand dune Adventure

2008-09-26T19:13:00.000-04:00

Now we are officially in Los Testigos. There is a cute little town right off
our bow with about two or three houses. Independence successfully made it
into the harbor, last night around dinner time. So now that both boats are
together again, we decided to go on a little adventure to the sand dune.
Indi (Independence) were in an area that was really rolly, so they went to
re-set their anchor, while we started looking for a path near the village.
We came across a man who spoke only Spanish. So we spoke Spanish/English and
he spoke Spanish, and he finally figured out that we wanted to know if there
was a trail to the sand dune. He said kind of and showed us how to get
there. After pointing us in the right direction, he went back to his little
town and we started on the trail. For a while it was just a little path with
a couple plants sticking up here and there. About half way it started to get
a little rougher. ¾ of the way it got pretty bad with lots of rocks,
cactuses, and plants we weren't supposed to touch because they made you
itch. Finally, we could see the sand dune, which made us know that we were
still on the path. At last, we made it. The sand was about a zillion
degrees, and it was on a pretty good slope, that was hard to climb up. At
first I started to think that the hike was totally not worth it and this was
going to be super boring. But then I saw a path and decided to go down it.
When I got to the other side, my thoughts of the sand dune totally changed.
Before me was a huge beach/sand dune. For a while I climbed on the roots of
a tree with Cole and waited for Mommy and Daddy. Once they got there we all
went full blast into the perfectly clear water. The bottom was just sand,
and there were awesome waves, but no undertow. Soon Mommy and Daddy said
that we had to start heading back to the boat. Of course no one wanted to go
back on the trail, so we hoped that we might be able to get to the ocean and
swim back. Luckily, there was a path leading strait towards the ocean. There
were a bunch of rocks at first, but then it turned to sand. About half way
there, we saw the Indi crew walking on the path! We were so excited to see
them that after talking for a while (more like yelling) we decided to go
back and hang out for a while with them on the dune. After playing and
swimming some more, we had to go back. So we went down the trail and jumped
in the water. After swim/walking for a while it started to get deep and more
like a reef. So we found a floating piece of Styrofoam and put Sammy (the
two year- old on Indi) and Indi's back pack. Soon we got to a place where we
could go ashore from rocks sticking out of the water. Then we found a little
goat trail to get back to the little village where we had both beached the
dinghies. Now we are back on the boat and Mommy is cooking a fish that Indi
gave us since they caught so many. Gotta go. Bye!

9/25/08

2008-09-25T16:44:00.000-04:00

Today started with waking up at 4:30 am. I woke up to the sound of the
engines, and Daddy closing my hatch. First I freaked out, but then I
remembered that today is the day we sail to Los Testigos. (Los Testigos is a
bunch of small islands off of Venezuela. They are totally deserted except
for one, that has a coast guard station.) Our plan was to sail along side
Independence, one of our friends, all the way there. This all changed when
at about 4:45 am, they informed us over the radio that they were having
difficulty lifting their anchor (this is called a fowled anchor). Since our
goal was to get there before night came, we had to leave them in the harbor.
Since we had no success calling them over the SSB, or long distance radio,
we don't know when they left, and how far behind us they are. Daddy guessed
about 4 hours. Any ways, when the sun finally rose, I could see that the
trip was going to be really calm with enough wind. Perfect weather for
sailing fast. The weather lasted for about half the trip. Then the wind
died, and we had to put up our light wind sail, the code zero. This sail is
absolutely huge, and is perfect in light winds (and blocking the sun, so you
get some shade). Cole and I soon got bored, and so we went to watch a movie.
On my way down, Daddy told me to run and get a water pump, bucket, and
sponge, because he overflowed the starboard water tank. So for the next half
an hour Cole and I mopped, pumped and sponged all the overflowed water.
Finally, I get to watch the movie. About fifteen minutes into the movie we
had to take the DVD out because Mommy's computer (what we were watching the
movie on) had 9 minutes of battery power left. As soon as we went upstairs,
we were given sandwiches and yogurts for lunch. When I went outside to eat
on the trampoline, I was so happy to see Los Testigos, even though it was
really far away. Now, at 4:40 pm we are in between all the islands and 25
minutes away from the anchorage. Daddy has to use the chart on the computer
now, so I have to go. Bye!

