In May we made new friends…

On May 6th I got to have a real treat for dinner because ever since the restaurants closed, Dad has been cooking dinner.  Dad’s cooking is really good, but it’s nice to have someone else cook our food.  Mimi and Fabio (from Endless Summer) came over to our boat and Fabio cooked Carbonara. Dad made focaccia and salad. Fabio is Italian, he is from Rome. Mimi is from San Francisco. Fabio and Mimi go every year to his mom’s house in Italy for the olive harvest. Mom and Dad warned me there might be meat in the pasta (prosciutto) and thought I would not like it, but the truth is I have not met a pasta or french fries I did not like. Pasta and french fries are my favorite foods. French fries are my first favorite and pasta is my second favorite. I enjoyed the carbonara so much, I had seconds. It was really exciting to have dinner cooked by a true Italian.

Mimi and Fabio cooked for me again a few nights later. This time he cooked saffron risotto and Mimi cooked tiramisu. Turns out, I was up most of the night because my body is not used to caffeine (in the tiramisu); I could hardly fall asleep. It was hard figuring out how to fall asleep since the melatonin I usually take did not work. I finally figured out a way to fall asleep. I read a book on my kindle and then I put a lavender scented eye wrap over my eyes. I woke up in the morning and I was tired.

A few dayes ago I had a new experience for me. I got to do something I have never done before. I got to go lobster hunting with Mimi, Makenzie, Ella and Mom. The lobster that we tried to find is called the Caribbean Spiny Lobster. The Caribbean Spiny Lobster hides in caves and crevices during the day. They come out at twilight and dinner hours to hunt for crabs and small snails. The lobster will eat most anything it finds. The lobster’s shell looks like a skeleton. The skeleton does not expand because the exoskeleton does not expand. The lobster goes through this process called molting creating another exoskeleton in the process. The lobster population is declining. Scientists do not know if the lobsters are vulnerable to extinction or not. The lobsters are vulnerable to over fishing. People usually catch them with gloved hands because if they do not wear gloves the spine will cut their hand or they catch them with baited fishing traps. Dad  tried to catch them with the speargun but he could not get any.

One of our last nights in St. Thomas, Mom, Dad, Patrick, Rita, Cara,(our friends from Bella), Mimi, Fabio (Endless Summer) and I went to Bob Apfel’s house for dinner and a hangout. Bob’s house is a restored sugar plantation on St Thomas which is where they would make sugar and rum in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Bob gave us a tour of the Fortuna Plantation. The plantation is like a very nice series of cabins with many kitchens, dens, and bedrooms. It would make a good bed and breakfast. One of the outdoor rooms was a screening room which is where we watched the movie called, Where the Boys Are. This movie came out in 1960. I liked the movie. For dinner dad made steaks and Fabio made pasta with peas and mushrooms and I had a side of carrots. It was delicious but there was so much of it, that I was full. I was so full that I almost fell asleep when Bob was reading and telling about the history of his house. A famous author named John Patrick once lived there. After dinner we hiked up to Bob’s friend Louie’s house. His house was originally owned by Eleanor Heckert whose 1968 novel, Muscovado, tells the history of Bob’s house. Robert Ludlum owned Louie’s house for a long time and wrote the Born Identity books while there. It was cool getting to see both houses and learning about the history of each house. Another thing that was fun was getting to meet Louie and meeting Louie’s dogs.

We are leaving the USVI this weekend and heading to Grenada!
Talk to you next time from Grenada!

Spring Break 2020 Yay!
We had my sisters Makenzie and Ella, and their friends Lily and Anna, come visit us on the boat for spring break. Which means I got to skip school while the girls were here! We got the girls at Brewers Bay in St. Thomas US Virgin Islands. The next day we went sailing from St. Thomas to Maho Bay on St. John’s. We went to the beach at Maho and just hung out. I went walking down the beach with Makenzie and Anna and saw a lot of people. I then went with Makenzie and Anna to follow a cute boy. We ended up at the beach bar, where they got drinks and got me a diet coke. Makenzie stepped on a bee and it’s stinger got in her foot. She was limping and whining like crazy when Mom and Dad put a needle in her foot to get the stinger out. We then ate at the beach bar. The seats were like pods or domes with cushions in them, except they were made of tree bark instead of glass.

