Jessica's Journal

Jessica's Journal

my version of our endless summer

life on a boat... 

You make your own adventures no matter where you are! What little adventure will you experience today?

Nineteenth Entry - posted on Friday July 25th from Portland, Oregon

After Koelby’s interview, which he says went well, we all headed out to get lunch. Koelby wanted to watch some of the World Cup soccer games so we went to the same three beers bar… But I was okay with it because I was excited for the lunch specials. They had 4 small hamburgers that I wanted, I forgot to get a pick but they were tiny not small…

Just having a tiny lunch ;-)

But I had 3 and was good to go ;-) Again we headed back to the hotel after lunch to finish all the internet stuff everyone wanted to do. We left for dinner around 6pm and went to the food carts.

Food Cart photo opp

I just love palm trees 

The cute gazebo all of the little kids where playing on and playing soccer in front of. 

This time it wasn't as packed as it was last time but it was okay because we got into the chowmein place and got food very fast. It was okay to me but the other 3 seemed to love it. We walked around a little and back to the hotel. Koelby and I watched 2 movies on youtube, apparently they have free full length movies. We woke up on Saturday June 14th and had our free breakfast down stairs. I was so excited to get back to the boat and leave!!! But then I got the not so unexpected news that we could not leave… until Monday… So frustrating!!! This dang boat! Tom got an email saying he had to go into the DHL office here and fill out some forms and its closed on the weekends so we have to wait until monday :-( So we all chill out until 11am when we have to check out, the hotel calls us a cab and we head home.

Bye Hotel Sarah Nui

We got straight to the boat because of all our luggage. I decided to lay topside and read and enjoy the sun for the day because I didn't get to do that at all in the city, the hotel didn't have a pool so no option really. Koelby wanted to go into the little italian place at the marina and watch the world cup game. I opted not to go so the 3 of them left around 3pm. The came back around 5pm and said the italian place didn't work out so they walked to the Carfour and ate at the restaurant outside of it and ran into Jeff. Jeff is a guy we met in Mexico, he is sailing to New Zealand with his family, his wife Amber and two kids, Carden and Morley, I think they are 4 and 7? But i’m not sure, all I know is they are adorable! The kids not Jeff and Amber… lol. But they are really fun and nice and we are glad to have run into them again. Luckily Koelby brought me home half a pizza because I couldn't get the stove to work… So my soup was just sitting on it cold. Apparently the propane was turned off to it, I didn't even know we had to turn it off after each time of using it but ive also never turned it on or off… Oops. So I ate some of the pizza and we all sat up top in the breeze and watched the sunset. Koelby and Tom heated up the soup and had it for a late dinner. Koelby and I were watching a movie in bed when we heard a knock. It was Jeff coming over and we were like man how late is it? Umm, so, it was 8pm… How lame are we to all be in bed at 8pm!?!?! Anyways we all got up and hung out with Jeff topside and drank his cold beer! Thats right he has a refrigerator that actually works!! Everyone enjoyed the beer and the conversation. Jenna went to bed early and I tapped out at 11pm while to boys stayed up for a bit longer, not sure how much because I was asleep. On Sunday June 15th, Father’s Day! Happy Father’s Day to every single dad I know out there! There are to many to name them all but I can name mine, Happy Father’s day Dad, and Rick and John and wes. You are all amazing in many ways and I'm thankful for you all. We took our time on this lazy sunday, we didn't even leave the boat until 1pm when we headed over to the dock to do some bum style laundry, or boat style I cant tell the difference.

Anyone jealous of our laundry day? I did help stomp on the clothing too but no one took pics, i'm more of the photographer in the family.

