Month: December 2018

As we near the end of 2018, we have been thinking about all of our old friends whom we miss and love hearing from, the new friends we’ve made, all the new cultures we’ve experienced, and all the great places we’ve explored since the beginning of the year.  We feel so lucky to be adventuring and learning all together as a family in our 36 x 22 feet of living space aboard our home S/V Love & Luck.  Boat repairs and homeschooling have become normal life, with far fewer daily bumps.  Wandering down interesting looking streets, buying bags of juice or ice cream or good smelling street food, finding a good museum or grocery store or market, and watching and talking to people dancing, creating a craft, or just hanging out in the streets in a new place fill our days.  We love being on and under the water watching the fish, dolphins, waves, and stars and finding whatever excitement awaits us in the next port.  We hope you too take the opportunity to follow your dreams and that, like us, they turn out even better than expected!

Our 2018 Country Highlights…

Bahamas—snorkeling galore, church in Staniel Cay, fun in George Town, Mark learning how to use the pole spear (and scaring, but not catching, a lot of fish)

Dominican Republic—Fresh fruit, veggies, great food (especially the fried chicken), horseback riding, waterfall jumping, boat repairs, Easter at the beach

Puerto Rico—Lucy’s birthday, Boy Scout National Jamboree, learning to windsurf (thanks Gert and Toni)

USVI—Oma and Opa visit during some bumpy seas, swimming with the turtles in St. John

BVI—Soggy Dollar Bar, the Baths, the Caves, hearing Foxy sing his Irma songs

Saba—The road that couldn’t be built, the road that shouldn’t be built, the wet and wild dinghy ride into shore, the Mt. Scenery hike

Statia—the Quill hike, Chinese food, crazy dogs

Guadeloupe—French baguettes and swimming lessons all day every day

Dominica—Heidi’s birthday, Sea Cat and the Boiling Lake Hike, volunteering at school

Martinique—Sally’s birthday, Mt. Pelee hike, volcano museum, more great French food

Grenada—all our family visiting, Fenton joining our crew, volunteering at Learn to Swim week, teaching weekly swim lessons, trivia night, volunteering at the Grenada SPCA, SCUBA certification, scout camp, the girls swimming with the Sailfish swim team for a Championship meet, Carriacou hiking and snorkeling and lion fish hunting and baby turtle saving

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Bonaire—caught huge tuna enroute, SCUBA diving and new dive gear, cultural event in Rincon,  flamingos, hiking through the National Park, windsurfing, cute tourist shopping and little cafes

Curacao—a long bus ride to the cute little Holland like village center, Venezuelan floating market, the crazy maze of customs and immigration (hours to get checked in and out)

Aruba—mall city, poolside afternoon with friends

Colombia—our first country to visit in South America, everyone sick with a stomach bug, great visit to Minca (backpacker central), Thanksgiving, Tayrona National Park jungle hiking and hostel camping, tubing, Cartegena Lighting of the Candles festival, Getsemani murals, walled city tour, San Felipe Castle Fortress and amazing street food

Panama—San Blas Islands: beautiful molas, fresh lobster, crabs and octopus; Portobelo for Christmas: attended the Church of the Black Christ, light parade, fireworks and fun

2018 Crew Highlights

Mark—our sailing expert, windsurfing teacher, physics professor, SCUBA enthusiast, fisherman extraordinaire, Mr. Fixit, and strategic analyst (new remote consulting career)

Julie—teacher, researcher, cook, cleaner, SCUBA certified, still learning the best places to stow things and constantly getting rid of our collection of unnecessary items still on the boat…

Fenton (17) —gap year adventurer, our technology expert (including cameras, computers, movie downloads, GoPros, cell phones, blog), fishing good luck charm, SCUBA enthusiast, windsurfer, lion fish hunter, comic relief, and expert sunscreen applier and bug spray applier

Heidi (15) —10th grader, media expert, representative Spanish speaker for all of our boat needs (thank you), only Grenada female 13-14 swimmer for the ‘big’ meet, photographer extraordinaire, stargazer, instagram addict (@heidizvannini), SCUBA girl

