To celebrate a completely insignificant Thursday night, we decided to make sushi. Hence our long and tedious to the fish store, where we were subject to lots of fishing stories and tips from the fish manager. He was quite nice, however, and gave us 2lb of tuna, swordfish, and some shrimp.
 

The sword and the shrimp we ended up putting away for another day, and the tuna we also cut up and parted. Most of it was left raw, some was pan seared, and the rest was also put in the fridge. Believe it or...

On March Friday the 2nd, Mom left to go to some unknown place (Boston), before she left though, we went to an aerial obstacle climbing place. How you did it was that you first got into this harness and clipped on this safety roller thing to a wire so you don’t fall off the course and break your leg or something. The first thing we did I don’t remember, but we had to ride a fake bird to another platform for about 5 seconds. My favorite ride was one with a slide that you go down on that dro...

Hello again, people who follow our blog. Now, just a note, I am going to refer the day that we did this activity as “today” when, in fact, we actually did it on Thursday last week. Anyway, said activity was an Aerial Course. An aerial rope course, in fact. That is when a bunch a people that labor many months to construct a giant obstacle course 50 feet in the air, in which you try to navigate without tragically falling to your death. This is quite difficult to do, seeing as they have high...

I have come to inform you all about the second time we were hit by a motor boat. There does seem to be a trend here.

Anyway, we were anchored out in the middle of nowhere, in a very strong current, perhaps going 4 knots (because of the 10 foot tide...it was a New moon). We had out 125 feet of chain in 13 feet of water at low tide. The motor boat was anchored behind us....until about 11 pm when the current changed directions and were now in front of us. Everyone was in bed- again, the hit ha...

 

Kiwi spirit is a 63 foot sailboat piloted by Dr. Stanley Paris age 77. This guy tried to sailed around world all by himself on this boat. (Failed...because the boat broke) For more detail this boat had a 14 feet draft when his keel was down and when his keel was up th...

We’ve had some unexpected problems, but nothing too major. Still, we had to head back to the states early to get them fixed. At our last marina docking in Bimini, some motor yacht hit the back of our boat while we were visiting with the Morrison’s.  So the railings are all pulled out, and parts of the deck are coming up, and the dinghy is slightly warped. But don’t worry, thanks to our aluminum dinghy, we scratched up their boat pretty bad. Broken windows, scrapes, and the like.

So we...

When we arrived at Bimini, we decided to go exploring. Bimini is 8 miles long, and 200 yards wide, so it wasn’t exactly a long exploration. But there were some pretty interesting things to see. Like the all-green house. In case you haven’t noticed, I am easily entertained by house colors. Anyway, there was the beach on the western side, where we took lots of pictures of the blue water. We need to imprint it in our mind and cameras, because we aren’t going to be seeing it for a very long...

Dads birthday

As some of you may know, Wednesday, April 2 was dads birthday. A big 41. So we celebrated this by making a double layered cake. For those of you who want to know how we went about this, here are the steps:

1.     1.  Find cake mix boxes.

2.      2. Mix them

3.      3. Oh my gosh Word automatically puts in the list numbers

4.     4.  Test batter to ensure safety of crew

5.       5.Overfill cake pans. Put in oven

6.      6. Have cake batter overfill and spill everywhere ...

So on March 31 we finally left the Abacos, and after a 9 hour voyage which was completely dull but had good sandwiches, reached White Cay of the Berry islands. Of course, since there were some very nice beaches at White Cay, we decided to visit them. They also had very interesting rocks. We weren’t even there for 5 minutes before I became enraptured in a glass bottle (to be fair, it was very interesting, it had been melted together, and so looked very cool) and was holding it a bit too h...

On Wednesday, the 19, mom left to Canada. She left to go see her mom who was having cancer treatment in Peterborough for a week. It was ok though, because we other peoples were going to see our cousins!! Yaaaaa!  They were getting to great guana cay later this afternoon so, we were going to prepare the house and stuff. We left as soon as we got to the boat to get to the other island, which was about 1½ hour ride. When we got there we got moored, ate lunch, and rented a golf cart to the house...

Let’s see… Our last post was the 15. Oh my, I have 10 days to cover. Bear with me if it’s not too detailed (that is honestly one of the weirdest expressions humans have come up with. I really don't want a bear with me). I can’t even remember the days we were there. Actually, I wouldn't even know what today is if it didn't show it on the bottom of the computer screen. And even then it’s complicated, because it doesn't actually say what day of the week it is. It’s a hard life.

So, ...

  National Pi day

Yesterday was national pi day, pi is an endless decimal s...

Just a warning that this post might be slightly lacking. For reasons I am about to explain, I am pretty much dead tired at the time of writing this.

