Posted on

The Kids Fest

Hello all,

Today is Sunday, July 29th, but I’m going to tell you all about yesterday, and the adventures of Kid’s Carnival. I say I, but this is more a joint project between the crew except for Lucy (because she was sleeping).

Carnival is an annual few day festival with activities such as (very) loud music and memorable, authentic Grenadian dancing. There’s lots of delicious food and colorful costumes and everyone is celebrating. Kid’s Carnival is the same idea, but it’s toned down, and is just one day for the kiddos. Don’t get me wrong – it’s still loud and spicy – but it’s much more appropriate for the youngsters.

We started our day in Prickly Bay, a small anchorage where we stayed while visiting family for a week (more on that later). We had yogurt and made some of the most delicious Mac and Cheese I have ever eaten in my life. After a lazy morning, we set off on a quick sail before dropping anchor in St. George’s. After finding a new spot for home Dad, Mom, Fenton, Heidi, & Sally, brought the dinghy into the jetty and walked along the beach to the mall where the Kid’s Carnival took place. We could easily hear the noise of the festival from the jetty before the ten minute walk.

The carnival took place on a big field with small tents holding vendors, food, music, toys, bubbles, horses, go-karts, and a stage with a DJ. Right away, we met up with some local family friends and Sally and the 11 year old girl, Leanna, got in line for horseback riding. The line took fooooooorever but we got some snow cones so everything was okay. Sally and Leanna waited very patiently and finally ended up on a horse. Lots of smiles.

The show started soon after the horses finished. The show started with a local youth dancing group. They were 5 and 6 year olds. They were adorable, and they had a lot of potential for the future. After that, we watched people dance in competitions to win soda. Then we watched emerging Soca artists. I don’t know a lot about Soca, but I do know that it’s loud and fast. It’s fun to listen to and watch. After that, we got to see royalty. Little Miss Grenada 2k18 took the stage, and she talked briefly about making Grenada a happier place, before strutting off majestically.

Finally, we got to the part everyone had been waiting for. We got to see characters such as Dora, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Ben 10, Mickey & Minnie Mouse. The best part was they all danced! The dancing was spicy, but it was enjoyable. We will never be able to see these characters again in the same way.

We left soon after due to some technical difficulties, hurting ears, hungry children, and one kid and our dog back home. It was a fun filled very Grenadian evening. We will never forget the way some local kids can move, the feeling of the music coming from everywhere, and the overall excitement flowing through the air.

We can’t wait for Carnival.

~Fenton & Heidi

Posted on

Just Keep Swimming

Swimming has always been an important part of my life. Mom taught me how to swim at a very small age so I don’t remember learning. The ocean has always been a big pool with waves to splash in. Lane lines and swim caps were introduced. The nervous butterfly feeling before swimming a 100 yard butterfly became familiar. Our mother ocean became home. I have been surrounded by water since the beginning of my time. So when I learned that 90% of the people that live on this island didn’t know how to swim I happily agreed to help teach.

90% is a big number. That’s 9 out of every 10 people. That live on an island. A piece of land surrounded by water. What I found out from some of the kiddos I taught and some shallow research was that the no swim policy is a long cultural tradition. They believe that if you don’t teach kids to swim that they won’t go in the water and therefore it’s impossible to drown. Now if you asked me, teach them how to swim and then they won’t drown. On top of this, they’re kids! How do you keep small children that love the beach out of the water? It’s hard. Before I get into the full story I’d like to describe the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, older siblings, and who ever else was watching. They were uncomfortable with their kids, grandkids, relatives, sister, brothers, in the water. They’re gonna get eaten by a shark! She can’t go over her head!! The seaweed!!! It’s all new and scary. In all honesty, at first I thought it was silly, sharks? Really? But these guys have been taught since forever that the ocean is something to be afraid of. Once I thought through this, it became a lot more understandable.

