Hi-5 Sailcat - Our Next Family Adventure...: February 5, 2012

2012-02-10 - catch up

'catchin' the big one!'

Smile for the camera....and then, on you go!

lovely Wendy from Scooter.....

Daniel from Dream Weaver and Connor make a dollar on their carnival set-up using coconuts for bowling balls and beer bottles for pins! Daniel was pumped!!

Without internet it has been a bit difficult to keep up on pics etc. Here a few more to complete our GT experience.

2012-02-10 - to Lee Stocking Island, Exumas

last day of fun at Emerald. The kids played for so long in the pool that their hands 'pruned'! great day

Well, we are finally at a turn around and are officially heading home. We arrived in George Town at the beginning of January. We had Roxy and Robert visit which was great. Then, a week later, Kevin and Pat came for nice visit. We left George Town a few times, once to Conception Island and Long Island but never really far and always returning to George Town. To keep things interesting in George Town (so we feel like we were moving around), we moved to different anchorages to have a different view, different perspective. Connor enjoyed the company of other children and we met new friends and reaqainted ourselves with friends we met along the way. It was also nice to have a regular school schedule and catch up on necessary lessons. But, now we face north as most boaters here must do at this time in the season. There are several boats that we have travelled with that also have children that we hope to meet up with soon. I am looking forward to having new experiences again. We intend to go up the Exuma chain again hitting some of the sites we missed and revisiting some that we loved. I also am look forward to getting home and seeing family again!

So, here we are at Emerald Bay Marina....getting the last of the laundry done, checking email and making a few calls that will be difficult to do in the next few weeks. Our trusted phone that was bringing in email on the water, sadly is not working....but has been replaced with a phone that send and receive calls -a little bit of a trade-off! Kerry was also busy this morning looking at marinas in Florida that Hi-5 will call home for the rest of the season. We are considering several locations from the Keys to Stuart.

Home....here we come!

.......I will update again once we have internet.....stay tuned :)

...later in the day.....We finally left Emerald Bay for Lee stocking Island in company with Whistling Cay. Makana and another boat Cookie Monster were following closely behind. At Lee Stocking Island there is a marine research station but we are not sure who they are and what they are doing. We later learned that there is a woman who is the caretaker of the facility while there is no research being conducted, but she is 'off-island' right now. As we entered the cut to Lee Stocking we ended up catching a fish, finally. We identified it as an Almaco Jack and we were thankful to have a bit of fresh food on board. We ended up taking all of the kids (ours and Whistling Cay) in our dinghy to a small beach just south of the anchorage. It was beautiful and we found a very large sea cucumber that we could touch. Connor, however, didn't take us up on that experience and declined the offer to touch it. Later, we went to Whistling Cay in the evening. The kids watched a movie and we said our good-byes. They are soon heading back to Florida so that they can store their boat and head back to Alaska for the salmon fishing season.

Dylan checks out the sea cucumber!

Connor decideds to pass on touching the sea cucumber this time....

2012-02-05 - in George Town

We went over to beach church this morning Dylan loves the singing and I was meeting Wendy from Scooter to hand over some Canadian money to her. She and her husband Peter are heading to Cuba and were in the market for some Canadian money as American isn't as 'welcome'. Dylan was especially vocal today and I had to walk him away several times. Hunter, the speaker for the day, assured us that Dylan's lovely chatter was so welcome. Several other members came over after the service and said that they were glad to hear a childs voice. Once grey haired gentleman stated that he loves the voices of children....it makes him smile! So, sing away Dylan...sing!

We later headed to the boat to do a quick tidy and Connor stayed behind to play with the local boy, Delino. When we returned, we did a bit more weaving on the beach and tried to get into the George Town way of life (It's ok but, I really can't imagine a whole season of this). Everyday seems to be the same. You either like it or you don't! We, need to move on!