We went to the town of Cruz Bay on St. John’s a couple of days later and explored. We passed by one of the restaurants where I had a drink last month with Dad and Kent Meredith that had pesky flies in it. Mom, Dad and I got a drink at a bar while the girls went shopping. We then had lunch at a restaurant called the Tap’n’Still, that was a “Come Back Shack” and “Five Guys” all in one. They had Five Guy’s seating area and hotdogs and Come Back Shack’s ordering system and french fries. Later I went shopping with the girls and got salt water taffy while they got stickers and t-shirts.

We then sailed from St John’s to Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands.  We anchored in White Bay where Soggy Dollar Beach Bar and Hendo’s Hideout are. Our first stop was to Foxy’s for a drink. The dinghy ride to get there was a wet one since it was one bay over and windy. Next we went to Soggy Dollar for a drink and then to Hendo’s to get food. We hung out on the beach, swam and watched boats come in. There were different kinds of boats; there was not just one type of boat. I saw mono-hulls, catamarans, speed boats and even a spa boat, where you could get massages. We then got ice cream. I got cherry vanilla. It was good. It was really good but not as good as the cookies and cream last week. The girl’s last day before leaving for the airport we took them to a restaurant called, Stone House Cafe. After we ate we said goodbye to the girls; Mom and Dad had tears in their eyes.

In late March, we had our friends Don and Melissa Marlett down on the boat for a visit. We went to pick them up from St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. I stayed home and watched the dogs while Mom and Dad went to pick up Don and Mel in the dinghy.

We hung out on the boat with Don and Mel and played fibbage a couple of nights. On their second day we sailed to Ditliff Bay in St. John’s.  The water was rough with big waves, which made Mel and I get a bit seasick on the way over. We spent a couple of nights at Ditliff Bay swimming and snorkeling. We saw a starfish!  Mom really wanted to have a starfish on the boat for a long time, so she went and killed the starfish.  That is how she got nicknamed Savage.

We sailed over to Maho Bay in St. John’s, no one got seasick, thank goodness! We just chilled at Maho Bay. The next day Mel and I went kayaking on the paddle board over to the beach. We swam off the beach and saw four turtles, a sting ray, plus lots of fish.

After a couple of nights at Maho Bay, we sailed over to Waterlemon Cay and spent a couple of nights there. We took Don and Mel to the Annaberg Sugar Mill Plantation. We hiked up to the plantation by walking near the water from our boat.

Early the next morning we went to Hassel Bay on St.Thomas to take Don and Mel to the airport. When Don and Mel left we moved back to our favorite spot at Brewer’s Bay and watched their plane fly out.

On January 22nd we arrived in the tropics at Mayaguana, Bahamas (the most southern Bahamas Island). We had a two-day passage sail to get there. We sailed through breakfast, lunch and dinner. I got to sleep at the fly bridge. We saw the sunset while the boat was moving. We eventually stopped at 2:00 in the morning and I moved down to my bedroom. While I was sleeping, we moved to a new anchor spot. Once we got to our new anchor spot, we got to go for a morning swim. The water was crystal clear. The water was nine feet deep. We could see sand dollars, fish and conch at the bottom. Chance was a lifeguard. Caper was a Champion swimmer. We had to tie him to the boat, so he would not swim too far away from the boat.

On January 23rd we went to explore the island of Mayaguana. We walked on the island and met a Police guy and his son. We explored Abraham’s Settlement on Mayaguana and checked out the beach. We did not stay on the beach because the dogs got sand spurs on their feet. I went into one of the little stores, which was in a lady’s garage. She had dogs and the dogs were crazy protective and scared of our dogs. The store didn’t really have much. All we got there was eggs and an orange Fanta. Thank goodness for the Fanta, I was dying of thirst that day.

From Jan 27-Jan 30 we made our way from the Bahamas to Puerto Rico. We stayed in Puerto Rico for only a few days. We rented a car and checked out a few places (and a brewery) while there, plus grocery shopped and bought new phones for internet. We then had a 1-day sail to the USVI.

On February 8th we went on a hike in St. Johns, USVI. We hiked up what used to be a Danish road they used to get from one settlement to another. It was a strenuous hike to the top of the hill. We went so high up to the top of the hill that we had a really good view of Maho Bay. We got to do it with Kent and Kathy Meredith of s/v Wind Ensemble. It was a long hike to me because I was already tired. The name of the hike was Mary Hope Trail.

