Author: Julie Zollmann

Feliz Navidad, once again from Mexico!

We have (mostly) enjoyed another year on the water filled with family and friends.  We have unintentionally spent the entire year in Mexico—except for a few short, recent visits to Phoenix.  We hope you have experienced more highs than lows during this incredibly tumultuous year and that you and your family are happy and healthy.  Our brightest news for 2020 is that on December 17th Lucy earned her Eagle Rank and will be part of the inaugural class of female Eagles!  To give you the recap…

Last January, we were beginning the final preparations of our boat for a trip across the Pacific. We were preparing our brains and bodies for a 25 day passage—it kind of feels like marathon training.  In February, we were very excited for a last minute visit from Oma and Opa. In March, we were all ready to go—boat, brains, and bodies.  Then, for us, like everyone else in the world, life halted when Covid entered the arena and decided to stick around for a while.

So, in March, we decided to wait and see what would happen in the Pacific.  The borders began to close.  Fenton decided to leave the boat and returned home—a common theme among friends.  Should we stay or should we go? We chose to remain in Mexico, on our boat (which is really now our home), and try to make the best of the situation.  Ports were closing all around us, so we remade this decision again and again throughout March, April, May, and even into June…Luckily for us, two friend boats, who we were planning to cross the Pacific with, also chose to hide out in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.  It turned out to be a great hideout—deserted beaches, fishing to your hearts content (plus some), beach barbecues, swimming, snorkeling, and hiking for the beginning of summer.  And, our homeschool remained the same—no major adjustments necessary.

As summer came, months became hotter.  Mexico’s Sea of Cortez is situated in a desert, so with the heat and dryness, the bees came out in droves (think hundreds at a time in our boat).  The inside boat temperature would cool down to a mere 100 degrees by 10pm, Willie (our dog) couldn’t seem to stay healthy, and the uncertainty of future plans was really trying.  By this point, hurricane season was upon us, so we had to accept that we would be here until at least December.  Again, luckily, we had our boat friends.

As fall settled into the Baja, we once again enjoyed the wonders of the North Sea of Cortez:  swimming with whale sharks, swimming with sea lions, warm days and cool nights, long beach walks with Willie, camping on beautiful beaches, roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, and an occasional taco or ice cream when we were in town wearing our homemade masks. Through it all, we have all been amazingly busy with all kinds of stuff…school, scouting, cooking, work, researching new places to visit, bees, etc.  Here are our blurbs:

Hello all! This is Heidi at 17(!?!). I have been working very hard this year on my Eagle journey and my senior year of high school. My Eagle is being all wrapped up, for my project I created a library program to share what I’ve learned traveling with some social justice ideas. I am doing my best to educate myself as to how to be the best person I can be in this changing world. My photography has improved greatly and I’ve seen some amazing animals. Some of the highlights have been whale sharks and sea lions. While 2020 was not what I had imagined at all I have learned to choose the ‘least bad option’ and make the most of the weirdest situations. I am beyond thankful to have shared this year with some of my closest buddies. I don’t know how I would’ve made it through 2020 without friends and Taylor Swift’s new albums. Surviving a summer in the desert of the Sea of Cortez during a global pandemic is no easy task and sharing these times with others has made this year so much better. I plan to stay on the boat next year, while nothing is certain I don’t think that I am headed off to college this fall. There is a big world out there and I want to see as much of it as I can. Adventure is waiting, college can too. I wish you all nothing but the best in 2021 and am sending lots of Love & Luck during these crazy times. 

Hey! This is Lucy (now 15). This past year has been a crazy one, but it is so full of memories that will last a lifetime. While it has been hard for all of us, I am so grateful that we were able to turn the lemons into lemonade.  I have worked really hard in my Scouting journey, I completed an Eagle Project and I earned my Eagle rank in Scouting so I am now an Eagle Scout! I can’t think of anyone I would rather be stuck in the Sea of Cortez with than our buddy boats. We kept very busy, celebrated almost every celebration (1/2 birthdays included), and worked hard on my Scouting and 9th and 10th grades of school. Some fun memories from this year are beach clean ups, geohunts, merit badges, mile swim award, an online computer class, my Eagle project, lots and lots of swimming, lots of beach bbqs, group workouts, night swimming, swimming with sea lions and whale sharks, watching movies, performing skits, plays, dances, campouts, dressing up for dinner parties, high tea, and so many laughs, smiles, and fun times with my family and friends. I am so thankful for our fun buddy boats and lifelong friends that made the absolute best time of this year. The past year I have grown as a person, leader, Scout, family member, sister, and friend. I hope that everyone was able to find something good from the past year, and I look forward to the adventures 2021 brings us. Keep smiling! 