  So, this story starts at 2:00am. Yes, I said ante meridiem. About 4 hours before planned. And while it was a good choice in the long run, it made the day really suck. Now, you are probably wondering what is important enough to leave that early. The answer is, getting to the Abacos islands. Dad and mom apparently couldn't sleep because they wer...

So, we’ve finally got around to visiting the pigs. And now that I’ve seen them, I have no idea why they were trying to save the pig in Charlotte’s Web. They were big, hairy, smelly (I don’t know this for sure, but judging by their appearances that is what I conclude) and made very loud grunting noises that I have no idea how anyone gets “oink” out of. However, giving credit where credit is due, I must admit it was slightly entertaining to throw carrots at them.
 

So, t...

Feb 11 and 12

Staniel is an interesting Cay, more like how I expected Bahamian civilization to be like. The community is completely dependent on tourism of course, and even has its own airport- if it can be called that. The stores and shops seem barely large enough to support the island. And, like all Bahamian places, they bought out the paint isle when building the houses. You could find pretty much every color house, from blue to yellow to orange to purple.

   

               Apparently, box...

Feb 8

 Yesterday we unanchored (apparently this is a word as its not coming up with a red squiggle like so many of my others [actually this isn’t true; you are more likely to see blue lines than anything due to my extreme dislike of the apostrophe key]) and headed down to the southern tip of Warderick Wells, where we re-anchored among the company of some other sailboats and a trimaran- basically a catamaran with 3 hulls.

Since this part of the island is still part of the park, it had trai...

By Sahara
Feb 6

We arrived at Warderick Wells, coming from Hawksbill Cay. Warderwick Wells is known for having some of the best snorkeling in the world; and the best in the Bahamas. So today we are going to check out some of the reefs. Warderick Wells is also the main island in the nature park- another reason for the great reefs- so it has trails all throughout the island. One of them leads up to a large hill, Boo Boo Hill.
 
The name- which I think sucks, and they should come up with a new on...

 And, since almost the entire eastern side of the island is beach… to go and claim it. And it was awesome, because no one was on this amazingly soft-sanded beach. The water was a warm 76 degrees F (which is roughly some number above 0 in Celsius), which made us think of how everyone back home must be freezing what with all the snow and ice. I’m kidding; actually, no t...

For the past 2 days we have been staying in a lovely marina at Highbourne Cay. Highbourne was considerably larger than Allan’s Cay, meaning that you couldn’t see the other side of the island at any given time. Well, you probably could if the hills were not in the way. Yes, Highbourne is mostly just a bunch of hills, hence the name. The
first day we were here we saw some sharks. Not just any one shark, swimming by fast enough that it’s hard to really distinguish what it is. More like a�...

Jan. 18

Today we realized two things: One, the marina was getting very expensive to stay at and we needed to get out, and two… or maybe just one thing. So we undocked, and drove over to a small nearby island, Rose Island. The water was very clear (and very blue, I might add) and it was a nice day out, so we decided to go snorkeling by the small rock islands and the rock cliff and just around. I don’t think it is grammatically correct to have 4 ands in one sentence, but then again, my Engl...

December 27th  : In and Around Biscayne Bay.

Three days ago- yes, I know, we never actually write the blog on the day that it happened- we got up early and left our anchorage. Oh yea, we left the marina the day before that... So that would have been... Thursday? Let’s just say that. Anyway, we had originally planned on going out by the reef to do snorkeling, but our forecasts of the wind had been way off- I mean like WAY off-, meaning that the forecast had said 6 knots, yet in reality- yes, ...

December 25 and 26th

A couple days ago at a grocery store we got a lot of pina-colada and margarita mixes which were normal, strawberry, lime, mango, and orange drinks. My favorite was the strawberry margarita because I like the strawberry flavor and I don’t know why. We had pina-coladas nearly 3 times every day because they were so good, I even think that we should have got more for that same reason.

For Christmas we first had our presents opened and we got some pretty nice stuff, includin...

December 15th (Second time posting this)

Yesterday we got up, got some breakfast which I do not remember(bacon and egg sandwiches), did some stuff that I also cannot remember, and got packed up to go to the beach. It was very calm, not a breath of wind, and sunny. And I will also mention hot; very very hot. Then again its Florida, home of oranges and surfers and lizards, so it’s to be expected.  Dad rowed us in- yah for dad!!- and we walked the 7 minute walk straight across the island, past the skeleton driver

M...

By Sahara

We arrived at Marineland- which is a marina, not a park- yesterday in the afternoon. We decided to go for a short walk through the palm tree forest, where we discovered that palm branches are practically impossible to break off, yet when you do manage to whack them –or should I say hack- they make very good spears.  And that there is a very yucky plant with spikes that come off and stick to anything that touches it.

