A Schcolnik Visit

Saint Martin/Sint Maarten - A quick message (at an internet cafe... with everyone waiting for me to go eat lunch on the boat) to let people know we have arrived in Saint Martin, the place from where Sebastian will launch his Atlantic crossing and where I will stay with the kids for the month of May prior to meeitng up with Sebastian in Lisbon once he arrives there by boat.  Beautiful place - will write more later.... for now wanted to share some pictures of the visit we had from the Schcolniks - Sebastian's cousin Enrique, wife Jane and kids... we hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed actually living it!  It was great to have people aboard to share our experience with us.  We are very thankful to them for making the effort and hope they had as good a trip as ours.

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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.

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.

From Culebra to St. Thomas

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands – The invitation read “Please Come and Celebrate Katy’s Birthday this Sunday – Honeymoon Bay, St. Thomas.”  The problem was… we were in Culebra, Puerto Rico! But that’s the benefit of living on a sailboat, your home and main means of transportation and having the flexibility to have fun events like this determine your next port of call!  We made it to Honeymoon Bay in time to give Katy a nice cake (I am getting better at baking on Begonia) and to shake our bones a little on the dance floor.  The “place” was literally a cart on wheels with someone selling (tons of) alcoholic beverages… and the “dance floor” was a little space someone designated on the sandy beach, with a guy in the back with a guitar playing Jimmy Buffet covers.  Honeymoon Bay is a haven for many children of the sixties and seventies who came here to St. Thomas when it still was a “virgin” island and they have not left since. Notes of patchouli were in the air.  (Not that there's anything wrong with patchouli.... I'm just trying to give you accurate imagery).

Since then we have visited Charlotte Amalie, the capital city, where I am writing from now.  This is a very different scene… lots of cruise ships and pleasure yachts.  Notes of Gucci, Versace, Louis Vitton in the air!

Back in Culebra we met two other families with lots of kids.  Needless to say our little ones were very happy to commiserate with others on their “same boat.” We ended up spending more time there than expected due to this reason.  Sofia and Benjie are getting a little tired of having just each other…. The little tiffs between them are getting a little more frequent and Sofia now has decided she “wants her own room.”

We have spent the last couple of days running “drills” for the children on the boat.  In the event they were to fall in the water we want them to know exactly what to do:  what does it feel like to fall in from the bow of Begonia (5 feet high), and if we’re at anchor, we discussed remaining calm and swimming to the bridle and/or anchor lines.  If we are running, we discussed remaining calm and floating on their back until we can come back and pick them up.  I was glad we did this…. Since if you can believe we’ve already been at sea 3 months and this is the first time.  Sofia feels very comfortable in the water and her personality is adventurous.  Benjie is more cautious and never liked getting water in his face.  You can imagine how difficult it was to convince him to jump – just once – off the bow to practice the drill.  And that was with me standing next to him and Sebastian in the water waiting for him. Now… the little guy is a fishie… once he jumped once, he could not stop… and now wants to do it every day.

We have met back up with our friends Joanne and George from RomantaSea and are travelling with them today.

Charlotte Amalie has been nice for a different scene than what we have been used to these past few months.  The city itself is very “Caribbean.”  You can imagine the pirates hanging out in the alleys of the town, which are now lines with jewelry store after jewelry store.  The people are extremely friendly.  The highlight was visiting the Jewish synagogue which is the oldest on the Western Hemisphere.  A two-day respite – but it’s time to move on.

NEXT STOP:  Christmas Cove, St. James Island, St. Thomas, USVI

Get the play on words?

The t-shirt was a creation of our dear friends "Los To"

Hats are a must... the sun is getting stronger the further south we go!

I thought the sign on this cart was hilarious.... every time we passed it, it was closed!

Here's Katy and a friend celebrating their birthdays in Christmas Cove.

Charlotte Amalie harbor

No one can stop him now!

Sofia, always the adventurous one, takes a dive....

Now getting fancy... jumping with Papa!

Good guard dog... makes us miss Martita

Big cruise ships, Charlotte Amalie

Street scenes of Charlotte Amalie

Sofia's rendition of the trip so far.... that's her a Benj snorkeling

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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.

Fiesta en Fajardo

Fajardo, Puerto Rico – We need a vacation!!  You may chuckle at this statement, but we are still in Fajardo and been living at a marina here for a week, and working nonstop, like crazy.  We are taking advantage of being in a US territory, where we have easier access to phone, internet and US store chains where we can find familiar products.  Puerto Rico is an interesting mix of both Latin and US cultures.  Driving down the street you can Subway, McDonald’s, CVS Pharmacy, Pep Boys, etc., but then  you go a couple blocks and you see the familiar Spanish colonial style main town plaza, and chickens loose on the road, etc.  Many speak Spanish and English with no accent in either language…. But there’s also the “Spanglish” you hear quite a bit. We happened to go to Dunkin’ Donuts and there written on the menu was a “dona” (which is the way you would pronounce “donut” with a Spanish accent)!  The Spanglish is so inculcated in the language that the written form has adopted the phonetic spelling of the English words.