Swim lessons started on Monday. On the Saturday before, we met with Deb Eastwood, the lady that organized the Get Grenada Swimming program. She came to Grenada 11 years ago as a teacher and has done amazing things for the island ever since. We met her at a hotel with a small pool that some of the other volunteers were staying at. A big chunk of the other volunteers that we met were from the US or UK studying abroad as medics. They got quite anxious to say the least when they saw kids that could barely swim jump off a jetty into very shallow water. But we met them at the pool and Deb taught us the basics. Teach the lil guys to blow bubbles, float, kick, use their arms, and elementary backstroke. Since I was the only one wearing my bathing suit I got to help demonstrate. It was the first time I was in a pool since Florida!

We got to the beach bright and early on Monday. We were teaching on the beach not in a pool. Most of the kids here have never been in a pool. There’s only one public pool on the entire island and if you don’t know how to swim it doesn’t do you much good. Swim started at 9 and we got there at 8. Two kids were already there. One of the two, an eight year old girl, Harmony, ended up with me for the rest of the week. I’m proud to say that she can now successfully swim freestyle and elementary backstroke and float for a loooong time. As more and more kids started coming in we started playing small team games. Little hand games, jumping, following the leader, and singing were all included in the before nine action. We ended up having a good half an hour every morning of fun before the swimming actually happened. It was a really really awesome way to meet some locals and make some memorable friends.

2FE6A81D-B98F-4341-A543-D26290966864

The swimming part was amazing. I love to swim. I love the ocean. I love teaching. I love lil kids. This past week was the best of all worlds. I felt as though I wasn’t only my students instructor but big bud. We had an interesting first day. Some of the kids were very excited and happily ran into the water. Others were terrified. It took some energy to get one friend closer than three feet from where the waves were washing up on the shore. But we all got there eventually. By the end of the week we could all blow bubbles, float on our backs and bellies—they don’t say stomach here, and kick kick kick. Some got the arms and backstroke down. Typically the smaller, more scared and lighter kiddos had a harder time floating. But they tried. They all wanted to learn. I thought that was really special. It’s one thing to try to teach someone who isn’t really trying but to teach kids that want to learn, that’s another story. A much better and more exciting one. It’s also incredible because these guys were all scared. The ocean is scary. Their parents and older siblings don’t swim. Haha that motivated some.

717DCC35-B2F5-41BB-B453-0D98D7602DC9

If you ever find yourself teaching small islanders how to swim, I would highly suggest telling them these few things:
-When you need air, you can come up and breathe. I thought this was self explanatory but I found out otherwise. Everyone was okay!!! Just sat and took some deep breaths after that.
-The seaweed isn’t gonna kill you. No it’s not alive. I mean technically sure it’s alive but it’s not going to reach up and pull you under.
-If you know how to swim your chances of drowning are much lower. After a week of teaching girls how to float on their backs and telling them that if you fall in and can’t stand you can float on your back and wait for someone to get you you would think that they would get that. But no. I asked them all on their last day what would happen if they couldn’t stand in the water and they all automatically said they would drown. Noooooo. You would swim or float silly girls.
-Water is allowed in your ears. Yes I know it feels weird but when you jump from the dock your whole head goes in too! They love to jump off the jetty into shallow (so they can stand) water but getting the ears wet when floating is tricky.
-I gotchu. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that in the past week but it’s a very nice reminder.
Overall, it was a blast. I loved every minute of it. I will remember these kids so well and always with a smile on my face. I was really really excited to share one of my stronger abilities with the island. With the help of many volunteers, different beaches, and kids up to learn, 628 kids were taught how to swim in the past week. Monday to Friday, 9-12.
628.
628 kids can now swim.
How amazing is that?
Lastly, I have some news. Big news. I have the honor to share with you that in a week we will have a new crew member joining us for nine months. My seventeen year old cousin, Fenton, is taking a gap year before he heads off to college and is sailing away with us. We are all excited beyond my words will work and can’t wait to see where this next year will take us all. So sooner rather than later the crew of Love & Luck will include, Mom, Dad, Fenton, Heidi, Lucy, Sally, and of course, Willie. Can’t wait friendo. ❤️
Happy trails to you until we meet again.
Heidi

Posted on

Saba

A post by Mark

Hi all,
When I ended last time, we were heading out of the BVI for Saba.