Lucy (13) —8th grader, chef of the sea, likes swimming off the boat, cleanest crew member who loves real showers, constantly embarrassed by the rest of us (OMG!), windsurfer, most interested sailor, most time spent on watch for all shifts, and SCUBA certified (who still prefers snorkeling though)

Sally (11) —6th grader, social butterfly who spends the most time of our crew on other kid  boats, surfer girl, windsurfer, fish identifier, fish dissector/biologist, SCUBA girl, future vet who is missed by the puppies at the GSPCA,  always has her head in a book

Willie (almost 4)—loves jumping in the water from the boat, going kayaking, playing monkey in the middle (in the water of course), hiking in new countries, sniffing lots of new smells, fearlessly guards our boat from anyone who ventures too close, merdog (aka sea turtle) spotter

Future Plans

Our crew is not ready to give up this lifestyle quite yet – so we’ve decided to extend this adventure a little longer.  We are going to keep heading west through the Panama Canal, planning on going through late January. Once we reach the Pacific, we are undecided as to which way we’ll go. We may head to New Zealand (an amazing, but long sail), we might head west to Hawaii and then back northeast to the Pacific northwest, or maybe, we’ll head north along the Pacific coast to Mexico and California… In the meantime, mom and dad are working online here and there to assure that the adventure can continue as long as its fun. We will be in Panama for Christmas, New Year, and most of January and February.

Happy Holidays from the Crew!  We look forward to hearing from you!

Mark, Julie, Heidi, Lucy, Sally, Fenton and Willie

Our contact info has changed slightly:

svloveandluck@yahoo.com (we receive this through our Iridium GO sat phone wherever we are)

WhatsApp +12032400237 (free on wifi with the App)

If you have free calls to a US number, you can call and text us for free (free for both of us) at 1-786-776-2887 

Our blog is lifesgoodonourboat.com

Our instagram is @svloveandluck

On a Monday morning we were all eating breakfast and thinking about leaving on Tuesday, the next day, but we were indecisive. The weather wasn’t looking good: ten ft seas with up to forty knots of wind 🙁  Dad finally put on the breaks and said we were NOT going. So now we’re here for another week—not so bad. The next day we did school and then went to the pool. It was very fun and all of us went down the slide at least twice! Me and Heidi, Lucy, Fenton, and I went down together. Fenton says it was very nutty! We all had a blast! 

That night we had a discussion on what we were going to do. The options were: 

1. Stay home and explore town more
2. Go on the Lost City Trek
3. Go to Minca again
4. Go to Cartagena

So we voted and Minca got out, the Lost City trek got out and that left going to Cartagena or staying home in Santa Marta. We didn’t know who would take care of Willie. That was our main downside!

The next morning we went to a talk about the tours offered from Santa Marta. Mom asked Saskia, a boat friend on Pinut, if she would be willing to watch Willie for us. Of course she could sleep on our boat and make herself at home. She said yes, so it was arranged. That night we packed and got ready, it was a 4-6 hour bus ride so we brought entertainment (my kindle and an iPod).  We went to bed excited for the big day. 

We woke up and got dressed and left. I drank a little coffee while we waited for the bus! The bus arrived and we got in. We had heard that it takes a pit stop every 2 hours so we relaxed and enjoyed the view. The next two hours went pretty slowly. I decided to read my book. We stopped at the bathrooms in about half an hour. Nobody really needed to go so we stayed on the bus, we were with a lot of other people so we still had to stop. The bus got going again and we started to listen to music again.

I finished one book just as we got to another stop. This stop had a lot of snacks so we got off to take a look. They had mango drinks and a lot of chips! They also had the cutest tiny kitten—adorable! A women handed him or her to me and the little cat just purred! It was so cute! We ended up getting two cups of mangos, an orange soda, and some plantain chips. I drank the orange soda, Heidi and Fenton shared the mango cup, and so did mom and dad with a different one! We saved the plantain chips for a little bit later. I started to read another book. We had been in the bus for three hours! I started to really need to go to the bathroom. Luckily we stopped at a bathroom. We opened our plantain chips which were very yummy. I read for the last hour or so and we finally arrived.