We have cleaned the boat from top to bottom to reorganize and see what we had and what we were in need of.  Most of our food, beverages, cleaning products and paper goods are stored underneath our “sofa” in the main salon and beneath all our beds.  The boat is very spacious, but it is not easy to go under the bed to look for something every single time you need it, so we are continuously transferring things from big containers to smaller ones for easy daily access.  It’s a constant process….

Sebastian has been installing a new VHF radio system that has an incorporated boat detector.  This way, while sailing at night, you can see other boats pop up on the VHF screen and if they are registered, you can even see the type and name of the vessel.  We got new Sunbrella window coverings and screens made here too…. Pretty snazzy!

We also have done a lot of paperwork and phone calls.  Kate Mattson back home has done the saintly duty of taking care of our mail.  We all thought this would be an “easy” task, but it has been a little more complicated than we thought.  We certainly could not have done this trip without her so I want to take this moment to publicly thank her for all she is doing for us!  Still, with all her great organizational skills, some of the payments and paperwork have fallen through the cracks and it has been a good time here to catch up.  I spoke to Kate by phone yesterday and we think we are caught up for now.

I also want to thank my brother, Max, for taking care of some things in California for us, and want to thank my Dad who has sent us updated and timely weather information when we needed it most.  Love you guys!

A kindly couple Glen and Gail, retired TBIRDS, at the marina aboard “Encore” invited us to their boat the night before departing for a week-long sail with some friends.  They are Americans living in Puerto Rico and ended up lending us their car for the week… very, very sweet of them.  So, we went to Costco to reprovision and almost killed one another trying to get there… have you ever been in a situation where you can actually see your target, but you cannot understand how to get there?!  We circled and we circled Costco with the traffic getting thicker and more annoying, and we just could not see how to get in.  On top of that we were starving and it was hot… needless to say we were thrilled to arrive to Costco and eat their famous pizza…  I guess we’re not used to driving in traffic anymore!  We ended up buying tons of things preparing for Enrique and Pablos’ visits with their respective families… as well as the Atlantic crossing.  Lots and lots of peanut butter, cheese and crackers!

The kids have behaved amazingly well… it is difficult for them to stay on the boat parked in a  marina, but they have managed to keep themselves busy, even finding little friends to play with along the way.  It is also difficult for them to be dragged along to Costco and the landromat and West marine and all the other places we went.  We have been treating them - and oursleves - to lots of ice cream.

On a positive note, our friend Bill Butler came to visit us.  He is a sailing legend whom Sebastian met years ago when Bill sailed around Cape Horn and landed in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.  About 8 years ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Bill for the first time when Sebastian and I came to Puerto Rico on vacation and spent a memorable Christmas Eve with him and his wife, Lirio.  Bill is “famous” among sailors because of his incredible story of survival.  The summary of his story can be found on the cover of his book “Our Last Chance” and goes like this:  Bill and Simone Butler set out to circumnavigate the world.  Instead they ended up adrift in a six- foot plastic life-raft when whales battered and sank their 38-foot sailboat “Siboney.”  In the following sixty-six days the Butlers fought for their lives against storm, predator, hunger and frustration.  Along the way, each found God and His amazing grace.  Bill has an incredible spirit and is wonderful to be around.

Nadya Sustache and her son Stefan came to visit us on the boat.  They are friends who used to live in Evanston and now have moved to Colorado.  Nadya is originally from Puerto Rico and is here visiting her family.  We spent the morning snacking on the boat and then went to a natural reserve surrounding te lighthouse on the most northeastern point of the island.  What a beautiful country… the sea, the mountains, rainforest, mangroves – very impressive.  It was great to get off the boat and sight-see but mostly to catch up with Nadya and meet her brother and sister-in-law.  Boy… I think we both miss Evanston! 

NEXT STOP:  still Culebra, another island off the east coast of Puerto Rico, considered one of the Spanish Virgin Islands.  Leaving tomorrow morning and should arrive in the early afternoon.

The two captains reunite.

Our dear friend Bill visiting Begonia




 



Our new friend Zarymar...

Nonstop action between the three...

Finally discovered the hose after running back and forth between boats all day in the sun.

Automatic best friends

Nadya and family visit

A mutiny of kids on the Begonia
Notice the nice new blue window coverings? Keeps the sun out and the salon much coller inside

The Fearsome Foursome

View from lighthouse

Evanston buddies meet in PR

Coastal scenery

Lighthouse Cabeza de San Juan

Monkeys in the mangroves



Precious Costo cargo...

... so precious... MacGyver is willing to dive into the marina water to...

... to retrieve the half-pound of goat cheese that fell into the water!!!! Thank goodness it was vacuum-packed!

Such poses!

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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.