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December 5th, Monday - Bitter End, BVI
I
feel compelled to say that we do have bad days out here.
The other day, for example, while we were still in St. John, Cassie
and I had a miserable day struggling through school.
It was a review lesson before a test and it started out
badly from the get go. Review days are much harder
than the actual tests themselves, because the volume of
material to cover is huge. Cassie's chief
complaint is that her work is harder than her sister's.
This doesn't go over too well with her teacher.
Once off on the wrong foot like that, it is very hard to
get back on track. After four hours of really
unpleasant begging, pleading, yelling, crying and
struggling, I finally took a break and went for a kayak
ride. Paddling our heavy ocean kayak against the
current and 20 knots of breeze for 30
minutes went a long way towards improving my attitude.
At least I was able to get some aggression out without
the risk of causing slight physical and permanent
emotional damage to my eldest daughter!
Generally, the bad days are a result of one or all of us
being tired. We can really tell the difference in
the kids when they haven't had enough sleep. There
is no difference on the boat than there was at home on
that score. The trick is for the adults to handle
their nasty little moods without escalating the
situation out of control. If we are tired too, it
makes it much more difficult. I try to remember my
mom's little trick - HALT. If you are Hungry,
Angry, Lonely, or Tired, just wait a few beats before
you open your mouth. Think about what you say and
give yourself a minute to make sure it is the right
thing before you blurt it out. I have caught
myself about to make things worse many times.
Naturally, I still slip up and complicate the situation
rather than help to resolve it with my actions and
reactions. I have been working on it, though.
We still have stresses in our lives, but we don't have
the stress from an outside job on top of it all. I
figure we owe it to ourselves to take advantage of the
situation and work on the family dynamic. I'm not
sure how successful we have been so far, but at least we
are starting down the path.
All that is a preface to telling you about the glorious
day we had yesterday. We started out the morning
by taking a trek through the jungle and over the rocks
to a secret little spot that we will call the grotto.
It is a magical place tucked away and not yet discovered
by the hordes of tourists who charter down here every
year. We agreed not to publish it's location so
you'll have to ask us yourselves if you want more
details, but I will describe it for you. After a
10 minute trek through a jungle path, you step out of
the lush green hillside into a small opening with a
beach and a deep, sandy pool with rocks along the sides.
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The rocks form a little canyon through which the surge
from the North comes crashing, creating a strong
whirlpool that pushes you up towards the beach. At
first glance, I was afraid to let the girls go anywhere
close to it. But once we checked it out for
ourselves, we discovered that the force of the water was
really only on the push into the pool. The water
empties back out through the rocks much more slowly,
with hardly any pull from the pool. You could
actually get up very close to the rocky ledge that the
water comes pouring over without fear of getting dragged
over the rocks. Joe, the biggest kid in the crowd,
perfected the technique of maximizing the experience.
He would stand on the rock next to the opening and jump
into the middle of the pool just as the wave crashed in.
It was hilarious to watch and even more fun to try it
yourself. We had a crowd of 11 adults and 6 kids
in our group with us. The place is very
small and luckily we had our fill by the time the next
group came to play. The rocky sides of the canyon
provided spectacular views of the pool and surrounding
ocean and hillsides, and the climbing was easy enough
for the girls to enjoy.
We
trekked back to the dinghy and back to the boat.
We had a date to meet the Martins back at the Bitter End
Yacht Club, a 20 mile UPWIND sail. We readied the
boat for the trip and debated our strategy. It
would take us five or six hours to sail the distance,
tacking back and forth against the wind. The trade
winds had finally filled in and we had 25 knots of
breeze from the east, which was of course where our
destination lay. Glenn on "Equity" was heading the
same way and recommended taking the cut between Tortola
and Great Camanoe Island, coming out south along the
coast of Virgin Gorda and avoiding the worst of the
beating to windward and the swells out of the north.
We would have to motor a lot of the way, however.
We tacked our way back and forth, and I set the hand
lines, hoping the new lures I made would attract some
fish. Joe and I were having a ball out in the wind
and the seas and decided to make the trip staying
outside the islands in the hopes of catching a fish.
Our gamble paid off, although we lost one fish as we
were reeling it in and lost a hook on one lure to
something mighty big. We did land us a little cero
mackerel.
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Glenn had the necessary tools and ingredients onboard to
make sushi, so we invited our friends on Jaimie to join
us for our first sushi meal on Zia.
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It
was so much fun to catch and cook up a gourmet meal.
We all enjoyed the preparation and eating of it and
cleaned up the whole platter. I could get used to
this!
Lunch and a beginner's kite boarding session awaits so I
must close.
Lots of love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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