We got off the bus and walked to our rental house that we had reserved the night before. Unfortunately, there was construction on the building next to it, and the owners said the apartment was not functioning right. So, we took a cab to Getsemani and found an apartment there. We ate lunch and headed towards our apartment. It was so nice—very modern, white, and with three rooms and a hammock.

We went out to dinner at a place called Demente where we danced on the roof! Lucy and I shared an artichoke pizza. It was very good! Fenton ate a pepperoni and pepper pizza, Heidi ordered spinach and gorgonzola, mom and dad got that too. The pizzas were all personal pizzas—so we tried lots of different kinds. Mom and dad also ordered a couple appetizers: crab dumplings and grilled octopus which we all shared. Very yummy!

After dinner we headed home. We saw fireworks from our balcony and the streets turned on their Christmas lights. There were swirls and bells in the light design. We filmed part of our Youtube video and then had a mini dance party 😉 ! Soon it was time for bed. I read for a little while and then Heidi came to come to sleep with me. Fenton got to sleep in the hammock!

  We woke up pretty early and went to a breakfast restaurant. We ordered eggs with arepa and toast. It was very yummy. They also served it with hot chocolate! We went into town after breakfast and took a free walking tour. We spent a while looking for the man with the yellow umbrella!

Once we found Edgar, the walking tour guide, he told us to go sit down with the rest of the people on the English speaking tour. It was a little hard to understand him because he had an accent.  The tour was great! He explained all about the history of Colombia. After the tour finished, we went to the chocolate museum. It was so cool— they had an upstairs little free museum and then you could go downstairs for free samples. They were so yummy! They also had this really yummy corn drink with lots of spices and milk (kind of like a chai latte)! We got some mango in a cup and went into the park to eat it! We stopped by the emerald museum. It was really cool and there were rows and rows of emerald jewelry for sale for about 1,000 USDs! It was crazy expensive! 

We went back to our apartment and we had a lunch of leftovers and chips! The chips were delish! Dad fell asleep right away and I read my book in the hammock. We relaxed for a while until it was time for dinner.  The day before, we had seen a stand with yummy looking burgers, so we decided to try them for dinner. We ordered two burgers which had a potato chips, ham, and about ten different sauces although it looked gross everyone said it was delicious, and I got a fried potato and beef ball with passion fruit juice! It was so delicious, we sat down to eat the burgers while Fenton, Heidi, and I got ice-cream pops! I got a Ferro Roche pop it was so yummy and good! Lucy got some passion fruit pineapple juice.

We walked to where there were supposed to be some lights. We didn’t see any lights but there was some really cool dancers. Just as the dancers got really fast and loud there was a lot of fireworks! They were so pretty and surprising! Then, all of a sudden the lights turned on there was so many of them! We walked a while until we got to where the mayor was speaking I got some cotton candy. We went into the Walled City and ordered some Ceviche with octopus and fish in it.  Amazingly delicious!

When we finished, we started to head home. We saw more fireworks as we were walking home! Once we got to our apartment, we watched the lights and fireworks from our balcony. We got ready for bed and hit the sack.

The next morning we went out to explore Getsamani, the town we were in. There were really cool murals and more great street food for breakfast. We needed to go back to the apartment to check out and then head to fortress/castle. We walked a little over a mile to a massive fortress. We waited in line to get tickets to explore the old fortress! Thankfully, there were a lot of tunnels to go in to escape the blazing sun! In the tunnels, you could jump out and scare people because it was pitch black in some parts.  We had lots of fun doing that.

Some people had said that the documentary was very interesting so we went to find it. The documentary was in Spanish so a lady that worked at the fortress put sub titles on for us! When the film finished, we had to get a cab back to the bus station. We squished into a cab and we were off! 

We got in the bus and got ready for the next five hours…Luckily, it only took 4 hours to make it home!

-Sally