We are Living the Life!

Hey Hey Hey!! Waz up? I’m going to tell you waz up here so listen closely cause I’m only going to say it once! Maybe twice if your super dopper nice to me! After leaving Atlantis with huge smiles on our faces we decided to try and get to George Town, Exuma, which is a big cruiser place with lots going on. We were still pretty far away from George Town (24 hours) so we were going to make a couple stops along the way to rest. The next spot we went to was Warderick Wells, Exumas. We did a brief stop here, staying only for a night and then we were off to Staniel Cay, Exumas. Staniel Cay is a fun spot to hang out and it has a really cool cave that you can snorkel! It also has underwater tunnels that you can dive under and come up on the outside! Plus there’s the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, which has all kinds of stuff going on! Like a gift shop a pool table and it’s also a restaurant. But we didn’t get to do ANY of that because we were still trying to get to George Town in time for the Family Island Regatta. So the next morning we headed down to G-Town!! (George Town) Yaaaaaaaaay!!! The Family Island Regatta was in full swing and there was lots of excitement in the air! The Family Island Regatta is a huge event and there are sleek sailboats where the boom sticks out way over the water and a bunch of people get on the boats and sail them around. There are different kinds of boats. The A class which is the biggest then the B class which is the medium size and then the C class which is the smallest. There are about 15-20 boats per class and all the boats race against each other. There are 3 buoys spread out in the water that the boats have to sail around and then make it across the finish line! I actually got to race again on the boats this year like I did last year! It was really fun! We even crashed into other sailboats… where I always learn a few new words! After the race my Mom, Dad, and I met up with Aly Cat who is a boat that we met a couple of years ago. There is Lou, Alison, and Caroline who is my age. We went to the beach after the race and swam in the ocean, which was a lot of fun! A beautiful day at the beach! So that night we went into town to have dinner with Aly Cat and watch the awards ceremony. It’s quite the scene…. Music blaring so hard it makes your chest THUMP, the streets are crowded with Bahamians and let me tell you some of the out fits…. WILD! They set up shacks along the street that serve every type of Bahamian dish, but lots of Conch … Conch Fritters, Conch Salad, Scorched Conch and Ribs, Chicken, Mac Cheese and always peas and rice. I also got a little trophy of a sailboat for racing and I got to shake the Prime Ministers hand! (President of the Bahamas) What a big day! The next day we said good bye to Aly Cat because they had to go home. As for the rest of the days we were there we played around and did a LOT of school (I had a DVD on Christopher Columbus due that I sent back home) but still had a good time! We stayed in GT for a week and then we decided to go down to the Jumentos and Ragged Islands, which I’ll fill you in on my next Blog. So until then…. May the wind always be at your back!

Finally in the Bahamas!!!

Heellloooo everyone!!! I imagine you are reading this right now so I’m gonna start out with telling you about our Bahama Trip! Since this is my Bahama Blog! Good idea right?! This is my 2^nd Blog as my first was last year. While you’re checking out this beautiful piece of work you should also read my Blog from last year because it is fantastic if I do say so myself!! So where did I leave off?... This is my 2^nd entry and my first one we were in Florida. So a lot has happened since then!! Whoa! Where do I start? I’ll try my best not to make you bored!

So we left Florida a couple of days later after my Dad’s B-Day and made an all night crossing to West End! Wow, and let me tell you sailing across the ocean not being able to see land for about 24 hrs, makes it a long trip! We arrived in West End and gave the boat a nice soapy wash because rolling all around in those waves got it really salty! We left the next day and did a all day sail to Great Harbour in the Berry Islands. Which by the way was the last spot we were at with all our boat friends from last year before we sailed back to Florida.

The next morning we left and sailed to my favorite place! Yes you know it!!! Wahoooooooo!!!!! Atlantis!!!!!This is also the spot we were at last year with our friends! We stayed for 4 nights!! 4 incredible nights!!! We got up each morning and did the slides and then walked around the stores on and got Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream! Yum! Yum! Plus there is Oh Sugar, which is like the BEST candy store in the World! The slides are so cool!! There’s the Mayan Temple, which has the Serpent Slide where you go in a dark tube and then you come out in this tube that’s under water and sharks are swimming around you!!! But you can breath even though it’s under water because its sealed and the sharks are just swimming around outside the tank. It’s AWESOME!!!!! Then there’s the Leap of Faith. It really is the leap of faith. It’s pretty much a straight drop down slide and you go super fast and through the tube that’s under water. I even lift off the slide for about a second. Just for the record… SUPER FUN!!!!! There is also the Challenger where you can race each other down steep slides right next to each other. There are so many other fun slides like the Jungle slide, which has plants growing around it and vines. Then you can take The Lazy River to the Power Tower. The Lazy River has all kinds of stuff like rapids and you can go under caves that have red smoke in them! You can also take it up a conveyor belt that goes to the top of the Power Tower! The Power tower has a bunch of slides like the drop where you go in an inner tube and drop down into the jet stream of water and it boosts you up into this dark slide tube. IT’S SUPER COOOOOL!! Then there’s the Abyss! It’s like the Leap of Faith. It’s a straight down drop slide, that’s in the dark and you end up in a cave!! There are also other slides like the Falls, which is similar to the Drop.