Its so expensive to use the marina washers and they never work so we brought over the large cooler we have and some soap and used the water spicket to do our sheets and pillow cases. We literally used our feet as the agitation cycle, too funny! I actually did help but no one took a pick of me so these will have to do. After our washing adventure we all headed to the shower and luckily got in!!! Always a nice surprise. It started raining pretty hard so we decided not to walk to the Carfour in the rain and just headed back to the boat. Koelby and Tom set up a rain catch straight into the water tanks, we will see how much that helps ;-) because it would be nice to be able to use the sink again, thats right we are using water bottles for all water to brush our teeth and wash our hands and cook with… Ugh… We have these two 5L jugs we fill up at the water spicket whenever we go to the dock, fun stuff! After the rain catch adventure Koelby and Tom washed some carrots and potatoes off and peeled them to go in a stew, they added a stew season pack, some canned corn beef, corn, onions and pasta and stew we had! It was actually pretty good and thats lucky because there is a ton of it! Stew for the next 3 meals ;-) After dinner we all sat around playing computer games, reading and talking until bed time. So eventful I know! Gotta love life on a boat… Lets just hope we get to leave tomorrow before we all go stir crazy and not just me ;-) I’m such a patient person I know. So Tom and Jenna headed into town to the DHL office near the airport, about a 45 min walk, at 7am on Monday June 16th. Koelby and I decided we would stay behind and get the dishes done and the boat ready to go while they were gone. Well… We woke up at 9:24am to them getting back to the boat and where like oh crap!! But… We didn't have to stress because they didn't get the package, ugh, they filled out the forms and gave the DHL people the same forms they had given them 3 times already and where told to call back later today or tomorrow… Ugh Ugh Ugh. So Koelby and I got ready and we all went into shore. Tom and Jenna went to the hotel to steal internet while Koelby and I walked to the Carfour to watch the USA World Cup game at the restaurant outside of it. And USA won!!!!! Go us!! We ordered a cheeseburger and fries to share and Koelby had coffee and a few beers. After the game we picked up some juice at the Carfour and walked back to the marina to meet Tom and Jenna. We all paddled back to the boat and turned on the generator to get some juice in our batteries. Koelby and I stayed on the boat to watch the generator while Tom and Jenna did some boat grocery shopping. We are clearly all very optimistic about leaving tomorrow… We had left over soup for dinner and some baguettes. Koelby and I watched a movie and went to bed. On Tuesday June 17th Koelby and I woke up around 10am and Tom and Jenna where just getting back from yet another early morning walk to the DHL. Did they get it? Did they? YES!!! We can leave!!!! But wait its raining, should we leave?

Good bye Tahiti, but hello Moorea 

Or wait another day? I vote leave but I don't say that because I don't want to be disappointed if we don’t. But we end up getting all ready and pulling the anchor and are on our way by 11:45am!!!! Moorea here we come!!!! Im so excited! I hope its as amazing as Grandpa Bauer has always told us it is, and ill see how much coffee is for you ;-) There is a reef just out side of Tahiti where the water gets rough! It seemed okay at first only 18 knots of wind, but once we put out the genoa it wiped up to 30+ knots. This made us pull back in the genoa and Tom asked Jenna for the staysail 9small storm sail) but she didn't want him putting it up in 30+ knots of wind so he gave in and we motored most of the way. Wonder of wonders I felt really sick!

This is sick me, my position the whole way to Moorea, ugh. 

It was raining and waves where crashing over the sides of the boat so the seat pads where in the salon so I had to lay on the hard seats and try to just look up at the sky. Finally I started to feel better when we changed directions and actually put out the genoa and sailed at 6 to 7 knots, it was kind of nice, but I still laid down. We finally got to where we were going around 2:45pm and where all anchored by 3pm.

How beautiful is Moorea? So excited to be here!

Jenna had made some white rice for everyone and everyone had already eaten but I was finally able to have a little bit once safely anchored and the boat stopped rocking. After lunch Koelby and Tom wanted to set up a rain catch so Jenna and I let them ;-) Since I had been feeling sick on the way over I took a nap until dinner. Koelby made another stew with; potatoes, carrots, corn, green beans, onions, canned corn beef, pasta and a chili seasoning pack. I unfortunately really didn't like it even after I added some seasons to it so Koelby ate most of mine. We did our normal nightly stuff… But tonight Koelby actually got everyone to watch a movie! We all went topside and set up chars in the dark and watched That Awkward Moment, funny. It was actually a little cold so we moved down to the salon to end the movie. Then Koelby and I read in our room before bed. Yes, I said Koelby read!!! :-) We woke up on Wednesday June 18th around 8:30am and where headed to shore by 9:30am. Tom and Jenna brought over all of their clothing to wash and we brought chairs and hammocks for the beach. We did a beach landing but it was very calm and uneventful, so good! We walked to a restaurant Tom and Jenna knew about but it was closed so we walked up the mountain a little to a Juice bar.

Hard walk up to the juice bar but oh so beautiful of a view and totally worth it!

