Bahamas Week 3

Greetings from Conception Island, Bahamas! Where we are living the Life!

Last I left off was at Thompson Bay, Long Island. We left the next day and had an excellent sail up to Simms averaging around 7 ½ kts… that’s super fast for us! The sailing and weather conditions were amazing and the wind was perfect. When we arrived we went ashore and walked around town and hitchhiked all the way to a Resort called Stella Maris (hitchhiking is really easy in the Bahamas and almost everybody picks you up and it’s always interesting to meet the locals and learn a bit about their life). We have been here before and it is fun. The Resort has lots of games and pools and a great view of the ocean from the cottages. We had a very fun evening and enjoyed ourselves. In the morning we had a good sail back out to Conception where we were a couple of weeks ago with My Aunt Pam. Conception Island is a beautiful island that sits in amazing blue water. It does not have any towns. Instead it has gorgeous green, tall palm trees that cover the island with its natural beauty. The beaches are wonderful and are so much fun to have the sand slide between your toes and let the sun tan you while you enjoy the warmth! When we got here there were about 22 boats, which is a lot, and the most by far we’ve ever seen here. The children boats started showing up, which is awesome for me and there have been no shortage of them! We went to the beach and played, and splashed around in the water, and hung out on our boat. Our good friends Bob and Sheri on Shamal showed up and gave us this huge Mahi-Mahi, because their refrigerator was overflowing! That was nice of them and they came over for dinner and brought their cat Simba that is the perfect boat cat and is so fluffy and soft. He counts as a child and I had lots of fun roaming around with him on our boat! The next morning Sheri taught Yoga and we went in and played on the beach and did some Yoga, which loosened us up. We did all sorts of stuff like wakeboarding with all the children and jumping off the boats, swimming in the water, and playing on a rope swing.

Every now and then it’s nice to have a relaxing evening and play some fun games. Looking for shells along the beach is also fun to find all these amazing shells along the shoreline. Another fun and cool thing we did was make friends with a Mega Yacht … 110 feet! We were running out of water and didn’t want to leave this beautiful island (which would mean a 6 hour sail to go get water). We hold around 110 gallons and that can last us almost 2 weeks, if we’re really careful. That means like a dribble shower to get wet and another to rinse … so all 3 of us, on a good day, should only use 8 gallons, which includes showers, drinking water and dishes! You should try it sometime! They were really nice to us and gave us a lot of water and we got to meet William the Captain and the First Mate Andy! It was fun to talk to them and learn a little about their lives.

You probably think that all we are doing down here is playing, having fun, enjoying the beautiful Bahamas, and living the good life. But … that isn’t entirely true. Everyday we’re not traveling, I do school. Sometimes, I just wake up and don’t even get out of bed! I go until lunch and then afternoons I’m free to play! Occasionally, we will have a bonfire on the beach at night and everyone in the anchorage will bring some food to share. The other night we had 33 kids show up! We play all kinds of fun games like flashlight tag, football and just make up our own ones. It is really cool!

It was my Dad’s Birthday the other day, so be sure to wish him one if you email him! We had a very fun time celebrating it in the tropical scenery … opening presents, snorkeling, wake boarding and surfing behind the dinghy and the most delicious birthday cake ever.

By now the anchorage is starting to empty out and all the boats are starting to leave. Just a few children boats are left now. Everyone is leaving to get protection from a storm that might be coming through. It is just us and a boat called Liberty who have Josh, Chris, Nancy, and Dave on board. It is fun and we are having a good time hanging out with them. We took a beautiful walk on the rocky seashore that has an amazing view and was really cool and sort of like a jungle expedition. We made it to a beach and walked the whole thing, which was pretty far. We played in the sand and found lots of pretty sea glass at the other end until we decided to turn around and walk back. This morning my Mom and I and Liberty went back to Turtle Creek which runs trough the interior of the island, through mangroves with the bluest of waters … it is really beautiful … we looked around and found this beautiful Conch. We left when it started to rain and ducked under a huge mangrove bush that had lots of fish swimming around and was in deep beautiful blue water. We will be leaving Sunday for Emerald Bay or George Town.

I will be posting another Blog in a week or so be sure to check it out! But as you may have figured out, our plans change and we try to go where the wind blows!