Not to make you even more jealous!... I got to have the experience of a Lifetime!!!!! I got to swim with Dolphins!!! It was AMAZING and the COOLEST thing EVER!!!!! There was a bunch of kids and we were about a group of 7. First he showed us this slide show on Dolphins and then he gave us our very own Dolphin Cay masks!! Then we got to hug and kiss the Dolphin and we all got our picture taken!! Next we got on our boogie boards and the Dolphin came up behind me and pushed me on my foot!!! The instructors showed us all the tricks the Dolphins can do and we got under water scooters!! They are fans that propel you forward in water and you control them by pushing buttons. The Dolphins did flips in the air, walked on their tails and even waved good-bye to us!! INCREDIBLE!!!!! It was an unforgettable experience that I got to do in Dolphin Cay Atlantis!!!!! So the 4 days we spent at Atlantis we packed everything in and we had the most AWESOME time EVER!!!!!

I am going to post another Blog continuing what we have been doing so this one doesn’t get to long and so you won’t get too bored! This is the Travels of Asolare, so tune in next week for another exciting episode of Our Bahama Trip!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Stuck in Paradise!

So here we are... another year goes by and we are getting our boat ready for another fantastic trip! Unfortunately we are moving nowhere fast and have had a few minor delays. They're really pretty big delays but on the bright side our boat is still floating! We arrived in Florida 2 weeks ago from today and made it safely here. I had a week left of Spring Break and spent my days swimming in my Gramma and Grampa's pool and hot tub, going to movies, water parks with diving boards and if I got really gutsy I would occasionally help with our boat. We have a lot of new improvements this year like the stairs going down to our boat and some of the walls and doors are now varnished so they look really pretty and shiny! Other parts are oiled and they are sort of a dull color. It looks really great. We also got a brand new electric head (Toilet)! You are probably thinking that's really cool. Well before, we had to manually flush with a hand pump. We had to bend over and pull up and down on the handle for about 30 times. Now all you have to do is push a button! So getting back to the delays..... As you may not know our mast was painted by the Mack Sails Team (Sailing Company) and they had to take all the lines and wires out of the mast when the mast was out of our boat. On Thursday we sailed down to a place called Crackerboy Boat Works. My Mom drove down and my Dad and I sailed the boat down which is about 2 hrs. In the car it's about 25 min. We average about 6 kts. (on good days) which means 'nautical miles per hour', which is a measure of speed or velocity. A nautical mile is about 1.15 times the distance of a regular mile. So wind blowing 69 kts in equal to 77 mph (69 x 1.15 = 77 mph) and for us to travel 60 miles in our sailboat takes about 10 hours and in a car traveling 60 mph it will only take about 1 hour! When we got to Cracker boys they hauled our boat out of the water on a travel lift which has 2 slings that go under our boat and brought it up out of the water. After we were done cleaning our mast, bottom of the boat and putting on a new propeller, the crane came over and picked up our mast and lowered it into our boat. They forgot a lot of things. The messenger and the wires on top of our mast were messed up. They lost our baby stay! (A rod supporting the mast.) They had to cut our spinnaker halyard because it got caught around the mast, plus a bunch of other things. Not to mention that there are a bunch of projects on the boat that are not going as planned. So now we're back at Gramma and Grampa's dock and it's going on 3 weeks here but still living the Life. I am also doing school each day. Thought I'd tell you that before you get too jealous! Another thing that's cool is we met up with our friends we met a couple years ago in the Bahamas, Priority, and spent a couple days with them which was fun. Now my Aunt Pam and Aunt Cynthia are here and we all have happy smiles on our face! :) So everything is well here and maybe soon we'll get over to the Bahamas, but as for now here's to another year!

The BEST Trip EVER!!!!!

Yo yo yo! Waz happinin? …How should we start? I know! How about if I tell you what we have been doing in the Bahamas. Ya! That sounds like a great idea. So… here we go…

We left Staniel Cay, Exuma and decided to try and hook up with some friends of ours that we met when we first started our trip. We sailed to Hawksbill (also in the Exumas) and then all of our friends arrived…Side By Side, Liberty, Las Sirenas, Morning Glory, Sol Mate, Nathaniel! We all got together on the beach and had a really fun party! It was AWESOME! Everyone brought something to eat and drink and we had a campfire too. Meanwhile, the kids were off having a really good time playing. Don’t stop now! What are you waiting for? Read on! The next day was a water day. We brought out my surfboard and got pulled around by a water ski rope, pulled by our dinghy! How fun is that! We also did this really fun event with our good friends Las Sirenas, who have Haley, Alana, Esme’, Scott, and their dog Reina! They made this really cool Dolphin! It is a rectangular white board with 3 holes at the top. You have a mask on and get pulled with a rope, by a dinghy, at idle speed. You press down with your fingers to go down under the water and pull up on the board to go up! At night we all got together and celebrated a Chihuahua in a cave. A Chihuahua is a celebration where you cut up an orange peel into slices and let it float on top of a big bowl of rum. Then you light it on fire and the whole thing turns blue. You stick your finger in the bowl of flaming rum and orange peels until your finger catches on fire then you put it in your mouth. It does not hurt… but it is a little scary looking at your finger and thinking “ahhhhhhha! My finger is on fire!” You can’t stare at it for too long else it WILL start to hurt. Anyway, we were all together in this cave and it was pretty fun! That was a really fun day! Come on! You have to make it to the next paragraph! I know this is hard work and you are sweating… but this is a really good Blog and you should read it! Pretty Please with a cherry on top! Good, thank you very much!