They gave us jelly samples and Koelby and I had a fresh pineapple juice made right in front of us. The views were beautiful on the way up, and on the way down. We headed back down to the restaurant but once got there we realized it wasn't just not open yet it was closed until July 2nd… ugh. So we decided to hit the little market on the way back to the beach we left the dinghy at. The market was okay but we bought some raisins and they had bugs in them… The lady in the store let us open like 5 packs until we found a good one. Then we decided to pass the beach and head to the Hilton hotel to see how much it was to rent a car. On our way we saw a sign for a garden cafe and the menu looked awesome so we went to it. It was in the side/back yard of a couples house, totally cute set up.

Too cute, right!

Koelby and I got a panini of ham, cheese, tomatoes and pesto, an organic bread sandwich with chicken, tomato and mayonnaise, which came with salad and Koelby ordered a coffee and french fries. Grandpa Bauer, the coffee was only about $3.20 :-) And let me tell you it was so good and cheap and man the sandwiches where huge!!! I was stuffed and so was Koelby since I made him eat all the fries because I didn't want any. So yummy we might go back tomorrow. After lunch we continued down the road to the Hilton. It was so nice! The pool, beach and restaurant area was amazing! But way way to expensive so we just talked to the activities coordinator and got the prices on cars, about $155 for 8 hours… We aren’t sure if we want to do it because Tom and Jenna don’t so we would have to pay for it alone, decisions, decisions. We headed back to the beach where the dinghy was to chill out. Koelby and I headed back to the boat to get our snorkel stuff while Tom and Jenna hand washed their clothing.

Such an awesome park and beach to get to spend our time on

Koelby and I had a lot of fun snorkeling we even saw a ray but when it started to b line for me I swam away fast and apparently scared Koelby so he did the same. After snorkeling we set up the hammock and Koelby napped in it while I sat in a chair with me feet in the

Hammock time, beach time, reading in the sun on a tropical beach time, couldn't ask for more.

water, not to shabby a day. Koelby and I showered and we all headed back to the boat around 4pm just before it started to rain! Great timing ;-) We ate leftovers for dinner and did the normal, read, watch movies, play games on phones until we went to bed. On Thursday June 19th we all headed into shore around noon. Oh and the update on the dinghy… We got the parts and where so excited and it still doesn't work… We aren’t sure if its just another thing wrong with it or if the parts we changed weren't broken, oh well its good they have been changed out but sucks that the dinghy still doesn't work! So like I was saying we paddled to shore, luckily it wasn't very far and  we did another tame beach landing. Koelby wanted to go back to the cute little garden cafe and eat lunch so we did. After lunch we headed back to the beach to lay in the sun and read. Well I laid in the sun and read and it was amazing!!! My idea of a great day! Koelby and I waded into the water and looked at the edge of the coral but did not go swimming. We headed back to the boat around 3:30pm and while the boys got the topside all ready to go Jenna and I cooked spaghetti with red sauce and green beans for dinner, we also had french bread with oil and vinegar for an appetizer, pretty awesome. Once done with our early bird meal we pulled the anchor and we motoring out of the Moorea by 5pm and on our way to Huahine!

Good bye Moorea and hello sea sickness until we get to Huahine...

Moorea was so beautiful but we just had this itch to get moving so we did. Koelby and I took the first watch and stayed up until 1:30-2am when Jenna and Tom took over. And it was horrible! as soon as we left the security of the reef we hit high winds and big swells. I instantly felt sick so I set myself up with a little bed topside and looked up… all night… ugh, my life as a sailor. We had to stay alert because we could see 3 boats out in front of us off the starboard side. At around 10 or 11pm it was looking like we were so close to one of them and it was freaking us out, finally the other boat shined their spotlight on us and we did the same back, this allowed us to see how close they were and know that they saw us too! We got to relax a little after that, well until the next boat was close enough for us to watch it like a hawk. We aren’t sure why but we caught up to and passed all 3 sail boats and 2 fishing boats as well. I guess we are just that awesome of sailors ;-) The waves where so bad that no one could really sleep but we all attempted when it was our turns. Tom and Jenna got us anchored in a bay called Bay De Maroe in between Huahine Nui and Huahine Iti around 8am I think.

H-E-L-L-O Huahine, I think i'm in love.

