Back in the US!

Is it a girl or a fish??

Mastering Kayaking

Getting comfortable in the water

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands – Here we are again in Charlotte Amalie parked at a marina awaiting the arrival of Sebastian’s cousin, Enrique and his family.  They are arriving tonight and we have spent the day in the boat cleaning and getting prepared.  It poured rain so it was the perfect day to be cleaning.

We have been lax in our internet postings due to no frequent internet connection, so I want to apologize.  Now, you’re getting two blog updates somewhat in a row.

The last week or so we have been in and out of the US and British Virgin Islands.  Everything is so close, it is very easy to island hop every day, so we have found ourselves waking up every morning in a new – and beautiful – anchorage.  Specifically for those who are interested, the places we visited, Jost Van Dyke (and the famous Foxy’s Bar), Marina Cay, the Baths in Virgin Gorda, Great Harbor (Peter Island), Norman Island (where we snorkel at the Indians and visited the Caves), Sloper’s Hole on Tortola – all in the BVIs and then Francis Bay, Christmas Cove on St. James Island in the US territories.  This is absolute paradise… although we still think the Bahamas beaches are the most pristine we’ve seen thus far.

We are looking forward to the next phase of the trip:  Sebastian’s Atlantic Crossing and my stay in St. Martin while he’s crossing.  It will be nice to have a change of pace and lifestyle and accomplish two of our goals:  Sebas crossing the Atlantic, of course, and my learning French.  The idea, as I have mentioned to many of you is to rent an apartment and also enroll the children in school so they can build on the foundations they have learned in French, but most importantly so they can hang out with kids their own age and have a bit of a school routine.  Thanks to my Dad who researched all the schools there and thanks to Gabriela who called the schools to find out if this proposition was even feasible for our family. The public schools in St. Martin were not the least bit interested in having my kids for 4-6 weeks at the tail end of the school year, but the private schools we called were.

We said “au revoir” to our French Canadian friends on “RomantaSea,” who are ultimately heading toward Grenada.  I can’t believe we were sailing together for 2 months straight!  What a fun time… and we hope to see them again somewhere in the Caribbean and perhaps back in Treasure Key, Bahamas where they live. “A bientot!”

The kids are thriving every day.  Yes, I must admit that some days the boat seems really small and we are on top of each other, but in general our trip is positive and the kids are growing in leaps and bounds.  Both kids are feeling more and more comfortable in the water.  Of course, since our last blog where I mentioned we had to convince Benjie to get his face wet and run some practice drills off the bow of the boat, he now cannot be stopped and wants to jump in all the time from everywhere.  Not only that, George, from “RomantaSea” taught him how to snorkel, so we can now finally go all together as a family.  Who knows why that is, that children always seem to learn better from others?  Thanks, George!

Both kids will soon replace me as “First Mate” (oh, darn!) as they learn to pull the ropes, tweak the sails and are eager to help when the Captain requests it.  They know when we approach land in the dinghy to grab the rope/”line”, jump off and reel us in…. they know once we have a couple of raindrops to run around the boat closing the hatches.  Both kids are even working on driving the dinghy… we start the motor for them and then they can drive on their own, with us in with them, of course… They can do it better than me, for sure.

Benjie also has become our official “Flag Boy.”  Whenever we see a boat with a flag from a different country (as every boat has a few flags:  a courtesy flag of the country you are visiting, a flag of the country where the boat is registered, and then perhaps a flag indicating where the crew is from), he runs to get the flag book to look up and inform us what country the flag comes from.  Begonia, for example, has a US flag for where we have her registered, but also an Argentian one for the Captain… and we actually have met a few people because of it). 

Sofia is our “Word Girl,” running to look up a word we all might not know… and she delights in being the one to be the first to know the definition.  As far as homeschooling, I have simplified as much as possible to make it more pleasurable.  It is better for both of us and she is doing very well.  She is also still very into fairies and we try to catch them every chance we get!  Each failure to catch one motivates Sofia to tweak her design and add new features to her fairy houses so that “next time she can catch one.”

Meanwhile, we continue to meet other kids once in a while and when we do, we make sure we stay so the kids can get a real good dose of playing.

So… not much more to tell… we will probably stay in the same general area and not venture too far, perhaps repeating some things we’ve seen, since we don’t have a lot of time with Sebastian’s cousin.

NEXT STOP:  St. Martin

Snorkeling is my thing!!

Visiting a lighthouse with our friend Joanne

Celebrating Katie's birthday in Honeymoon Beach

Begonia's crew

Argentinian Restorante in the Caribbean

Everybody getting more comfortable

Caves in BVI

Where is it?

Begonia's crew underwater

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FOUNTAINE PAJOT ATHENA 38 CATAMARAN FOR SALE – After our wonderful experience, BEGONIA is ready for its next sailing family – with or without children!  Please contact sebastiankoziura@hotmail.com for more information.