Video Chat

2008-09-24T21:01:00.000-04:00

One of our favorite forms of entertainment is video chatting with our
really close friends. After we come back from a day full of
watersports, we check on Skype to see who's online. Next, we connect
with them online. If they are able, we do a video chat. This is when
your screen is kind of like a television and you can see the people
you are talking to. Sometimes it's really confusing when everyone
talks at once or if you move really fast and then the screen gets
fuzzy. But, it's really fun because it's the closest thing to talking
face-to-face. I have been hoping to set up the computer and put it
near the dinner table so we can eat dinner with our friends. But
momma and daddy don't like that idea because it uses up all the
laptop's battery. Daddy just said, "How much do you guys think I
weigh?" Cole said, "Six hundred and ninety nine pounds." Of course,
we all know it was a mistake, but it was really funny. He actually
weighs 188 lbs. That was kind of strange, totally off subject, but
that's OK. For the next 2 weeks, we are going to be doing lots of
sailing. But, we are going to new places and out of Grenada, we have
been for the past month. Much longer than I ever thought we'd be
here. Today we started school really early so we could have a full
day of playing with our friends on Beach Magic and Panache, since it's
our last day with them. I ended up doing extra school work since Cole
was still going, but I still got to play for a long time. I'll
probably send another blog in a couple days after we get to Los
Testigos. Bye to Laurianne, Max, Marshall and Parker!!! We'll miss
you!!!

9/16/08

2008-09-16T19:25:00.001-04:00

Today was a really fun day. I got up at around 7:30, and played my DS for a little while before Daddy came down to tell us to start school. Math and history each took about half an hour to 20 minutes. Reading took a long time because I did two lesons, and finished my book. It was really good. In art history I read a chapter and drew a picture of a helmet. Finally for composition I finished my news article and put it on the blog. After school we had a great lunch of tuna casserole and lots of fruits. I was about to start a bracelet, when the kids from the boat Beach Magic drove up in their dinghy. They said that they wanted us to come over to their boat, but when Daddy said that Max was allowed to wind surf, that plan was canceled. So for a while we swam around and jumped off the back of the boat. All of a sudden we saw Panache drive into the anchorage. After a lot more swimming Cole went to Panache to ask the kids if they wanted to come over and swim. Of course, Cole came back with both boys in the dinghy. When Max was done wind surfing, we all jumped in the dinghy to go tubing. It was so much fun. Everyone decided to just laugh at the people in the tube while they were in the dinghy, but Marshal and I decided to laughed at. After I went, Parker, the driver of the dinghy, said that he was going to pull Marshal at full speed. He deffinitly did. We were all laughing so hard when he wiped out (more like flipped out). When we went back to Zen, Marshal and Parkers' parents were there too. As soon as we got aboard, Mommy brought out a bunch of homemade pretzels. They were amazing! Before we knew it, it was 6:30, and everyone had to leave. Today was a great day.

Another School Project

2008-09-16T18:58:00.001-04:00

Here is another school project that I had to do. It is a newspaper article on the chocolate factory I wrote a blog about a while ago.

Belmont Plantation Chocolate Factory

If you have ever wondered how or where chocolate is made, here are some of the answers. At the Belmont Plantation, in Grenada, chocolate is all anyone thinks about.

Starting 360 years ago, by the Swiss, sugar cane was grown. When the Swiss left, the French took over with coffee, then the British with nutmeg, and finally the Indian, who still own the plantation now, started chocolate.

A while after the Indian took over, they started growing all different fruits and vegetables. All the new products were then distributed around the island.

Most visitors of the plantation agreed that it was a very educational event. Monique Burgess says "It was very educational, and I loved how everything is done by hand."