Then with the water calm we all slept until noon. We didn't leave the boat until around 1pm on Friday June 20th and we paddled to a dock we saw close to the boat. A local lady told us in French, so we aren’t really sure what she was saying, to go to the road and to the right. We walked up the road a little and saw a sign for a guest house, so we walked up the road to the guest house and a man stopped his car to meet us and ask what he could do for us, in French of course. We told him we speak english and so does he and we asked if he knew of a restaurant. He told us yeah in town… on the other side of the island. But amazingly he said he was heading into town for a meeting and asked if we wanted a ride, what?? Yes!!! So we all pilled in and headed to town, named Fare. We talked to him the whole way and he told us all about the island and what brought him here. His mane is Michelle, and he came here 30 years ago for vacation and met his wife and never left, he has owned 3 different businesses and the latest is these guest houses. He dropped us in the town at around 1:40pm after showing us the “pregnant woman” in the country side.

Kind of cool right, the head of the pregnant woman is on the right, the middle peak is her chest and the left is her baby bump :-)

Its pretty cool and is what Huahine means. He said to meet him back there at 4pm and he would bring us back to the boat. We walked around the tiny town, pretty much a strip of building right next to the water. Koelby and I ate at a street vender and I had a panini and Koelby had a chicken sandwich, they were really great! Tom and Jenna shopped at the market and then we went to an internet cafe and paid 15 franks for each minute of internet.

These were both at the water front, pretty neat.

Needless to say that we only used it for 10 minutes. After that we still had an hour to wait so Koelby and I sat on this wooden pier and looked at the water and the beautiful scenery.

One of the awesome fish Koelby and I saw as we sat on the pier enjoying the scenery

Michelle was there at 4pm to pick us up and asked if we wanted him to drive the other way around the island to show us it, and we all jumped at it and said Yes, yes, yes and Thank you, thank you, thank you. He showed us the lake and some ruins along the way.

The ruin are not gated off at all we could have walked on them all but we didn't out of respect. Pretty neat to see and read about though.

He also took us to see the sacred eels… It was weird because it was in a canal next to the road in a tiny little village. We walked over and a little girl called us down further in the canal and she coaxed the eels out and was feeding them and flipping them. It was pretty cool. Jenna was the only one to go down and touch one, she said it was slimy.

The famous blue eyed eels

After the eel adventure Michelle stopped at a view point an we took pics of the boat in the bay.

Such a cool view and you can just see the boat, its the tiny dot in the water

He dropped us off at the dock and we told him we would come see him tomorrow and look at the guest houses to see if we wanted to rent one. The cool thing about the renting a room is that it comes with a car and a boat! We will see if we do it, its a $235 for 2 people and $280 for 4 people. We headed back to the boat and made dinner and hung out until bed time. Koelby and I got up around 10:30am on Saturday June 21st and we all left the boat by 11am. We went straight to see Michelle and look at the guest houses. The one he showed us was so nice it had 3 rooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room and a patio overlooking the water. We all 4 decided to take it!!!

Nice huh and a car and a motor boat, not to shabby 

We filled out the paperwork and got the keys to the car and hit the road. We wanted to go to the famous beach on Huahine Iti so we headed that way. We drove and drove and found what we think was a local spot and walked up and down the beach for a little while but it was not the one we were looking for. 

It was really a nice beach just not "the one" in the post cards so we moved on 

So we back tracked to a restaurant and looked at their beach and their menu but it was still not the beach we were looking for and it was way too expensive so we continued on around the island. The drive was beautiful and so cool to see but we ended up driving the whole island without seeing the beach we were looking for. We decided to head into the little town on Huahine Nui and pick up some food to make baguette pizzas, yum. After we shopped we made the crazy decision to try again to find the elusive beach, to out credit it was only 2:45pm. We headed back to Huahine Iti and took another path to a view point, or so we thought… It was actually a little village of houses and no view point. We found a map in Jenna’s car door and followed it to where the beach symbol was and stopped at what looked like was an abandoned house. There were a lot of catamarans anchored just off of the beach and when we walked out to the “beach” we decided it was the famous post card beach. The reason is because the sand was white and there was the dock we saw in the post card. 