On Feb 10th Me, Mom and Kathy took an island taxi to Trunk Bay on St. John’s where we went snorkeling and hung out at the beach. What was neat about the snorkel is there were markers that told us what the fish were and it was a national park, so we had to pay to get in. Afterwards, we took a taxi back to Maho Bay and ate at the beach bar with Dad and Kent. We then went back to the boat and danced along to Abba music. We had Kent and Kathy over for dinner.

On Feb 17th Mom, Dad and I went on a hike to a Sugar Mill Plantation. We saw the ruins of the old factory, windmill, cooking and boiling areas as well as the slave headquarters. In the early 19th century the sugar mill was the only way to get sugar in the USVIs. At the time they would have slaves working because they found the work a whole lot easier if the slaves did it. The sugar cane would go through the windmill and into the boiling room where it would go from copper kettle to copper kettle. The slaves would then cook it in the kitchen and bring it to the people who own the plantation so they could sell it.

On Feb 23rd we went motoring from the US Virgin Islands to the British Virgin Islands. We stopped at Tortola to check into Customs. The British Virgin Islands restaurants do not cater to pet dogs because they do not believe in pet dogs or friendly dogs. The dogs they know and have on the islands are not usually pets but wild dogs and they are not always friendly. They are scared of dogs because they have never been around dogs very much. Caper and Chance had to be checked by the local vet to see if they were friendly and healthy. One of the restaurants we wanted to eat at on the patio in Tortola said no because we had the dogs. After Customs we moved over to Cooper Island. There we got a mooring ball instead of anchoring. We went to the island and it was very touristy like the shops and the restaurant are all stuff that you would see in a tourist town and the environment was really pretty, especially the view of the water. The restaurants on Cooper Island were nice and they let us be there with the dogs.

On Saturday January 4th, we got to experience the Junkanoo in George Town, Bahamas. It only comes once a year. It is usually in late December after Christmas on Boxing Day, but it got postponed this year to January because of the weather. Junkanoo is a celebration of freedom from slavery.

It had really loud music and there were a lot of people there. Once the parade started about 8:30 there would be a group of dancers and musicians once an hour. We would have to wait an hour for the next group. The parade was on “Island Time.”

What was unique about the costumes is that they were made with feathers and sequins. Only one person could carry them. They could make them big or small whatever they like but only one person can carry it. The parade was really fun to see and experience. We also met some new friends there.

On January 8th we went to Sand Dollar Beach just off of George Town, Bahamas and the dogs were crazy! The dogs wanted to get off the dinghy and swim to the beach, so they did. They jumped off the dinghy a hundred feet from the beach and swam to the beach and almost beat us to the beach. When we took the dogs for a walk on the beach, Caper did not walk he swam and wandered off.  He came back to Dad’s whistle and met a dog friend. Chance follows Caper when he takes off. I guess they wanted to do their own thing today.

This is a Beach Shack built by other cruisers over the years at Sand Dollar Beach where we were anchored:

On January 17 we went to the famous blue hole called Dean’s Blue Hole on Long Island, Bahamas and swam. This blue hole is the deepest known salt water blue hole with an entrance below sea level. It is 663 feet deep. This was a neat and fun place (Dean’s Blue Hole). Nature’s swimming pool.

We rented a car to drive on Long Island and we went to a couple of more beaches and stores. We went to a Italian restaurant called Chez Pierre. The food was really good. It was my birthday celebration so I got to order margarita pizza, spaghetti and french fries. And I got free dessert at Chez Pierre!

We had left the dogs on the boat and they were barking like crazy (as seen on the security cameras). Caper even went up on the table and laid there all day! Crazy dogs. Singing for us to come home.

We came back to the boat to see the dogs, who went crazy with happiness.

We started the new year at Sand Dollar Beach in Stocking Island, Exuma. We dingyed over to the beach and Mom wanted to find sand dollars. Since it is Sand Dollar Beach and because she used to look for Sand Dollars when she was a kid. Dad found them first. We hiked up some very steep, rocky hills. I wore Chacos, so my feet wouldn’t get hurt. I recommend wearing Chacos/tennis shoes when hiking up those hills because your feet could easily get hurt. We wanted to cross to the other side of the Island to see the Atlantic. Since there was a poisonous tree in our way, we decided to go back where we started and we did. We went back and we swam. The dogs had so much energy, they were always one step ahead. Dad tried calling them but there were times where they would not listen.  When we got back on the boat in their defense, they drank a lot of water.They were so tired, they went to the bathroom on the wrong side of the boat. They got in trouble.

The dogs pose for a picture:

Chance is telling me to come on:

Finally Chance is worn out!