Hi! This is Sally (now 13). Hello everyone! I can’t believe that this crazy year is almost over! Over these crazy times, I have made some new friends that are going to last a lifetime, swam with some incredible animals, and probably survived the hottest summer and most annoyed people all of us have ever been! I have gotten closer to my family in so many ways, and gotten to have so many experiences I never even thought would happen. Such as late night work-outs with friends, beach bbq’s, playing on the beach all day, and then the amazing campouts with our boat friend family. Throughout the year I have grown as a person, a BSA scout, and a friend. I hope the New Year brings more memories, and a cure for COVID-19.

Fenton, now 19, is attending St. Olaf College in Minnesota.  We miss him tremendously and he is mentioned daily. He has changed our boat for the good and we look forward to continuing to watch him grow and learn.

Hi from Mark.  In the past year, I have kept busy spearfishing, keeping up with ever-present boat maintenance, and continuing some business analytics and IT consulting work.  Like the rest of the crew, I am thankful that I have been with my family and good friends to make a difficult year more palatable – and even ‘fun’ much of the time. 

Hi from Julie! This year, I have learned that I am not a desert person, especially in the summer!  I definitely miss the greens of lush mountains and grass.  However, I have kept busy learning a lot about college life both in and out of the US, BSA, Eagle Projects, Sea Scouts, life in NZ, dog immunity diseases, and social justice.  My friends and family have kept me sane during this desert challenge: hiking, swimming, snorkeling, fending off bees, asking about Willie, listening. I am thankful for Zoom get togethers as well as beach bbqs and look forward to gathering with family sometime in 2021.

Willie is still getting figured out.  The experts think he has some kind of autoimmune disorder—the hard part is narrowing down which one and finding a suitable treatment for him.  He has been a good patient and is appreciating the extra attention in forms of walks, swimming, games involving treats, chase, and tug toys. He is tapering off the latest batch of meds, and fingers crossed he will stay healthy for some time!

2021 plans…As cruisers, we know plans are only meant to be changed.  If the Pacific country borders open up, we would still like to travel west to New Zealand and settle there for a while. If the borders remain closed, we will happily visit Hawaii and Alaska and then make our way down the Pacific coast to the mainland US and find a new life somewhere (the mountains are calling).  If Willie doesn’t get the “go ahead” from the vet, we’ll be figuring out a new life somewhere on the mainland a little sooner.  We’ll let you know when we know.  And, as life has shown us, it may change again after that.  We will just keep adjusting as necessary!

We wish you a very happy and healthy 2021, full of love & luck!

Hello from the Sea of Cortez! We are going to try to get back to our blog after another hiatus.  Of course our plans changed with the rest of the world’s as Covid 19 entered the arena.  We are still in Mexico, currently in Bahia de Concepcion.  We had a great sail up the Baja coast.  Each of the girls reeled in a Mahi and a Sei whale played with us for about half an hour.  We are enjoying secluded beaches with lovely shells, whale skeletons, and plenty of paths to explore. We have included a photo of Heidi with her Mahi.

 

We will share some whale photos in our next post with Sally’s research on Sei whales.

We are hoping to see whale sharks a little further north, so here is what we know about them…

Whale Sharks by Sally

Whale sharks are slow moving, filter feeding, and the largest known fish species. They eat little fish, plankton, shrimp, fish eggs and lots of other little water creatures. The average size and weight of a whale shark is around 9.8 meters, or 32 feet, and each weighs around 9 tons. There are whale sharks that have been spotted that are 18 meters, or 56 feet, but it is rare to see a whale shark that is longer than 12 meters. 

Whale sharks live in all tropical and warm-temperate water. Whale sharks are known to live in the open sea but not in super deep water. However, it is known that they occasionally dive down to depths of 1,800 meters, 5,900 feet.