You can't see but the woman is topless and making something over there

Not exactly what we were expecting but boy is it beautiful anyways

The only problem was that in the post card it portrayed this amazing huge white sand beach… and what we where on was about 4 feet of kind of white sand and a dock we couldn't even get to because it was in front of the hotel and was theirs. Ugh but it was still cool we found it and got to walk on it a little :-) Lesson learned, its never how it looks in the pictures. Well that being said sometimes its better! Just not this time. After the beach find… we decided to head back to out guest house and make dinner since Koelby and I were starved. We got back and unloaded all of the groceries and paddled to the boat to get all of our things for the night. You wouldn't think it would be a lot right? For just one night… Well, we brought every computer and device we had on the boat, lol, and Koelby and I brought all of our laundry so we could finally do it! We all picked rooms and and I scoped out the washing machine, awesome to have one but it was tiny and we had no clue what it said on it, so we just spun the dial and pushed some buttons and it started ;-) The only problem was that it went for like 3 hours and was still soapy… Koelby saw something that said rapido or something so we put it on that unchecked all of the buttons and ran that one and it was magically done in no time. Since it was so small we had like 3 loads so I put in the next 2 on rapido and they were done fast too!! The only issue now was that it was dark and the mesquites where insane so we set up a dry line in our room and hung the rest of the clothing in the extra room with the iron bunk beds ;-) gotta love it!! After our clothing was hung we sat down to watch a movie and relax. After the movie we headed to bed. Koelby and I set an alarm clock for 7:30am but didn't get up until 8am on Sunday June 22nd. We have to check out today so we wanted get into the motor boat by 9am and see some motu’s (small outlying islands) before we had to check out. Koelby went up to get the boat paper work done and Michelle showed him where we should and could go. Sadly all of the motu’s we wanted to go to are privately owned and Michelle said we would get into trouble if we went there :-( But he told us about a cool place that you can only get to by boat. There used to be a road there and a motel the Charles Bronson used to go to back in the day, but it hurricane took it out years ago and no one has fixed it up. Koelby, Tom and I headed out around 10:30am, it took us about 30 minutes to motor out there in one of Michelle’s awesome tin boats with 30hp motor on it! 

Koelby and Michelle

The scenery on the way to the exclusive island

Some pics of the island, so nice, I never wanted to leave

This is all that is left of the hotel 

Huge bamboo trees behind the hotel

Love this tree on the beach

Sadly we had to leave the island ;-(

So much better than paddling and faster too! The beach was all white sand and deep about 30 feet back. It had a sand shelf at varying heights but none over my head with some patches of rock and coral and sea life. Koelby and I got out goggles on and headed out to explore while Tom laid on the beach. Koelby and I saw some cool fish but not a lot to see and it was hard because you had to be careful not to knock up the sand or scare them away. After that great adventure we went back to see the hotel ruins. It wasn't much to see, pretty small but maybe this was the only building left, but there was pretty cool bamboo trees. I went back to the beach to lay out and read and we left around 12:15pm to head back. We met 2 people that are crew on a 40 meter motor yacht, one from Canada and one from South Africa. They were really cool and the story of the boat was awesome, the girl, Laura has been on the boat for a year. They spent the winter in Mexico and did the crossing, in 15 days, in April. They have been circling the islands in French Polynesia for 2 months and are headed to Tonga next. The owner is from England and this is his life now, just boating around the world!! He has friends and family meet him places and just lives this amazing luxury life, they had lobster and champagne on the beach… Now thats what I see in my future ;-) Once we got back I headed straight to the shower! Koelby went to stream the USA World Cup game, we tied Lame, and I did the dishes and got all my stuff ready to go and then just read until everyone else was ready. We left the guest house around 3:30pm and went straight to the boat. I read some more and uploaded pics onto my computer and Koelby made a video of Huahine! Its cool!! Then Koelby made dinner and we watch a movie and read some more before bed. We want to get up around 6am tomorrow to be able to leave by 7am to go to Tahaa the island just north of Raiatea, in the brochure we have it sounds amazing! Ill let you know if we actually get up that early… So our alarm went off at 6am on Monday June 23rd and we snoozed twice before getting up. I instantly felt really sick and had to go back and lay down :-( and we haven’t even started moving yet… rude! We ended up starting to motor around 7:30am and had to motor all the way to Raiatea, yeah I said Raiatea… All of the electronics quit on us and we had run the generator for hours just last night and the batteries said they were full, ugh! So while I was laying in bed trying not to be sick the decision was made to head straight to Raiatea and to the marina there to hook up to shore power and we if we can have someone look at the batteries to see if its time for new ones. 