So, then it was off to Shroud. All of the other boats went also. That was a lot of fun! At Shroud we took the dinghy through a Mangrove Creek, out to the Ocean, to a really fun place….the Washing Machine. (It isn’t really a Washing Machine… They just call it that because the water swirls around in a circle really fast!) There is a deep lagoon and as the water goes out to the Ocean it gets shallow. You can climb up on rocks and jump off and the water will carry you back to the same place you were at! You can also climb up this mountain and it has a great view. Everyone had a really fun, great time and we all brought a lunch so we got to bathe in the water and sit in the sand while eating our lunch! (Sorry am I making you jealous?) On the way back we were in a kayak pulled behind a dinghy, going full speed! We also got pulled around on a boogie board! (Just thought I would let you know that we are still doing school everyday!)

After that fun time, we went over to Norman’s Cay (our good friends Las Sirenas and Morning Glory sailed over to Atlantis that day!) We snorkeled on a BIG plane that was in the ocean. We saw a Puffer Fish and 2 squid! That night we went to a Restaurant called McDuff’s with Side by Side and Liberty. SOOOO good to have a big cheeseburger! That night it got a little stormy and we hung out until the morning and then decided to go to one of my favorite places…that’s right….Atlantis! Yaaaaaaa whoooooooo! Yippy! We arrived in the afternoon and I got together with our good friends Las Sirenas! Morning Glory with Steven, Rivers, Amy, and Arthur were also there. We all had so much fun playing together! We went on ALL the slides! One of them, The Leap of Faith is a giant slide you go straight down and then fly really fast into a tube that goes through a huge fish tank, where sharks and other fish are swimming around, until you splash out into a pool! Sometimes you even drop off the slide. Ya! You can get pretty nervous! Sometimes you get too scared to go. Another one is called The Serpent Slide, you slide down through this dark twirly slide and go through something like a water sprinkle and then slide slowly through the tube under water and observe the sea creatures! Then you can race down these other slides that go up and down and time you! The Lazy River, which is really fun, has rapids and at the end you can ride it up a conveyer belt to another castle where there are MORE fun slides! These steep slides have boosters that take you upward into a dark spiral slide and into these bubbly rapids that spin back into the Lazy River! Finally there is the Abyss, which is similar to the Leap of Faith, except it is in darkness and you end up in a cave! There are lots of things to do while at Atlantis besides the slides, like visiting the aquarium where Rose the 20 ft. Giant Manta lives!, watching movies, hanging out in the Kids Center, and enjoying the wonderful Theme Park!

We all went to the Berrys the next day and had a really bumpy, rough sail over. Morning Glory, Las Sirenas and Southern Star (Jason, Molly and 17 month old Porter!) were with us. We had an outstanding time! Everyday we were swimming in the water, snorkeling, going to the beach, exploring the islands, doing water sports and then at night…..we PARR-TEH!!!!! (Party!!!!!) Yaya! One day we went over to a Bluehole which is really deep water in a lagoon on land or out at sea. There was this platform of rocks where you could jump off into the Bluehole that was 20 feet down! The lagoon was huge and you could swim around and after you jumped you’d swim back to the shore and walk back up the path and do it again! (Alana and I did it about 12 times!) One night, we had a Fiesta after harvesting a lot of fish and Conch from the sea! Everyone helped in the preparations and then brought something special over to Morning Glory for an amazing meal! After having such a fun time, we headed up to Great Harbor at the north end of the Berrys. We took our dingy through this really tight mangrove creek, going full speed and saw a stingray! (Better than any ride at Disney Land!) We bathed in pools, went snorkeling, surfed behind the dinghy, walked the beach, and found amazing shells, like Sea Eggs. (Sea Eggs are dead Sea Urchins without the spikes). We had a farewell party, for we were all going our separate way. The next day it was hard to leave Morning Glory, Southern Star and Las Sirenas, who have become such great friends! But we will see them again!

We sailed overnight and crossed the Gulf Stream. I know what you are thinking. WOW! Doing that overnight! It is not actually that bad, especially when the moon and the stars are out and the water is calm. My parents usually do shifts, which means that they take turns keeping watch. (I helped out a bit this time as well). We are now in Vero Beach, Florida cleaning up the boat and will be returning home to Sun Valley, Idaho on Saturday! Can’t wait to see some of you soon! I really hope you liked my Blog! I know that I am really proud of it! I hope you have enjoyed keeping in touch with me! It will always be here and it is so much fun for me to look back on! Enjoy Life and live it to the fullest! Hope you have had a great time looking at this!

This has been Colby Marsh and the Travels of Asolare!!!!!