We then walked out to the beach, which w...

By Sahara

Now before we get to the blog, I would just like to say: Happy Thanksgivukkah!!!! Be very careful how you pronounce this word. Don’t be like me, and try to say it in front of family members. You will not get anything for Christmas. Anyway, it is being called this because for the first time in 100 years Thanksgiving and the first day of Hanukkah overlap.

Now, to get to the blog. This morning was a cleaning day, which means that after eating a breakfast of muffins, mom went and to...

By Sahara

Yesterday we got up and headed off to explore the town, after looking at the map and memorizing where all the chocolate shops were! The first place we went to was the fort, Fort Castillo De San Marcos. It was ruled by the Spanish when they first came to America, built in the 1500’s, and was used by different groups of people all the way up to the 1900’s.  It was fairly large for that time, and had a lot of cannons. 
 
 

After the fort, we headed down the street that had all the...

St Augustine
Mile Marker 780

                We got up early this morning. Definition of early is 6 in the morning. But, I guess it was necessary to get to the marina before dark. Maybe.  Anyway, the morning was pretty uneventful, consisting of breakfast, school work, and reading. Oh yes, and we got to Florida sometime around 10:30 or so, and celebrated by eating an orange… or three...  It was raining during the morning and was really yucky and humid and why am I going on about the boring ...

                Today was the complete opposite of yesterday, as it was cold and had 30 knot gust winds. So when mom made us very yummy muffins-in case you haven’t noticed, we looove our muffins- we decided to go back to the island and explore the woods. The woods were very cool, with the Spanish moss and huge old trees and the palm shrubberies, and looked like it would be perfect for a Halloween party or celebration.

This island was said to have 3 types of poisonous snaked- no...

Yesterday we set off in the amazingly snazzy dinghy to go to the island. Since it was warm and practically no wind at all, we decided it was going to be a beach day. To get to the beach you had to walk through a maritime forest, which consisted mostly of live oak and small palm shrub type things and Spanish beards. Then you had to walk over the dunes-they didn’t let you walk on the dunes for fear of erosion-, and then you got to the beach. It wasn’t a very inhabited beach; we o...

By Sahara

Let’s see, how to make this day interesting to all you people reading this.  We started the day-I think all my entries start like this- by waking up, slowly making ourselves get out of bed, speeding up dramatically when you hear mom is making muffins, and then eating said muffins.  Which were fantastic, by the way. Chocolate chips, yummy yummy. Argh, I think I just creeped out every sane person reading this. So to carry on, we then all went and took showers. I think I have been awa...

 November 12 and 13th 

Charleston, South Carolina, Nov 12

Yesterday we got to Charleston around 1 in the afternoon. We had to dock somewhere as there were reports for bad weather that night and today. (20-30 knot winds, really cold). So when we got all tied up, we decided to head into town and look around. We had to take a shuttle bus into town, as it was far away and over a massive bridge. So when we got into downtown, the first shop when we got off was the Fudgery, (Now my computer is being stupid and saying that ...

ICW Swan Point, New River Inlet Nov. 06

 Today was not the most exciting day, just more marshes and canals and bridges. For the first half of the day it rained on and off, and was very foggy out. The most excitement in the morning was the first bridge, where mom freaked out about height issues. But, like I told her, you find out if you are too high for the bridge fairly quickly. We did see dolphins heading out of Beaufort, but briefly.   Hmmm... Now I’m trying to remember what else we did,...

Belhaven Memorial Museum

Belhaven memorial museum

When we arrived at Belhaven, we went to the museum. At first we thought it was a normal museum, but after we got inside it was about a really insane woman who collected nearly everything. But what I really liked was the 45 pound German machine gun that was in World War 1, the 2 headed pig, the Cyclops pig, the eight-legged pig and a lot of other things. Some other cools things like a whale skull and anchor from a British warship from the early 1800s (probably 2-3 hundr...

October 31st,

Today we got an early start heading to Norfolk, as the reports were for 30-40 knot winds today. Mom and Dad began the day with pulling up the anchor and starting the engine… which are loud… at 7:00 in the morning.  Needless to say it woke Devon and I up.  So that was how our uneventful day started.  Now I will skip to the part where it got exciting. We were just on the edge of Norfolk, in the beginning of the afternoon, and admiring the giant tanker heading our direction.  Mo...

October 30th we were motoring out of Deltaville and we were pretty much the only ones out. Suddenly, there was a really loud BA-BANG!! And I thought that the propane exploded or we were getting shot at. Since it was behind us, I ran down and checked the aft cabin but there was no damage. So I went back up, and a bit later there was a radio call that said it was the "sound of freedom" (a fighter jet going faster than the speed of sound.) So we were all relieved that no damage has been done to ...