When you come to plantation you can first be given a tour, and watch a quick movie on how the chocolate is made. After the film is done you are given a free sample of the chocolate, and an opportunity to get your own bar.

"The chocolate is awesome," says Cole Burgess "and I have never seen so many different fruits and vegetables."

Weather in the Tobago Cays

2008-09-07T18:26:00.000-04:00

If you looked at our main blog, you would have seen the weather chart of the
hurricanes. If you read the actual blog, you would know that we are NOT
going to get hit by one. Even though we are not in a hurricane, we are in
twenty five knots of wind with thirty knot gusts, pouring rain for the whole
day, and a huge current. Weather down here sounds great doesn't it (ha ha)!
Despite the weather Cole, me and the kids on the boat Cataway (Nick and
Tim), went to the beach to go exploring. In the pelting rain the four of us
went on all the trails and little paths possible. Finally, we decided that
we were absolutely freezing, and that we should go jump in the water, which
was surprisingly warm. We swam for a while, until Nick and Tim's dad came to
pick us up. When we got to Cataway we decided that we were way to cold to
get out of the water, so we swam for about an hour. Tim came up with the
idea to try and swim through the two hulls and to get to the bow of the
boat. It was really hard with a good current, rain, and waves smashing on
us, but we finally got through. We went back and forth about three times
until the current go too strong, and we gave up and got out of the water to
dry off. Since the weather was not getting any better we settled on playing
their PS3 (a game you play that is connected to a TV). When we got bored of
that we played the electronic game of Life. It was really fun. We didn't
play until the end, but Nick won with the most money. After that we played
the PS3 again for only a couple minutes until we had to go back to Zen. As
it is getting darker, the white caps on the waves aren't as clear, but I
know they won't be gone until late tonight when the squall has passed. Daddy
says that we have great weather coming our way in the next couple of days.
Now I just half to wait. Bye!

Puppies and Dogs

2008-08-26T12:01:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to write this blog ever since we went ashore in Greneda. There are now two puppies and two mothers. Both puppies belong to one mother. The other mother had two little girl puppies until yesterday. We were all on the boat and Cole and I were playing with the puppies, when a car drove up and parked in front of the boat. A woman got out and said, "You two kids look like you have been playing with the puppies here so I was wondering if you could help me. I was looking for a little girl puppy". Then Mommy and Daddy came down off the boat with us and the three adults started talking. In the mean time Cole and I kept playing with the puppies until Mommy told us to come say hi. The woman's name is Jenny and she is the owner of a foundation for saving stray dogs. Both Cole and I knew the person must be nice, so we went and got the little girl puppy like she had asked. Once we got the puppy, we told Jenny that we had named her Amanda. She said that the woman that would be buying the puppy wasn't American, so she probably wouldn't keep Amanda's name, but that she would let her know. By that time Amanda's little sister, Jelly Bean, had come up and was walking around our feet with her momma. Jenny looked down and noticed the little puppy. She picked her up and looked at her gums. Jenny said that Jelly Bean was sick and that she would love it if we could give her some medicine while we were here. We automatically said yes. In return she offered Momma some vegetables from her garden. Mommy said that she would love that, so Jenny said she would stop by later to drop off the vegetables and medicine for Jelly Bean. After Jenny left Momma, Cole, and I went back to the house while Daddy stayed on the boat a little while longer. When he got back he said that Jenny still hadn't come back. After dinner and desert we all went to bed. The next morning (today) we woke up, started school, and Daddy left for the boat. About twenty minutes after Daddy left, he radioed us. He said that there was a "special package". The package we soon found out was from Jenny. There was a note inside that he read to us, it said something on the lines of: Here is a ton of vegetables I thought you would like. You will not find the puppy medicine because I have taken the puppy to my house and will care for it there. Have a great time, Jenny. We were all very happy that she had taken Jelly Bean to her house because she would get better sooner there. We all hope that Jelly Bean will get better soon. As for the other two puppies, we named one very lively girl puppy Betty, and her crazy brother, Rody. Betty and Rody come to Zen every day and hang out in the shade, under the two hulls. Cole and I both wish that we could take Betty or Rody with us, but we know the answer of Mommy and Daddy: no. Oh if you are wondering, the dog in the picture is Amanda. I'm going to go read now, bye!