Before we planned this adventure, I had never heard of Saba (maybe I had heard of it, but would have struggled to find it on a map). When we were doing the actual planning, Saba wasn’t a likely stop – as for many months out of the year, its shoreline is virtually unreachable by boat. You see… Saba is a volcanic island that looks like it just pops out of the sea – the shoreline is more or less a cliff all around the island. There is one ‘port’ (using the term somewhat loosely) – and if the wind or waves are coming from the wrong direction, you are not getting a small boat in or out of there. Luckily for us, the wind and waves – while somewhat ‘big’ – were in the right direction so we were able to visit. Before I get to Saba, however, I can’t gloss over our adventure getting there…

It all started off beautifully…. As planned, I headed into Customs and Immigration first thing in the morning to check us out of the BVI. After generating a ream of paperwork and paying $0.75 for something or another, I was back on the boat and we were preparing to head into the gas dock for fuel and water. Just as we are planning to leave, we hear another boat call into the gas dock – giving them the head’s up to help them pull the boat in. That’s when the day started to go sideways…. The gas dock is out of diesel. Ugh…. They had it the day before – must have just run out. Normally, this wouldn’t be such a bad thing – except that after the hurricane, there are only a few gas docks that still operate. Now, our choices are to sail about 10 or 15 miles the ‘wrong’ way to a harbor on Tortola or to head north towards our intended day anchorage and fill our tanks 5 gallons at a time via jerry cans filled at a ‘regular’ gas station. Neither sounded great – but we opted for the sail to Tortola – as it was a beautiful day out. We had a nice sail – which is something I haven’t been able to say very often – as for the majority of this trip, we have had to motor into the wind to get from one destination to the next. When we got to the harbor with the gas dock, things got less nice. First of all, this harbor (whose name I can’t remember) looked like a boat graveyard. Quite depressing to see all the sunken (and still sinking) boats. The next challenge was finding the marina with the working fuel dock. After a tour of the harbor, we found the dock – and weren’t real happy about it. The dock was very short, surrounded by a bunch of boats, and pointed directly downwind. To make things more exciting,  the wind had picked up to about 20-25 kts aandthere wasn’t a person anywhere in sight to help us…. So, I had to do some fancy maneuvering to get the boat near the dock and then throw it into reverse to keep us from plowing through the end of the short dock.

I almost got it right the first try.

When I reversed us to stop us against the blowing wind, we got a bit crooked and one of our fenders on the bow got stuck on the dock and popped into the water. Realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to get the middle of the boat close enough to the dock for Julie to hop off and secure us, I had to jam it in reverse and back out of there…. As our fender is floating away and all the boats around us seem to all get a lot closer, we get away from the dock with only a minor scratch and regroup. Against the wishes of most on board, I decide to were  going to try one more time. In this case, second time was a charm, and all was good (we even picked up our fender). Except that this fuel dock didn’t have water. Ugh…. Luckily, the marina north of us that didn’t have fuel did have water – so we were able to fill our tanks there. There is also a nice beach nearby, so we were able to get Willie off the boat for a run and swim.

So, all is good now – except that it is now ~5:00 pm and its time to leave for our passage. So much for our planned day of rest before heading out.

Sunset leaving the BVI

We knew that this was going to be a ‘sporty’ passage – as the winds were forecasted to be 15-20kts, gusts to 25 or so with seas 6-8’. We decided to leave then, however, because it didn’t look like it was going to be any calmer anytime soon. For the prior few days, the forecast had been predicting slightly calmer conditions – but as the days passed, the calmer conditions kept getting pushed farther and farther out. We ultimately decided to leave knowing that even if the conditions got a bit worse than forecasted, we would still be safe – just uncomfortable. Well… suffice it to say – it was uncomfortable. We motorsailed into nasty wind and waves for 17 unrelenting hours. Nothing remarkable – just a long trudge with the occasional (and sometimes more than occasional) wave crashing across the deck. When we got to Saba, we found a mooring and were very happy to be ‘done’. All of the water directly surrounding Saba is a National Marine Park, so you pretty much have to use a mooring. The interesting thing about the Saba anchorage is that it is situated such that the wind wraps and accelerates around the island so it was blowing a steady 30 kts all day. After a few hours rest, it was time to head to customs and get checked in. As with everything in Saba, the dinghy ride in from the anchorage to the port was a challenge. To get to the port, we had to dinghy 1/4 of the way around the island. As we traveled there, we went through a few minutes of strong wind and no waves, strong wind and big waves coming right at us, low wind and very big waves from the back, a set of 3 huge standing waves, and probably a few other combinations of wind and water that left us absolutely soaked. Like – we could have gone swimming and wouldn’t have gotten much wetter. Good thing we’re in the tropics and its pretty warm out. The check-in process with customs was pretty smooth – but we were going to have to come back a bit later to clear in with immigration (as they were not there at the time). An hour or two later, Sally, Heidi, Willie and I headed back to the port for a walk and to finish checking in.

