Zen and the art of waiting for wind

 

Little Farmers Cay--One of the friendliest and most
charming settlements we have visited.

Although you wouldn't know it from listening to us at certain times (like when we yell at the boys for quiet when they're going crazy right around the time we're doing something critical like anchoring or maneuvering in tight spaces), Matt and I are becoming more patient.

Safety measures

We finally used the new asymmetrical spinnaker we bought over 6 months ago. The spinnaker was just one of a number of purchases we have made that were somewhat "unplanned." From my perspective, that meant that I wasn't considering them in the costs of the boat and was surprised and unhappy to find out that we had to spend the money.

Long Island, Exumas

One of the caves near Thompson Bay

Although we weren't planning on it, we ended up leaving for Long Island on the same day as the rally of 70 or so boats from George Town. The winds were excellent and the seas would have been fine if we had gone downwind towards Thompson Bay with everyone else. Instead, we decided to sail northeast to the northern part of Long Island so that we could troll along the deep water line.

Homeschooling update

Yes, he's reading a comic book. It's high brow stuff.

One of the most common questions we get is how the homeschooling is going. Honestly, we won't know how the boys compare to traditionally schooled kids unless they get formally tested because we're not following a regimented program that has its own testing. Instead, we wanted to let the boys focus on subjects that interest them, while trying to make sure they learn the core skills they will need.

George Town

 
 

One of the big reasons that we decided to come back to the Bahamas (for the third time in a year) is that we never made it to George Town. It was invariably described as a Mecca for kids to hang out with other boat kids, but we didn't reach it because of our mechanical woes. Worse, due to our boat work delays, we were always a bit behind the migration of boat children. So we didn't really see many other kid boats most of the summer. So we really, really wanted to go to George Town, which reportedly attracts kid boats in swarms.

Stone Soup engines

We have been having fun hanging out with Shambala.

The other day, we were telling Mark and Conrad the story of Stone Soup. Basically, a stranger wrangles food out of recalcitrant townspeople on the premise that a boiled stone is good, but if you just add a few things it's even better (I guess it's really about working t ogether for the good of everyone). Matt has decided that the diesel engines on Perry are our Stone Soup.

Waste management for crazy people

Matt makes fun of me for being a big obsessed with garbage. Don't get me wrong, he's all for recycling and composting (in Chicago, he once yelled at a gangbanger-looking young adult that dropped a plastic bottle on the ground) but I have a tendency to take things to another level (you might say another planet).

My, what a lovely bunch of coconuts

Coconuts are abundant in most places in the Bahamas. Matt has reduced opening the stubborn buggers down to a near science, although we have broken a couple knives because it's sort of like opening soft rocks. We like eating it raw, toasted, and in granola. Matt makes an amazing coconut cream pie and it's fruit so it's good for you, I'm pretty sure. Recently, I got the bug to make our own coconut milk. It's easy enough to do with a blender but we didn't want to use that much power so I found a no blend method online.