Bahamas Week 1

Hello again! We have made it to our boat and it so good to be back! Before we left, our good friends the Kers came to visit us and it was a Blast! They have 3 children that are my age and they are all fun to be with. After that we had a pleasant flight down to Vero Beach, Florida where we stayed with my Gramma and Grampa for 1 day and then it was down to George Town, in Exuma, Bahamas! We had a nice flight down there and it was so much fun to see all of the islands along the way.

When we arrived in George Town we provisioned which means to organize and provide all of the supplies that you would need to be out on the ocean. Then my Aunt Pam flew in and stayed with us for a week, which was a lot of fun! We showed her all around George Town and she got to experience Johnny’s delicious Conch Salad that she loved. That night we went out to dinner at this Rake and Scrape where a bunch of Bahamians play music by doing stuff like scraping a screwdriver up and down a saw. I think the mosquitoes thought we tasted good because the next day everyone else except me was covered in itchy red spots! The next day we took a long, really rough, but beautiful trip to Conception where I made the mistake of staying below! You can figure out what happened next! It was so good to be back and I think my Aunt loved it! When we got there we went ashore and swam in the water that was like a hot tub and then we played at the beach and made marble rolls then built sand castles. The next day we took a dinghy exploration to the other side and went in this place that was called Turtle Cove. It was amazing! There were tons of turtles that were all zooming around at a very high velocity! Then we went around the backside of the island where it was super rough and walked the beach looking for hamburgers (A pretty shell) and Sea Beans (Also a shell.) My Aunt found a Hamburger and I found a Hamburger and a Sea Bean! They are really cool! We did some snorkeling out on this reef that extends about 5 miles out! That was also cool and it was fun to be back in the water. Then we sailed back to George Town and said our good byes to my Aunt Pam.

Just the other day we sailed over to Long Island for Easter. I had a wonderful Easter doing an Egg Cracking Competition, Easter Egg Hunt, and decorating Easter Eggs. We met up with our good friends who we met in the Bahamas last year, Side By Side, (who also visited us last summer in Sun Valley, Idaho), Taua, and Liberty, who all have a bunch of children.

We are now in Long Island and everything is going very well! I will be posting another Blog next week. Hope everyone is doing well!

From, Colby Marsh

Sun Valley Idaho and the Bahamas 3/12/10

Hello everyone! This is Colby here and I am posting a new Blog. We are about ready to head to the Bahamas on our 40 ft. sailboat named Asolare. But
first I thought I might inform you on what has been going on here in Sun Valley Idaho. Spring Break is about to start and I am in school right now. School is going well for me and I have lots of activities going on. I am doing a little Espanol (Spanish) as well as some Guitar
Lessons and Snowboarding on my Free Ride Team on Saturdays. I also am doing quite a bit of Skiing and Snowboarding with My Family. I do
Karate too on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have a beautiful home and a wonderful place to live! It is tons of fun to play around here!

Just recently we got back from our Bahamas Trip that we took at Christmas time. I would have to say that it was an okay trip. The weather there was not that great. We got to stay at my Gramma and Grampa's house for a while which was a lot of fun. It is so much fun to hang out with them and swim in their pool and hot tub. It is really special because I don't get to seem them very frequently. When we finally got everything set up on the boat we got to leave and ended up staying in Miami, Florida for a while because of the weather. I have to say and my parents would agree that Miami was definitely an interesting place. My Mom and I both decided that we are very thankful for where we live! It was fun though, and we got to tour town and ride the busses and monorails, which was a cool part. There is lots of stuff going on and it is really hard to get bored there. When you are in Miami you have to lock everything up and can't leave stuff lying around. So a not so hot experience we had was coming back to our dinghy and finding that it had been messed with and our gas tank was gone. Luckily we didn't learn it the hard way and it was sort of easy to replace. So anyway it was in a way fun to explore Miami. Unfortunately our days were numbered by the time we got to George Town, Bahamas. We really only got 4 beach days in there. The nice part was that we know some friends that were fine with taking care our boat and really confidant and good with Asolare. We didn't get snorkeling and not much of that other stuff in that Trip, but it was still a good one and I am glad we had it! We will also be heading down there soon again on March 24 and this time we have close to 3 months to get everything in! I will start posting another Blog when we get down there! Take Care everyone and enjoy Life!

Colby Marsh