Facing My Fears

The first time I ever snorkeled was in 2012 when Darryl and I vacationed in French Polynesia.  You would not believe the fuss I made over this, okay, well maybe those who know me would not be surprised by the fuss I made.  But the idea of putting my face in the water and breathing is completely counter-intuitive for me.  So I basically would hold my breath with the snorkel in my mouth and then come up sputtering.  It was pathetic.  I finally got a hang of it thankfully, but not without testing D's patience.

So you can imagine that the idea of scuba diving never was on my radar.  There is no way I would ever consider being far below the surface without being able to easily raise my face to breath if needed.  Well, here I am now, with my Open Water certification in hand.  Hard to believe that I pulled it off.  Some of the skills were a huge stretch for me.  The idea of taking my mask off under water, swimming around and then placing the mask back on my face, struck fear in my heart.  But I did it!

But this is not all about me.  Doing the scuba lessons with Ella, was one of my proudest mom moments in my nearly 11 years of this parenting gig.  Like mom, like daughter, Ella had some reservations about doing the scuba diving, but she was motivated enough to let us sign her up.  She also had to stretch her comfort zone to get this done, but she did it with amazing maturity and confidence.  She was a rock star in seeing it through.  I could not be more proud of Ella!!!  I can't wait until Iris turns 10 and we can actually all go as a family exploring the Ocean Blue from below the surface.

Darryl, Ella, me and Sherrie with our phenomenal instructor, Lucia at GoodDive.

Ella was not always keen for the walk from the dive shop to the water with the tank, but she did it with dear Lucia giving a helping hand.

One of the last skills we had to master, an emergency ascent, here Ella made it look easy.

Sherrie and I chilling on the bottom.

Of course Darryl would take out his regulator for a smile, not me, still like to keep my oxygen close at hand.

Ella giving the "all good" sign like the champ she is.

Ok, so I always look pissed off in these pictures, but I suppose why should my expression change from land to sea.

Darryl usually had the camera, so a rare picture of him.

I can't get enough pictures of Ella doing her thing!  So proud!!!

I love this picture of Sherrie, if you can read her slate it says "Did we pass?".  (We won't point out that she is giving the wrong hand signal!)  ;)

Ella and I as we near the end of our final dive for our certification.

Photo Journal of Our Atlantic Crossing

The Preparations - Provisioning

So how do you prepare for a three to four week crossing for four adults and two children when you have no opportunity to run to the store for that forgotten ingredient?!  A lot of money, loads of trips to the stores to identify what we want (but thank goodness the major stores deliver!!!!), and plenty of creativity on where to store it all on the boat (nothing like using a spare shower stall to store produce).  The water line was getting lower and lower by the day.

Logo Painting

As though we didn't have anything else to do just prior to departure, Darryl was insistent that we leave our mark in Las Palmas.  It seems to be a tradition for departing boats to paint a logo on a rock or wall in the marina.  Despite our imminent departure date, Darryl and the girls managed to paint our logo on a rock to commemorate our first ocean crossing.

Departure Day

For as long as we have been planning the Atlantic Crossing, we have had January 10 as our intended departure date for some unknown reason.  However, for all of December and early January, we were experiencing highly unusual weather.  Usually at that time of year, the trade winds are well set in and everything is very predicable.  Instead, the weather was very unsettled and the winds coming from the opposite direction.  It was delaying loads of boats in leaving.  We kept our eye on January 10 but figured it likely would be a later departure date.  But sure enough as January 10 approached, the weather was changing and the winds were turning to the more usual NE direction.  And wouldn't you know it, we were all ready and left on January 10!!!  

So the morning of, we had our crew briefing and the raising of our crew flag and we were set to cast off the dock lines.

Things To Keep Us Occupied

So what do you do for three weeks when restricted to an 11.5 meter x 6 meter floating platform?  Surprisingly a lot!!!

First and foremost, the four adults rotated on a 2 hour watch schedule all day and night.  While Ella took the 1400 to 1600 watch every afternoon.  I could not be more proud of Ella for being committed to her watch.  The only watches she missed were on the first day when we were only a couple of hours out of Las Palmas and she wasn't feeling great, and the last day, with all the excitement the watch schedule went out the window.

Any excuse for a celebration, which on Maple involves food and the smallest bit of imbibing.  Crepes and cava to celebrate the halfway mark.  And sausages and beer to celebrate Australia Day!

Knitting (can't thank Sandra enough for her amazing patience!), dress up, cleaning (huge thanks to Jeff for cleaning the rust stains around all the stanchions), boat repairs (sadly no pictures of Darryl clinging for his life to the mast), and reading, reading and more reading....

School For All!  Darryl involved the girls in charting our course on the chart.  We did a unit on Christopher Columbus.  And even Jeff and Sandra got in on the action with Darryl teaching them how to splice rope and make soft shackles.  

Fishing!!!  We had a tough start after losing four lures, plus five catch and release of small tunas.  But our persistence paid off on Day 9 when we reeled in a beautiful 13kg yellow fin tuna.  So of course dinner that night was SUSHI!!!  Since our freezer was already full of meat purchased prior to departure and then the addition of the tuna, we did not fish for awhile.  

On the morning of Day 15 with prompting from Jeff we cast the lure once again.  And within an hour Jeff had reeled in a gorgeous dorado (aka: mahi mahi)!!!  