Whale sharks have lots of pups in a short amount of time, pregnant whale sharks have up to 300 pups that are born not all at once but over a period of time. The eggs stay in the female until they are hatched, then they have a live birth. The pups are 40-60 cm when they are newborn. A cool fact about whale sharks is that the males aren’t mature until they are 25. Also whale sharks can live up to 80-130 years old!

Another interesting fact about whale sharks is how they eat. Feeding occurs either by ram filtration or by active suction feeding. Ram filtration is when the whale sharks swim through a line of fish with its mouth open. The fish then basically swim into the sharks mouth. Active suction feeding is when they open and close their mouth creating a suction kind of like a vacuum cleaner. On average, juvenile whale sharks eat about 45 pounds of  plankton each day.

Even though whale sharks are so big, they pose no threat to humans. They can only eat creatures the same size or smaller than a quarter. So, go look for whale sharks and feel free to jump in with them.  However, please be careful and don’t crowd their space.  Moms won’t be happy if you get between her and her pups!

On June 18, we packed up the boat for safekeeping in Puerto Penasco for hurricane season and started our driving roadtrip through the western USA…Our route began by crossing the border, a quick stop at Pipe Organ National Monument and then on towards Joshua Tree National Park.  We camped all summer.  We’ve found some great apps for finding free campsites which happily worked out right away.  It took a bit of adjusting to unloading the camping gear, learning how to best cook at campsites, reloading the gear…and finding enough space for everyone in the car (including Willie).

Joshua Tree NP Fun Facts

1. Joshua trees are yuccas, not your typical tree.
2. Joshua tree means the tree of life.
3. Roadrunners are real and they eat scorpions.
4. Deserts are HOT!  Shade is good!
5. Hiking hours are 5-8 in the morning and evening in the desert summer.

Our next stop was Sequoia National Forest.  The Trail of 100 Giants turned out to be one of our favorite “big tree” hikes.

Sequoia Fun Facts

1. Sequoia roots can spread out an acre in search of water.
2. Sequoias drink 500 gallons of water each day.
3. Sequoia is the only word in the English language that uses all of the vowels-A,E,I,O,U.
4. The lowest branches on the sequoia are high up from the ground which keeps them from burning down in fires.
5. Tannins make them red and heal burn marks.

Our next stop headed us back to the beach.  We visited Big Sur, home of many car commercials, surfer towns, cool beaches, wildlife and beautiful scenery.

Big Sur Fun Facts

1. Big Sur is the stretch of 101 from San Luis Obispo to Monterey.
2. Hearst Castle is the most visited state park in California.
3. There is an elephant seal rookery just north of Hearst Castle.
4. Th road has closed due to mudslides, falling rocks, and wildfires quite frequently.
5. There is a heard of wild zebras remaining from Hearst’s zoo.

We visited Stanford.  We all decided we want to go there.

Stanford Fun Facts

1. Students jump in the now chlorinated fountains for fun.
2. There are more bikes on campus than students.
3. The waitlist for getting married at the church is 3 years.
4. Themed housing—foreign language, outdoors, sports, clubs for everything, over 700.
5. Love the tree mascot!

We headed north along the coast to Redwoods National Park.  

Redwoods Fun Facts

1. The average life span is 600-700 year old, but they can live to 2000.
2. 93% of all redwoods were chopped down.
3. They are the tallest trees in the world.
4. Their pinecones are the size of a lemon and the seeds are the size of an oat.
5. They are part of the sequoia family with tannins that protect them.

We continued up the coast north, to the Oregon Gold Coast.  Beautiful beaches and rocks.  Then, out to Crater Lake…which was still quite snow covered on June 26th.

Crater Lake Fun Facts

1. It is the deepest lake in the USA.
2. It was the sixth national park.
3. It is the clearest lake in the world with visibility to 143 feet.
4. Blue, blue, blue!
5. It averages 43 feet of snow each year.  Cold!