As I mentioned in the start of this post – this island just jumps straight up out of the water – so its quite a steep walk

Walking Willie up a 23 degree hill!

We didn’t make it far – but we all got a good workout.

The next day, we took a taxi tour of the island. It was a lot of fun. The roads on Saba are memorable – with names like “The Road that Couldn’t be Built” and “The Road that Shouldn’t Have Been Built”. Our driver took us around for about an hour or two and then dropped us off at the trailhead to Mt. Scenery – the path that leads to the top of Saba. It is a very well maintained path with a little over 1,000 steps that goes through the rain forrest, cloud forrest, and several other ecological climates. At the top, there is apparently a great view of the surrounding islands – but it is almost always hidden in the clouds (as it was on our hike). No worries though, the hike was still very pretty.

Scenes from Mt Scenery

We then hiked down, walked around the town of Windward, and had dinner at the spot our driver suggested. After dinner, he picked us up and brought us to the dock. A good day on all accounts!

Until next time…

Mark

Posted on

The Boiling Lake!

The sound of my alarm filled my ears and I glanced at my watch which said it was only 6:01.
“Turn it offfffff.” Groaned Sally turning on to her side.
I turned it off and sat up quickly seeing my hiking boots. We were going to hike to a boiling lake, which was something that I was looking forward to sense we got to Dominica.
After changing quickly I shook Sally.
“Wake up Sally” I said and started to walk out of the room.
“Whhhhhhhyy.” She moaned.
“We are doing the hike..”
“Oh yeaaaaahhh. I’m up.” She said cheerfully sitting up. That was a fast of emotions I thought with a smile as I got some breakfast.

A few minutes after we were all ready, sunglasses, sunscreen, water, snacks, and Willie’s “hiking gear”, one of Sea Cats(tour guide) workers came to pick us up with CarpeVentum. Two really nice people as well as cruisers.

We went to the car and from the second that Sea Cat started taking, I knew that this would be a super fun hike and worth every penny (or ECs in this case.)
We got to the hike and we started off. We learned all the trees, plants, and edible things going up the first 45 min.

We got into the Nation Park zone and some came to one of our first long stops.It was a overlooking the town. It was pretty foggy though since it was raining the whole hike so far, but it felt nice cause it was hot earlier. That stop Sea cat gave us all some “rum punch” aka passion fruit juice. It was in a slushee and super good. We made some passion fruit juice the other day too.

We continued our hike through small water falls and some places Willie was almost vertical when he was jumping down. We made it through a couple of hot springs and came to a large hot spring valley. It was called “the Valley of Desalination”. There was lots of little mud pots, little geysers, and lots of hot springs. It was like Yellowstone packed in one with no fences. There was steam coming out of the ground in some random places and in some places the water was boiling while in other places it was warm or even cold.

“Face masks, get them from this volcanic ash.” Sea cat chanted and smeared some of the volcanic ash on each of our faces. I will post some pictures….
After we all had our mud masks on, Sea Cat took out a container of raw eggs. I was confused when he put all of the eggs in a bag.

“How do you want your eggs, over easy or hard boiled?” Sea cat asked going over to a little geyser with the bag of eggs.

We answered over easy and in one minute we all had an “over easy!” egg. The outside was black because of the volcanic sulfur and apparently that was super good luck in some places hence, it would make you live longer. The egg was super good. One of the best soft boiled egg I ever had. So now I can say, “I ate an egg from Dominica cooked in boiling sulfur vent geyser thing.”