Dylan like the musicians that gathered and jammed on the beach, though.... :)

2012-02-04 - in George Town

We made a date with the girls from Cee Jem on the beach for this morning. We haven't seen a lot of them since we crossed over to the Bahamas back in December. Connor had a great time with them running through the palm forest behind the beach and climbing the steep hills. I, unfortunately, had two long trips across the harbour to get our phone figured out. We had such a good spot at Sand Dollar beach that I didn't want to move the boat over to the town side to avoid the waves in the harbour. First, Dylan went with me. It was't bad going over...but, on the way back he was laughing the whole way. I was pounding trough the waves, making him bounce repeatedly in his chair. Doi-boyz was trying to fix the phone, but needed more time. I had to brave the harbour once more....waiting until the sun was low in the sky. I had to leave it one more time as he couldn't get it to work.

2012-02-03 - in George Town

This morning I had promised Connor that we would do only basket art for school today. We haven't set aside time during regular school for art so he was so looking forward to it. He has started several baskets but has yet to finish one. This morning, he worked on a small one to hold his ipod. It looks great and he seemed really proud of his work. School has been going really well since we have stopped and had time to catch up. It's great that the other boats are also keen at doing school in the morning which keeps the focus on the work and not the kids playing outside on the beach. The one thing that I love about teaching is 'tricking' them into school. When Connor complains about doing school in the morning, I love saying, 'Hey do you want to play this game with me, instead?"...He turns into a receptive little boy not knowing that we are secretly learning math concepts...or pulling out a coral book and talking about all the types of coral we have seen. What are Zooxanthellae and how Cigueterrra poisoning (the one you get from eating barracouda) works? After all that Connor will say, "we didn't do a lot of school today!" and finishes his statement off with a, "Yeah!" I smile quitely and say, 'Yes, too bad. Tomorrow we will catch up!' ;)

2012-02-02 - in George Town, Exuma

We needed to head into town today. I was having trouble with our iphone that brings us the internet and, should we need it...the ability to send and recieve calls. There is a shop in town that looked like it might do the job...called Doi-Boyz. We took the big boat over to town as we would have gotten soaked again crossing the harbour (which, as you might imagine, is getting a big 'old'). We popped over to Whistling Cay to let them know what we were doing. Connor admitted to the kids on the boat, that he preferred to hang out with them instead of going to town with us. We launched the kayak and he paddled his way between the big boats. We anchored by town. Kerry drove Dylan and I to town and he continued on to do a garbage run and fill our water tanks. There is only one dumpster in town that we are able to deposit trash into - you have to go to the government dock area and carry trash to it. I headed over to Doi-boyz to see if they could help out. I soon found out that the guy who actually does the phone work doesn't get in until 5 or 6, which isn't great when your car is a dingy and you need to make your way through the dark. So, we will check again tomorrow to see if he is available. fingers crossed!

Today is Nathan's birthday (on Whistling Cay). He made a cake with the kids and invited us all over for cake. We also invited the kids from Dream Weaver (Daniel and Pace). They all had a great time with each other. Tomorrow, Wendy (the mom from Whistling Cay) comes home which, I am sure, Nathan is looking forward to to give him a break.

2012-02-01 - in George Town, Great Exuma

Last night we took a mooring ball next to Chat 'n Chill to get away from the waves in the harbour. It was a great break to not being bounced around. We heard on the 'net' this morning of other boaters intending on going to Cuba. They were gathering on one of the boats in the morning to have a look at charts and discuss each others plans. The other boat "Scooter" had decided to go that route as well on their way to the Mediterranean. After the discussion Kerry made a captains decision and decided not to go to Cuba. Apparently, you can't stay on your boat in the marina because it is too buggy forcing you to rent a car, drive and stay elsewhere. You can't leave your boat also at anchor or leave your dinghy in the water. Well, this is what some have been saying, so it isn't looking like it would be a good choice for us. Scooter wanted charts, etc, and we had a full set, so we forwarded all we had (charts, guide book, courtesy flag) to them. They were thrilled as it would have been difficult to obtain all those items from the Bahamas. Anyway, I am glad that we have finally decided on Cuba. We can now plan our route home.

2012-01-30 - back to George Town, Great Exuma

We made our way back to George Town today. Nathan, on Whistling Cay, caught an African Pompano on the way into the harbour. It was an amazing and very large fish. He was kind enough to share his catch. We brought everything else and had a great time on their boat this evening.