We continued heading north for a quick visit to Portland, Oregon.  We hit most of the tourist spots and then headed out to Mt. Hood.  We saw a sign for a 4th of July Lumberjack festival, so we decided to check that out.  We stopped at the local Goodwill to find flannel for everyone for the festival (and to keep us warm with all the cold weather and rain)!  The festival was pretty fun!  From here, we headed to Mt. Rainier National Park.  But, Mt. St Helens was on the way, so we stopped there first and saw all the volcano damage.  Amazing how an eruption changes the landscape.  Next stop is Olympic National Park.  We did a lot of hiking in the rain forest, at the beach, and up in the alpine zone.  What a diverse park!  We all want to spend more time in Olympic when the weather is better.  Next stop is North Cascades National Park.  Sunshine, blue skies, and huckleberries abound.  We really enjoyed this park—so much so that we all ached after lots of great hiking.  We made huckleberry jam at our campground, did a 10+ mile subalpine hike with Willie, and enjoyed all of the short hikes through the park.

Back to the Blog…

Hello from Mexico!  We have had a long hiatus from our blog as the kids thought it would be easier to document our travels from FaceBook this summer on their new Scouts Afloat FB Page.  So, we will give you our summer highlights over chunks of time traveling up the coast of Mexico by boat and through the USA and Canada this summer by minivan…all with Willie the wonder dog!

The topics are as follows:

Coming up in our next issues you will learn all about our summer travels…

Sailing up the Sea of Cortez in Mexico

Haul Out at Cabrales Boat Yard in Puerto Penasco, Mexico

West Coast Drive of the USA by way of the Cascades Mountain Range

Canada escapades

Driving South Through the Rockies

Family in St. Louis, Grammie’s beach, Ridgefield friends, Wilmette friends, St. Louis Take 2

The last leg of our road trip…Colorado, 4 Corners, Utah National Parks, Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon and home to our boat in Puerto Penasco

Quick but super fun trip to Yosemite, Sequoia National Parks, and Joshua Tree

Las Vegas Council Grand Camporee in Nevada, Lake Mead recreation site

Phoenix WFA class, parts pickup, Halloween with friends in the USA

Halloween with friends in the Boat Yard

Dia de Muertos with friends in Puerto Penasco

Splashing…coming soon!

Sailing North Through the Sea of Cortez by Julie

Up the coasts of Mexico by way of SV Love & Luck…a quick trip for so many miles!  We traveled these 2000nm between May 8 and June 8, 2019.  

I believe we last left off in Chiapas, Mexico where we did an awesome land tour with our good friends onboard Utopia.  From there, we had a 6 day sail to Zihaute, Mexico.  We had the best dolphin show ever on Mother’s Day.  Nearly 1,000 dolphins surrounding our boat, doing tricks, and playing for 30+ minutes all for us.  So cool!  Zihaute had a pretty cool vibe—and we learned about bringing barrels of fuel aboard ship for fueling up.  We enjoyed walking around town, doing a little shopping, and only 1 person ended up in the water while we were learning this new fueling trick…

From Zihaute, we sailed directly to Puerto Vallarta, La Cruz, Banderas Bay—all the same place (or very close together for us newcomers) with lots of different names.  It was a 2 day sail and we arrived during a dinghy race.  The kids met Cat, who runs the La Cruz Kids Club.  They immediately signed up for volunteering for Kite Boarding Races the next day.  Cold, fun, wet, and exciting.  We met some new friends on Totem, explored town (where we expect to spend some time this winter), and got caught up on daily activities:  laundry, fuel, fitness tests for Personal Fitness MB, vaccine appointments, and provisioning.

From Puerto Vallarta, we headed to Isla Isabel, Mexico’s Galapagos.  The little island was amazing!  We hiked all over the island with the little fishing village and all of the large frigate birds and blue footed boobies.  Snorkeling was pretty cool too.  Heidi enjoyed a prebirthday celebration with our friends on Utopia and Totem.

From Isla Isabel, we headed to La Paz.  We arrived late at night and anchored just outside the entrance to La Paz.  The scenery in the morning was amazing—a beautiful deserted desert island.  And it was amazingly chilly—wonderful!  We celebrated Heidi’s actual birthday on the boat with spaghetti and vodka sauce.  Delicious.  The ice cream shop in town was also quite good!

From La Paz, we headed north to Isla San Fran.  Once we arrived, the kids explored the pink salt flats and looked for agates at the beach.  No luck finding any gems—but it was good to get off the boat.  

From Isla San Fran, we headed to Agua Verde.  We found the advertised goat cheese here and hiked out to the point over looking this very green bay.  We practiced line and tender for the BSA and quickly showered and dried off because the water was COLD!  A very beautiful bay and almost all to ourselves.