We hiked through the steam vents, boiling water streams, cold water streams, and lots more random hot spots. The water then started trailing to a waterfall. My eyes widened as I realized that the waterfall was the path. There was only a little drop that time, one we could all easily hop down, but you could tell that there would be bigger ones. We continued hiking through the warm water. Well “we” consisted of everyone but Willie. Willie was hoping on the land scaling the side of the river because he thought that all th water would be hot now. The water felt nice warming your feet but not too hot. The rocks were beautiful. The rustic orange color of fall met with deep and light yellows to make a breathtaking combination or rock colors. It looked like someone took the colors of sunset and sent them down the river, painting the rocks as it went on.

Then we came to the drop. I saw a rope dangling from a couple of trees. I looked down at the 15 feet drop. It was pretty smooth with a couple of small footholds. Malone, SeaCats helper went down first using the rope and just sliding down. Ooookkkaaaay then I thought as I held on to the rope. I slowly started sliding down the slope my hands tight around the rope. Finally I found a foothold and I looked down realizing I was only a couple of feet off the bottom. I jumped the last little bit still holding on to the rope. I let go of the rope and high fived Malone.

“It wasn’t that hard!” I called, turning around. Only then did I realize I was encouraging Willie. How in the world was he going to get down? I thought… I saw SeaCat hold on to Willie’s harness and then Malone was on the bottom. Willie did a jump type slide thing and Malone caught him and put him on the ground. I let out a breath. Fewwww. That was nerve wracking , I thought. Heidi started down and soon everyone else made it down easily.

Willie ran ahead and then the rest of us followed him. The trail had a steep up hill right away but it smoothed out a little bit. Soon we came to a little stream coming out of the land next to the trail. Sea cat took two elephant ears off of the tree. He put the first elephant ear on the little stream making it into a fountain that came out of the leaf the next cup he folded into a cup. The cup worked all the way and didn’t leak at all. He filled up the cup with water and asked if anyone wanted to drink from the “magic cup”. Sally drank some of the water and it was super cold she said. I didn’t have any but the cup and fountain were super cool!

We kept on hiking getting closer and closer to the sulfuric steam coming out of the mountain. It seemed like that we were almost there. I peeked around the corner and was happy to see the end of the path! The boiling lake is going to be right here. We all sat down and waited for the fog stuff to go away. It went away in a few minutes revealing a big lake that was boiling. It looked like a humongous pot that was boiling only in the center. There was a huge bubbling thing in the middle causing the rest of the lake to go up and down! It was super cool!

Sea Cat made a super good salad and salted cod salad type thing with bread. It was really good! We ate lunch and talked for a while. We also had some more passionfruit juice! After we were done eating, Sally and I found a pit of volcanic ash mud and we dug some up to save for making into face masks. I will post some pics…..

Once everyone was re energized, we started going back down. It was mostly the same except that we stopped at some hot springs to go in them. We were all, very tired by the time that we reached the first river. After lots of fun and hiking, we made it back to the trailhead.

Right next to the trail head there is a beautiful as well as cold gorge! There were deep greens draped against dark gray rocks and the pretty light blue color. We all went in getting very refreshed. If you swim up the gorge the current get stronger and super hard to walk at the end near the waterfall. That being said it was with the beautiful view of the waterfall. We dried off after we were done with swimming and headed back to the boat. What an amazing fun filled day!