Beautiful pics as we come into Raiatea

We made it to Raiatea by 2:30pm by motoring the whole time, at one point we tried to put up the sail but there was no wind. We anchored outside of the “marina” and haul out place and ate lunch before we paddled the long long way in against the current, ugh. The marina was not a marina at all it was a haul out facility but can only haul out up to 24,000 lbs and we are 30,000 lbs, ugh again! The only way you can be at the marina is if you get hauled out they let you stay for 2 days before and 2 days after you get the work done. We pasted at least one other marina on the way to this one so maybe we will head back that way?? The lady at the marina said town was to far to walk about an hour or more and since it was later in the day we decided to do that venture tomorrow and headed back to the boat, long paddle. We made dinner watched a movie and listened to the locals on shore practicing drums and dance. We also go to watch the boat next to us because it was so close it almost hit us a few times, we pulled in some of our anchor chain and were fine through the night. We all got up on Tuesday June 24th and headed to shore around 11am. Koelby and I talked to the marina office worker to see who was in charge of Tamata, Bernard Moitessier’s sail boat that Grandpa Bauer helped build and sailed to Hawaii with him on. The office lady said that his last women owned it and she could email her but she never responds to the emails, so we weren't able to board the boat but she did give us the key to the yard it was in and we got to go get better pictures of it. Grandpa you are kind of famous here, everyone we ask about Bernard Moitessier and tell them you sailed with him is so interested and they ask all these question I cant answer but they think you are awesome! You should come here and bask in your glory ;-) French people love Bernard Moitessier! 

These are Grandpa's photos he sent me of him and Bernard

The boat Tamata!

After we took pics and Tom and Jenna ask about batteries and hauling out the boat we called a cab and headed into town. The lady who drove us was really nice and she drove us around town (all 5 blocks of it) and told us where everything was. We checked out the one hotel in town and it was not good, way to expensive for how bad it was so we moved on. We walked around town and looked at the shops and got some food at a snack shop, I got a really great cheese burger! We all ate while we walked the 3/4 of a mile to the Hawaiki Nui Hotel on the water. The hotel was really nice and had a pool and a dock over the water! We checked out the internet and Koelby called Anne from the OLCC to make sure the internet was good, it was so we booked the room, Koelby’s 2nd interview is on thursday at 8am. After we booked the room and internetted for a while called a cab and headed back to the boat. Tom was having a broker coming by at 4pm to look at the boat and maybe list it so we got back to the boat around 2pm and cleaned it up. He got here at 4pm and said the obvious, that it needs to be painted and a few other things need to be done. Tom choose to list it with him but with a non-exclusivity agreement. After he left we all hung out and made dinner and watched a movie. Koelby and I stayed up to finish the movie with Tom and Jenna went to bed and we heard the crazy noise and yup we did it… We hit the other boat or more accurately he hit us, but in his defense he was there first, but in ours we are so heavy we were not the ones moving, he is so small and light and didn't have enough anchor chain out, he was moving like crazy. Koelby and I ran up stairs and pushed his bow sprit off of ours and called for Tom and Jenna to come up. Koelby and I continued to push his boat away from ours as it moved from the bow of our boat all the way to the back and away. Koelby and I pulled the anchor and Tom drove us away and we anchored again further away from everyone. But our issue and probably our loud pulling of the anchor woke other boats up and a few others yelled to us to see what was going on and also moved when they saw how close they where to others. such drama for 11pm at night… But we got it all fixed and didn't come near anyone else the rest of the night. On Wednesday June 25th I got up at 9am and packed Koelby and my bag to go to the hotel. I woke Koelby up at 9:45 and asked if we could go, he grudgingly got up and got dressed. We left the boat at around 10:30am and had to paddle so much further than before and in crazy wind and current! We passed the boat we hit and I didn't see anything wrong with it and we kept paddling in, he had company and the wind was crazy so we thought it best to talk to him later. It seemed like it took us forever to paddle in but we finally made it. Tom and Jenna met the guy that is looking at the dinghy motor and we called a cab and headed to the hotel. The same cab drive we had the other day came to get us, she is really nice and speaks english well. She stopped at the same snack shack for us to get food and took us to the hotel for the same price! She told us all about her vacation plans to San Francisco and Las Vegas, sounds like fun! When we got to the hotel the room we had reserved the night before was unavailable or something so they upgraded us to a bungalow over the water for no extra charge! Pretty cool. 