From Agua Verde, we headed to Santa Rosalia.  We walked through the old mining town with the Eiffel Church (yes, the builder of the Eiffel Tower).  We went out to dinner for celebrating Heidi’s birthday properly—I think that made 3 birthday celebrations for Heidi (just how she likes it).  We visited the mining museum, caught up on email, phone calls, and ordering stuff we need next month for the big road trip…We also enjoyed great icy treats with mangos, tamarind, and sweet and spicy flavors.

From Santa Rosalia, we headed to Puerto Don Juan.  This was a neat little hurricane hole that was not fogged in when we were hoping for a spot to stop.  There was a gap in the rocks to see sunset across the bay.  There were some lonely coyotes by the water’s edge and desert scenery in all directions.

From Puerto Don Juan, we headed to Puerto Refugio.  The sea lions were the most amazing part of Puerto Refugio.  There is a sea lion rookery here and all of the moms, babes, and juveniles hang out here while the males go off swimming.  They are some of the loudest, barking creatures that I have ever heard.  They are very curious creatures and also seem to be very silly.  It was really fun to dinghy up to their island, let them get used to us to know we weren’t a threat and then watch their antics.  They flopped, rolled, slid on their bellies, barked, swam and closely watched us.  When we were leaving the island for Puerto Penasco, a juvenile male swam right by our boat, jumped out of the water, twisted his body to bend at the waist and look at us upright, looked directly at us and barked and yelled like crazy.  It was one of the most amazing animal encounters I’ve ever experienced.  Willie didn’t know what to make of him!  Hopefully we’ll get to go back to swim with them when it is not mating season.

Finally, from Puerto Refugio we headed to Puerto Penasco and currently, that is the end of SV Love & Luck’s sailing log.  We will fill you in on PP for our next update.  Thanks for reading.

You may have to close your ears…

A Post by Julie. (Enhanced by crew in blue italics- except Lucy who refused to participate)

So, the long overdue Day 2, (delayed due to some legal issues with which we were involved).

Saturday, of our Panama Canal Experience began around 8:00am. We thought we were leaving around noon, so when we saw the advisors showing up, we hurried to get ready for the day. Sadly, we ended up with a whole new crew of advisors. We loved Carlos on Day 1, so we were hoping to see him again today. Our new advisor arrived, (said one word, which we assume is his name) had some breakfast with us, and settled in to his seat in the rear of our cockpit snoozing and looking at his phone. We had about a 5 hour ride through the Gatun Lake, a crocodile infested lake which supplies all of the drinking water to Panama City. There were a few resorts along the banks, but mostly Panama Canal traffic—huge container ships, cruise ships, 2 other yachts and us.

The kids fixed lunch prior to our reaching the 1st lock. Soon after, we were told to get ready to raft up. No problem—should be a lot easier in daylight (or so we thought). However, the middle advisor decided to change the way we rafted up from the night before. Our advisor deferred to him, so we changed our lines all around and finally got rafted up. Now, the midship advisor wanted all of the captains to practice steering with his commands. Unfortunately, the advisor never was able to get the boats all in sync. We went to the right, to the left, right, left (when we were supposed to be going straight)…Instead of waiting for the lock to be ready and figuring out how to control our raft of boats, he directed our raft to tie up on the wall prior to going into the lock ON OUR SIDE. Julie was not very fond of this idea, and let our advisor know, (we think Mom woke him up from his YouTube trance) but to no avail. We ended up docking on the wall very quickly with a bang and a scrape. The advisors were not concerned in the least, (YouTube was still more important) but we took a chunk of fiberglass out of the back of our sugar scoop (which is at the back of our boat). Now, we understood what those big round fenders are for. The actual locking down was quite easy. Unfortunately, the lack of communication between us and the midship advisor did not get any better throughout the rest of the day.

For the second lock, we again rushed up to it before the lock was ready for us. Again, we docked on the wall ON OUR SIDE, and again we scraped and bumped against the wall prior to the lock. (Note: the normal process of locking is to stay in the middle of the chamber, never near a wall.) Again, locking down was easy.