Homeschooling

2008-08-22T10:34:00.000-04:00

Today was a big review day. I reviewed all of my subjects for a test that we will have tomorrow. We already had our math test two days ago since we are ahead in math. When we finished the test, Mommy gave Cole and I chocolate cake since ti was our first big test. The cake was originally for celebrating a full month on the boat, but since we had extra, we were allowed to have some. For our next test Mommy is going to do something different since the cake is gone. Anyway, I am really prepared for my science part of the test because I studied for two hours on it today. I am most scared for history because I have to remember a lot of people and I am not very good at that. Oh well, I will find out how I did in a couple of weeks (or months), whenever Calvert sends us our grades.

Here is what I am doing in the rest of my subjects on a regular day.

Spelling: On Thursday Cole and I did our chapter three post-test and today we did chapter four. Spelling is not all that interesting for me and I just fly through it. Not much is going on in spelling.

Science: I really like science. I get to do really cool experiments (when we have all the stuff we need). Also, when Cole has an experiment to do, we wait untill recess and do the experiment together. One time that we had to improvise for materials was when we tried to use gum instead of clay to hold up a penny in vinagar. It didn't work very well, so we abandoned that experiment.

History: In history I am just kind of reviewing all of the stuff I did last year. Most of it is easy because I allready learned all of it, but some of the discussion questions are a challenge.

Geography: I was really excited when I first found out that I had geography because I have never done it before. I like some parts but other parts I don't. The parts I don't like is the vocabulary words. There is so many and I have to memorize all of them for the test! The parts I do like is that I am learning a lot about things we have or are getting on the boat. Some of the things are maps, wind generators, and solar panels.

Reading: I love to read. Right now I am reading The Swiss Family Robinson. It is a really great book. Some of the words in it I have never heard before in my whole life, but I look them up in the dictionary (luckily we got a dictionary from Calvert Homeschoolings' program). I am also reading Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson. Poetry questions are kind of boring, but I like reading the poems.

Math: Math is different every day. One day I might be multiplying decimals, and the next I am doing mental math (mental math is when you there is word problems in the book and you can't use paper to figure it out, not my favorite thing to do in Math).

Composition: In composition I wrote the story called A Surprise Audition which I posted on the blog already. Also, I just finished a poem that will also be sent in with my test. Oh and if you want me to post me poem you have to tell me, because I don't know if it is very good.

Well, that is everything I am doing in homeschooling. I'm going to go to the pool now, bye!

The City Of Ember

2008-08-18T13:48:00.001-04:00

The City Or Ember by Jeanne DuPrau was a really exciting book. It was about a town that is underground. Two kids, Lina and Doon, set off to find a brighter world than their own (our world).

One day in the city of Ember, while Lina was doing her messaging job, she found out that her best friend had supplies that hadn't existed for years. Lina became supiscous and told her friend Doon about what she saw. A couple days later she found something that said "instructions". She could not read all of the instructions because it had been torn and weathered, so she went to her friend who could. After deciphering most of the instructions, Lina and Doon set off to find the "bright world". They found out the journey was to long to do in one day, so they had to wait for the next day to complete their search. Since it illegal to venture out of Ember, Doon and Lina were being searched for when they started off the next day. Luckily they both got away and found the knew world.

The book ends when Lina and Doon throw legible instructions down to Ember on how to get to the "bright world", from the "bright world". It was a really amazing book.

A Surprise Audition

2008-08-18T11:20:00.000-04:00

This is a school project that I am doing and will be sent in with my test. Please tell me if you like it!

"Bye Tory!" I yelled as I jumped in my Mom's car at school pick up. It was a Monday and I was getting ready for my dance class. It had been a regular day, and I had no idea what a surprise there would be for me that evening.