Bye till next time!☀☀☀❤❤⚓⚓
The one and only
Lucy

Posted on

Puerto Rico to the BVI

Last I left off – we had just had a great few days in Ponce and were heading further East.  Since I am so far behind in my writing, I’m just going to hit on the high-points for the next few stops…
After a few days going down the Puerto Rican coast, we headed to Vieques – one of the Spanish Virgin Islands (which is part of Puerto Rico – i.e. US – not Spain.  Maybe common knowledge – but it wasn’t to me before we started looking at this trip).  Overall, Vieques was a bit depressing – it got hit hard by the hurricane and was more or less deserted – both because of actual hurricane damage and from the lack of Puerto Rican (and other) tourists which would typically keep the island busy.  The main reason we went there was to visit the best bioluminescence bay around – so we did…. We anchored our boat in a nice harbor next to the bio-bay and hiked to it – carrying our kayak.  It was about a 1/2 mile hike – so not too bad.  We got to the bay just at sundown and waited a bit for ‘real’ darkness.  Julie went first – paddling into the bay, swirling the paddle to energize the bioluminescent stuff.  Nothing…. Now, its worth noting that it has been 2 weeks since we missed the bioluminescent bay near La Paguera – where the conditions were perfect (no moon).  So, 2 weeks later… full moon – and thus, too much light to see any bioluminescence.  Argh… foiled again.
Sunset in the bio-bay – waiting for dark
A nice swim to shore in Vieques
We had originally planned to go to Culebra – the other of the Spanish Virgin Islands.  After our less than great experience we had in Vieques, we decided to take our weather window straight to St. Thomas – figured we could us a change of scenery.  After talking to folks who went to Culebra, it looks like we might have made a mistake – as many folks told us that Culebra was great.  All that being said – we enjoyed St. Thomas – so all was good.
Highlight of St. Thomas – Oma and Opa came to visit for a few days.  It was great to see them!  We motor-sailed to St. John where we stayed in Maho Bay – known for its sea turtles!  It was a really pretty harbor and we had a good time there.
Opa and Willie
Sea Turtle!

Ruins outside Charlotte Amalie
We decided to give Oma and Opa a little excitement on their last day in the USVI – so instead of doing the  smart thing and bringing the boat to a marina to get them and their bags off the boat, we brought our boat to an anchorage right outside of the airport and brought them to the beach. We had been to this anchorage and beach before, and that day, it was very pretty and calm.  The day Oma and Opa had to leave, it was still very pretty – but not exactly calm.  After doing a few very wet trial runs, I finally found a calm(ish) part of the beach to bring them, and we were able to get onshore and to the airport without any real issues (just a little damp).
After Oma and Opa’s visit, we stayed in the USVI for a few more days and then headed to the BVI.
I had somewhat mixed feelings about going to the BVI.  On one hand, I love sailing the BVI – its absolutely beautiful, its fun and easy, and its really set-up for cruisers.  The mixed feelings came from two main reasons… 1) the BVI is where we have had 2 great vacations – but we’re not on vacation now… this is our life – so I knew it would feel different.  (NOTE – I know that ’now’ will feel like a vacation once I have to get a job and re-join the ‘real world’ – but now, its different.  All good, just not vacation).  The second factor is that the last time we sailed the BVI (about 2 1/2 yrs ago), we were with our great friends the Ericsons – and we knew that it be different (and not better!).
That all being said – we did have a good time in the BVI (just different).  We had a nice hike through the Baths – a very cool spot on Virgin Gorda that has huge boulders, caves, and other surreal features that have been carved in to the rock by eons of erosion.  We spent a few days in Cane Garden Bay – a beautiful bay on the coast of Tortola.  We had a painkiller or two at the Soggy Dollar Bar  (my favorite bar ever). We stayed in a beautiful anchorage in Virgin Gorda.  Etc..
Our favorite mural on Virgin Gorda
Relaxing on Jost Van Dyke
Hiking in the Baths
It was clear during our visit that the BVI are “open for business” – which is good – as the folks in the BVI need tourists and tourist dollars to rebuild.  While all of the tourist spots have been rebuilt, reletively few homes or other non-revenue generating have been rebuilt.  The kids on Virgin Gorda still don’t have a school to go to and most people are still living in tents or other temporary arrangements.  While the folks are trying to stay positive, it was pretty evidient that many folks were run-down.  Many months of living in difficult, stressful conditions was taking a toll. We asked around if we could help with any rebuilding – but what we found was that folks don’t necessarily need help rebuilding – they need the ‘stuff’ to rebuild – lumber, nails, concrete, etc – as well as insurance settlements.  Unfortunately, not much we could do to help with that.
The Irma Shack – a sign of BVI resilience
While we had some great times in the BVI this trip, we only stayed about a week or so – as we were all ready to explore new places.
Next stop (and next post) – Saba.