View from our back deck

The window in our floor to see the fishes ;-)

Loved this hotel, maybe a little too much by all the pics ;-)

So many fish at night!!! So fun to see

Fish during the day also very very pretty

The room is nice, the bed is big, we have spots in the floor that are glass to see the water below and we have our own deck overlooking the water. We relaxed in the room, walked around to see all of the coral and fish around the hotel and our bungalow, sat by pool for a while, showered and went to happy hour around 6:15pm. They had a live local island band and the drinks were half price. We sat down for dinner and ordered a beef something with tomato and mozzarella bruschutto and a mixed green salad, sounds amazing huh… Well what we got was raw beef strips under oil and some dried veggies, i’m not sure what, with lettuce in the middle and the bruschetta  was also loaded with the “veggies” and funny enough no tomatoes. Luckily Koelby liked it and ate most of it, I tried it all but wasn't a fan :-( Oh well better luck next time huh. When we got back to the room after dinner they had lights on under the bungalows and there were hundreds of fish all around the lights, it was really cool to see. We tried to feed them a piece of beef but they didn't want it lol. We watched a movie and went to bed early because Koelby has his interview at 8am tomorrow. We woke up on Thursday June 26th to Koelby’s alarm at 7am and he got ready and started checking the internet. By 7:40am he left to go to the bar/restaurant area to get better internet because we couldn't get Skype to work. It’s weird because yesterday we were able to use it in the room no problem, Koelby made a test call to his dad and they said they could hear him perfectly. Koelby had to end up using a lady’s cell phone and we are not sure how much it will end up costing… But he made the call and talked for 26 minutes. He says it went  well and at the end the lady told him she was choosing between him and one other person and he will know the decision by tomorrow because this position is an immediate need. If he is chosen they will start the background check tomorrow, fingers crossed. after Koelby came back from the interview we went over to the free continental breakfast and met an american couple named Dan and Anne from just outside of Eugene, OR, small world. We talked to them for a while and decided to all meet back up at 1:30pm to go into town. We shared a cab and ate at the little snack bar in town, but unfortunately we forgot that everything closes at 2pm… Ugh and it started poring rain, in true French Polynesian fashion in dumped for about 10 minutes and then just lightly rained for abut an hour. We ate our food on a bench outside of the market and then Koelby and I went to the market to get apples and some snacks. We didn't really want to walk around in the rain so we all got in a cab back to the hotel. Not a very long adventure but it was nice to pay half or a third for lunch ;-) Once back at the hotel Koelby and I headed to our room to hang out and shower. I took a nap and Koelby called a bunch of people on Skype for fun I guess :-) We went to dinner around 7pm and ate with Dan and Anne, they had seen someone take pizza away and ordered it so we did too :-) it was good and nothing on it was raw ;-) Anne wanted to be shown how to use her new underwater camera and to take pics of all hundreds of fish that come out at night so Koelby offered to come and take the pics. Anne asked him if he would be scared to go in the water at night and Koelby scoffed at that, lol. We went back to our room and he changed and got the laptop to show them some videos of the trip so far. Then we walked to their bungalow and Koelby went night swimming, unfortunately when he got in the water all of the fish scattered and it was so dark that you couldn't see anything in the pics he took, oh well they are still pretty to look at. We visited with them for a while and showed them some pics and the videos we could find and gave them the blog and our email address. Then we went back to our room and watched a movie before bed. We woke up on Friday June 27th and checked Koelby’s email and nothing… ugh I hate waiting… We headed to breakfast and saw Dan and Anne again and chatted for a bit before we headed back to the room to check his email again, nothing, and shower and pack to go back to the boat. We had the cab come at 12:30pm so we could keep checking his email, but nothing. So we went to the boat and met Tom and Jenna and walked around the marina with them to see about parts. Koelby got one of the marina office ladies to let him use her computer to check his email and nothing again, ugh. We went back to the boat in a WORKING dinghy!!! It was awesome!!! We got all ready and headed to Tahaa and when we arrived in the bay and hooked to an anchor ball Christophe came to our boat and had all of the papers for us to sign, easy peasy. 

Only 2nm away and so pretty

We headed to shore and walked around the road a little bit until we decided to go back to Raiatea since Koelby and I needed internet and needed to figure out when we were leaving. So we unhooked from the anchor ball and headed back to Raiatea. We went past the anchorage we were at before and past town and anchored outside of the resort Koelby and I stayed at. We took the dinghy in and had happy hour drinks and watched the Polynesian show while I figured out all of the flights. 