As my Mom dropped me off at the corner of the street, she told me to have a great class. I ran into the hot and sticky dressing-room to get changed into my leotard and tights. After chatting for a while with my friends we tip-toed into the studio to stretch. My teacher, Miss Karla, wasn't there yet, so I knew something different was going to happen that class.

Finally, Miss Karla came in and took attendance. By then I had warmed up and was ready to dance. As usual someone was absent. Miss Karla looked worried that not everyone was there. This was very strange. Next she told us to line up from shortest to tallest. I was very excited because I thought we were going to start our dance. Miss Karla then proceeded to walk us into the Grand Studio. Once there the Director told us to do all types of different combinations.

After two hours of dancing we were dismissed to our conditioning class. I heard whispers all around me wondering what we had just done. Before we left Miss Karla told the class to go to the Grand Studio. "Class" she said "you just auditioned for Swan Lake"

Two weeks later I got a letter in the mail, that said I had been excepted into the performance. I was shocked.

Tobago Cays

2008-08-10T09:45:00.000-04:00

Today we arrived in the Tobago Cays. Yesterday we had to leave after dinner
so that when we got to the Cays the sun wouldn't be in our face and we would
be able to see the reefs. The wind was really light so we put up our new
sail. It was huge! It looked like a spinaker, but a lot lighter. Cole and I
set up beds for ourselves in the salon so that we could sleep there as we
were sailing. I fell asleep at around nine and woke up at about seven-thirty
and saw the island. We anchored at around eight. As soon as I saw where we
were going to anchor I was amazed at how many catamarans there were. I
counted 13 cats. Once we were settled Daddy jumped in the glass clear water
to check the anchor. Then he told Cole and me to come in and look at all the
fish he saw. There is also a little reef really close to the boat that we
swam to and saw a turtle! It basically took us on a tour of the reef. When
it started to swim away Daddy, Cole and I went back to the boat to get Mommy
so she could see all the fish. Before we even got to the boat a huge
stingray swam underneath us. It was awesome! After a little while I didn't
see anything else interesting so I got out of the water and played with my
piano for a while. Then Daddy saw a catamaran with a wind generator, and
since he is on a hunt for one he and Cole dinghy'd over to the boat to check
it out. It ended up to be the exact one that Daddy wanted, so the owner of
the boat said that Daddy could come over tomorrow and get on board to
measure it. I don't really care, but Daddy is very excited. For lunch Mama
told us that she wasn't going to make anything so we she gave us chips and
salsa instead. I'm going to go eat lunch. Bye!

8/6/08

2008-08-07T13:10:00.001-04:00

The most exciting thing today was meeting another cruising catamaran! Onboard was two boys, both older than Cole and I. While we were there Cole and Nick, the younger boy, did Garage Band, the exact thing Cole is doing right now. Other than that here is my day. This morning I woke up and finished my book, So You Want To Be A Wizard. Then at around seven I started math. It took me a while to finish it, but I got it done. At around eleven Mommy and Daddy went ashore to pick up the doctor. He was coming to look at Mommy's elbo. A couple minutes later Mom and Dad took the doctor back ashore while Cole and I stayed on the boat and finished school. Once I was done I helped Cole finish. It had seemed like a really long time since Mommy and Daddy left the boat, but as soon as I said it a dingy that looked just like ours started to come into view. As the dingy got closer we realized that it was two boys in the dingy and it wasn't our dingy. They came up to the boat and said that they were suposed to pick us up, and that our parents were on thier boat. I freaked for a second, but then I realized that I had seen their dingy next to a boat on the dock. After they picked us up and took us to their boat we hung out their for a while so that the parents could talk. When we left their boat we went to lunch and they went to a beach. After lunch wwe went back to the boat. Then Daddy went windsurfing for a while. I jumped in the water with him to swim for a couple minutes, but I got stung by something so I jumped out. When Daddy finished windsurfing we went in to the dock to meet Cataway so that we could dingy over to the place that we were going to have dinner. When we got there the people that tell you where to sit said that they didn't have enough room for eight, so we headed back to the marina and had dinner at the same place we had lunch. After I finished I went to hang out with Cole and Nick. After talking for a little while I fell asleep. When we had to go Cole woke me up by screeming in my ear. As soon as I laid down in my bed on the boat I fell right asleep.