Locks 2 and 3 are connected and as we were already in the middle, we just needed to move directly forward slowly. As we started moving from lock 2 to 3, we ended up going too fast, but the advisor kept telling us to keep going forward. The line handlers on the side of the canal were running to try to keep up with us as we swiftly headed towards the closed front door of the lock. We were going TOO fast—and now we were aiming for the wall ON OUR SIDE – again. Mark yelled to the advisors that we were going too fast, Julie also yelled we were going too fast and we were going to hit—in 10 feet, in 5 feet, and then bang. The advisor once again wasn’t worried about a thing. We scraped the wall going forward with our fenders squishing, sliding up, sliding down, and eventually tearing loose from the boat (with a very loud BANG) and bending our stanchion (the post that holds up our lifelines). Then, the advisor ordered the raft in reverse which sent our back corner fast and furious into the lock wall, causing a pretty big crack in the fiberglass along the waterline. Mom was yelling. She now has Panama Canal words that rival Dad’s engine work, bilge work, and head work words (This statement does not do the linguistic explosion justice. It was quite the spectacle. I (Mark) have never been prouder, Heidi’s ears are still recovering, Lucy is still annoyed by all of this (especially our re-telling, as she thinks we’re not being nice), and Sally is still in shock. Fenton was a bit shocked and began questioning all of his life’s decisions that led him to that point. Along with our advisors, a guy on the lock wall got quite the earful when he tried to tell Julie ‘don’t to worry about it, it’ll be fine’.). Again, locking down went fine…The advisors looked at the damage, shook their heads, and took selfies of themselves with a big cruise ship in the background (funny side note: the clientele of the cruise ship were largely European – and not to reinforce any stereotypes, but, there were a lot of guys in speedos and tighty-whiteys waving at us from their cabin balconies – it was quite the sight). Argh!
On the way out of the 3rd lock, we were greeted with the beautiful Pacific Ocean. We picked up our lost fenders, called our agent, and began the process of filing a formal complaint against the Panama Canal Authority. Our agent was amazing, showed up within a few hours of our incident, and helped prepare us for the process to follow. On Sunday, we had multiple visitors photographing our damage and taking statements. (While everybody was courteous and professional, they all told us we didn’t have a chance of ‘winning’ our case). We went to a court hearing on Monday morning. The process was amazingly efficient, professional, and quick. At the hearing, the advisors definitely showed their inadequacies and we came across well (at one point, the attorney for the Panama Canal Authority had to tell the advisers to stop talking, as they were making fools of themselves). Mark did a great job showing what happened. Our hope was that this group of advisors would not be able to lead another raft down the way we went down—bumping and scraping the whole way. We would find out the results in about a month…

So, it has now been a month. The decision was made. The advisors were at fault for their general incompetence. We were also at fault—not for anything we did or didn’t do, but for being a small boat that needs to be handlined through the Canal (vs the big ships that are pulled through the canal by large locomotives). Every boat like us has to sign a waiver saying that they accept this risk. We are now getting estimates for the work to be done and we will move on. The repair is really not large and we’ve done a temporary fix, but the fact that the advisors really didn’t care about the damage to our boat and didn’t listen to us made us feel the need to make sure something was done. We hope this decision will lead to better advisors for all.

Over the month of February, we had a great visit with family and friends back in the states. While we were originally planning to head west to French Polynesia and New Zealand, we have changed directions and are now heading northwest to Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico. We plan to spend hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez and likely do a camping road trip through the western National Parks in the US and Canada during the hot months. We also will be doing much more research on Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. We still plan to go west and will spend some time figuring out what job opportunities await us in New Zealand and the best places to visit with Willie—our Portuguese Water Dog. Dogs are not so easy to bring through the South Pacific.

Now that the Panama Canal chapter is finally closed, we expect to be back up and running with our blog. The kids have lots of stories to tell of new friends, surfing, bioluminescence, and hopefully a hike or two in the not so distant future.

Hey guys! We just wanted to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving from the crew of SV Love & Luck, and we hope that you all had a fantastic day of family and food and thankfulness. We spent the day preparing a wonderful feast to eat with friends, and finished it off by welcoming in the Christmas season. We’re all incredibly thankful to be with family and friends on this excellent adventure and we can’t wait to see what the future holds. Happy turkey day everybody!

 

Gobble gobble,

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