Lots of scenery that looks like this:

Where is all the evidence of all that amazing wildlife we experienced??  In video format of course and that takes WAY more effort to edit than throwing up a few pictures on a blog post.  So with enough nagging perhaps I can get Darryl do it, otherwise, we might all be waiting awhile before I figure out how the heck to edit out hours of video of boring seas for the 5 second blip of a whale breaching or dolphins playing in our bow waves.

Arrival

After 20 days out of sight of land, on Day 21 land was spotted!!!!  And after 21 days and 9.5 hours, we dropped anchor in the Caribbean after leaving from the Canary Islands.

The girls wasted no time jumping in the water, at the same time we watched the first sunset in the Caribbean on board Maple.  We have not been in the water since early October off the coast of Spain, so the white sand beaches and warm waters are glorious.

How do you begin to thank two people who took four weeks in their lives to help us safely bring our home and family across an ocean?!  Any words seem inadequate, so I just hope Jeff and Sandra know how much gratitude we will forever have to them.  I could not imagine this experience without them being part of it.  Much love and thanks to you both!  xoxo

Guests and Birthday and Halloween! Oh my!

It is hard to believe we are already four months into this adventure.  I was going to start by saying that October was a month full of firsts, but the reality is nearly every day we encounter something new.  So really October was yet another month of amazing first experiences for us.  It saw us our first guests, first birthday on board and first Halloween away from home. 

I am still in awe that we had friends already visit us, we are so amazed that Becki, Andy, Logan and Jared made the trip all the way from BC to visit us in Greece.  I will admit I was nervous as the days approached to their arrival.  I was hung up on the fact that the boat wasn’t perfect, we are far from perfect sailors (is sailing perfection even possible?!) and are still very much adjusting to life on board.  How are we going to handle eight people on board a 38 foot boat for nine days??  Given the cooler weather and water temperature, I knew it wasn’t likely going to be as easy as just hanging out on a beach for nine days.  We were going to be stepping on each other’s toes, literally. 

We could not have asked for better boat guests!  I can’t believe how amazing the visit went with four adults and four kids on board!  I knew Becki and Andy have sailed before and know their way around a boat, but I never expected it to be so seamless to have them here.  Most importantly, Andy was a quick study with using our AeroPress, and I was very spoiled with coffee being ready by the time I got up in the morning.  Heaven, I tell you!

When anchoring was proving challenging (shocking, I know), Andy was with me at the bow trying to will the darn thing to stick.  And as it turned out Andy had the special touch to get the anchor to finally hold.  Becki though was the ultimate hero in placating four hungry children and making dinner in all the mayhem of complaining children and frustrated adults.  And perhaps I shouldn’t admit to the déjà vu experience the very next night. 

The girls were beyond elated to have other children to play with!  The four kids played beautifully together and I really can’t fully articulate how wonderful it was for the girls to have friends here.  After Logan and Jared left, there was a huge void for the girls.  They didn’t want to dismantle any of the Lego the boys had made.  Even when we were playing at the playground, Ella said “it just isn’t the same without Jared and Logan here”.  I couldn’t believe after nine days I wasn’t desperate for more elbow room again, the four of us were not ready for them to leave when the time came.  

The boys wasted no time getting comfortable on the boat.  We are waiting for permission to enter the Corinth Canal.

Darryl was paranoid of running into walls, but we made it through the canal unscathed despite one chunk of rock falling from the wall and splashing beside us.  

Managed to enjoy one afternoon on the beach in Aegina.

Group shot from Poros on Ella's 9th birthday!!

In the end, I was reminded that our friends didn’t care about the details that I was getting hung up on.  It was just incredible to have them here with us, enjoying this beautiful country together!  Andy, the dock lines and sheets sure miss your expert coiling skills, perhaps one of these years I will figure out how to coil a rope well. 

Ella is the first to celebrate a birthday on board!  We were so fortunate to have our friends here with us to help us celebrate Ella turning 9.  It was a low key day, but there was the usual present unwrapping, birthday song singing, present opening and pizza dinner.  The day started out emotional for Ella as it is all such a different experience for her from the usual big birthday bash with countless friends, but she came around and said she had a wonderful birthday after all.

Happy 9th Birthday, Ella!

At end off the month, we found ourselves in a country that does not celebrate Halloween.  Thanksgiving passed us by without us making any effort for that holiday, so I didn’t want to do the same again for Halloween.  We had to improvise and for someone who is the furthest cry from a Pinterest mom, I think we pulled it off beautifully.  The girls trick or treated at the one other Canadian boat docked at the town quay in Poros.  We then walked the town looking for other children to give candy to even though the local children had no idea why we were giving them candy.  The girls just enjoyed walking around in their costumes and they certainly turned many a curious head.

Not certain if this was technically a pumpkin, but we made it work.  A neighbouring Canadian boat had the brilliant idea of carving a green melon, which glowed green when a light was put inside.  Will have to remember that for next year.

Used Ella's skeleton school project as a decoration, yah short cuts!
(Not certain if Darryl qualifies as part of the decorations or not?!)

Even though the girls didn’t end the evening with a giant sack full of candy after hitting up blocks of homes, they had a great time!  I am beyond thrilled and proud of how the girls have adapted to how life is now.  Understandably they still talk a lot about what they miss from home, but overall they have adjusted beautifully.

This sweetheart of a dog in Poros was so tolerant of the girls' affections.  They would have liked him as a stow-a-way.