7/31/08

2008-08-06T17:54:00.001-04:00

Today was very eventful. The day started in Mamora Bay at a resort. At about four that morning there was a really loud thunder and lightning storm. Cole and I both woke up and hung out for a while until the storm quieted down a bit and we were able to fall back asleep. After doing a math lesson at around 9 am, we started for English harbor to get a couple things we forgot back at home. It was such a short ride (30 min.) that we didn't even put the sails up. As soon as we got out of the little bay we were in, we saw three different dolphins. They were really big! They did a show of flips and jumps out of the waves for us. Also they liked to swim under the two hulls and jump under the boat. I really liked watching them. Once at English Harbor we docked. Mommy, Cole and I had to dingy in to the dock on the other side of the harbour to check out of customs. When we got back to the boat, Daddy had been talking to this guy with really good food, so we bought lunch from him. It was great. Mommy even let us get ice cream! After Daddy got the packages we needed we started for Falmouth Harbour ( where we are now). I read my book underneath the boom on the deck above the salon for the whole ride. It was also really short, so we motored the whole way. When we got to Falmouth we had to go grocery shopping. It took us under an hour to get all of the stuff we needed! After putting all of the groceries on board Daddy had to go return the car that we had borrowed. When he got back me, Cole and Mommy had finished putting away and cleaning all groceries so we all went for a quick swim. I can't believe my day started with a thunder storm and ended with an awesome dinner that Mommy just finished making, and is serving right now. I am starving, so I'm going to go eat dinner. Bye!

Hell's Gate, Hiking and Snorkeling

2008-07-28T14:47:00.000-04:00

Today we went to this other island with lots of really loud birds. I have no
clue what the island is called, but it is 45 minutes away from Long Island
(where we just were). There is no people on the island since it is so small.
There is also two super tiny islands right next to it. Also, the water here
is really clear and you can see the bottom in 13 feet of water.

After we anchored we went in on the dingy to this little island
called Hell's Gate. When you first look at it, it looks really scary with
jagged rocks. Mommy, Cole and I ended up climbing to the bridge type thing.
We had to climb through a hole that had a snake type animal living in it. I
luckily did not see it, but Cole and Mommy did. While we walked to the rock
bridge you had to step on grass, and it looked like you were going to fall
through. Going down was also pretty scary, but we got to walk through water
to get to the dingy where Daddy was taking pictures. It was so cool.

Next we went the island we anchored in front of to hike. When we
got to the beach Mommy realized that her camera had run out of battery, so
Daddy had to go back to the boat while Cole, Mommy and I stayed at the beach
and swam. When Daddy came back we started our hike up a little path. It
didn't take long to get the top. Once there we saw two huge blow holes. I
really liked looking down into them and see the water splashing around in
the bottom. The trail went farther so we kept going and saw the other side
of the island. Then we went back down to go snorkeling.

As soon as we got back to the beach Cole and I took off our
shoes and sunglasses and replaced them with flippers and masks. We swam
around and waited for Mommy and Daddy to get their stuff on and then we
started to swim towards the reef. Their wasn't tons of fish but we did see
some. Daddy swam up to this one fish and stuck his hand out and the fish
moved back. When he took his hand away the fish came closer. Daddy did this
for a little while to make Cole and I laugh. It was really funny. On some
parts you had to wait for a wave to come and carry you over the coral
because it was so high.

Finally we swam back to the dingy. We went back to the boat to
rinse off and now we are motoring back to Long Island so we can go to dinner
their. I'm going to go sit on the trampoline. Bye!

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