Very cool

We had to end up flying out on Sunday 6/29 because it was the cheapest and one of the only flights off this island is on sundays, so if we waited we wouldn't be able to leave until next sunday and the lady from the OLCC told Koelby that if he gets the job it will start asap after a background check. Since we wanted to do a few days in New Zealand and a few days in Australia we had to leave now so we will be home on Wednesday July 9th! Also it was way cheaper this way. It cost more to fly straight home than it was to go through New Zealand and through Australia on the way home, funny huh. After the show we headed back out to the boat and watched a movie before bed. We woke up at 8am on Saturday June 28th and moved the boat over to the town a few miles away. We found an anchor ball outside of a marina and used it and took the dinghy into town. We walked around town and found a bar that was showing the World Cup game. We ended up eating at the snack bar. When on our way back to the boat we walked by the public dock and a guy on a catamaran made a call for us and said we were able to moor at the dock for the night but we had to be out before 2pm tomorrow. Koelby and Tom headed back to the boat while Jenna and I stayed on the dock to catch lines when they came over. It all went smoothly. Koelby and I packed all of our luggage once safely moored at the dock. We headed over to the bar we found earlier to have a pizza dinner for our last night in Raiatea and on the boat. It was a nice night out.

The Pizza place and the view from it

 We headed back to the boat and went to bed. On Sunday June 29th Koelby, Jenna and I walked over to the market to get breakfast food, yogurt and croissants. Then we tried to find a cab but I guess on sundays no one drives cabs… Tom was waiting on the boat for a guy to come and take the dinghy motor to repair it. When we got back to the boat we ate and the guy showed up. Koelby asked him if he could call us a cab and he did, thank goodness. The only cab number we had was to the Trucky cabs, the ones we have used so many times before. We got picked up at 10:30am but this time the driver was the husband, he was very nice, he is from France originally and was very nice. 

Saying good bye to Raiatea, so sad

Once at the airport we checked in and Koelby realized he left his phone either in the cab or at the boat. I looked at the parking lot and saw the Trucky cab so Koelby ran over to see if he had his phone. It was not the husband, it was the wife but she called him and he came back to get Koelby. Koelby’s phone was not in the cab but the husband took Koelby back to the boat to find it there. While I was waiting Tom came running up with Koelby’s phone… So nice of him but now Koelby was gone, Tom waited for him to return. When Koelby got back he talked to Tom and they laughed about it and Koelby thanked Tom for bringing the phone back. We had to fly in a tiny plane to Papeete, Tahiti. The plane was so small that there was no assigned seating we just picked seats once on the plane. It was only a 45 minute flight so once we landed in Tahiti we had about 5 hours to wait for the next flight. 

Tiny plane :-)

We ate some food and waited. The next plane to New Zealand was huge!!! 60 rows huge and we were in row 40. But it was okay because we had a window seat and our own tv’s in the head rests of the seats in front of us. And oh man I need to become rich!! The first class looked like from the movies where each person had there own cubicles, beds and everything! So cool… for them. and it was mostly empty and they didn't even offer for us to take the seats, how rude lol. It took us only 7 hours to get to New Zealand but due to the international date line we arrived on Monday June 30th at 10pm. We went through customs and got our luggage and had it scanned and got a cab. We were told by the hotel it was only $30 to the hotel but once we were driving for like 30+ minutes we looked at the cost timer and it was approaching $60, ugh! Once at the hotel we ended up paying just over $80, ugh ugh ugh!!! But it was late and we were tired and needed to sleep. We booked a studio but the hotel upgraded us for free, I don’t know why, to a 2 bedroom suite. 

Pic of our apartment and the 2nd bedroom we didn't stay in

And we passed out! On Tuesday July 1st we got out of the hotel by 11am and used a photo copied map the hotel gave us to find food. We walked down Queens Ave the main strip. We walked all the way to the water front. We finally stopped at a coffee shop (Seattle coffee cafe) that said they had eggs benedict. Mine was good but Koelby was not impressed (the coffee sucked) and it was way over priced. It was a pretty walk back to the Sky Tower. There was stores and malls and tons of people. We made it to the Sky Tower, which is basically Auckland’s space needle. We went to the tourism information desk to see what options we had. The lady that helped us was really nice and she got us all set up with our Sky Tower tickets and a tour on Thursday to see the glow worms and Hobbiton and I think another town, she also told us about a good museum to go to, nice lady. After we were all set we headed up to the top of the Sky Tower and saw all of Auckland. Auckland is very pretty and has a lot of very full marina’s, if the boat makes it here they should stay in one :-) 

Sky Tower

After the Sky Tower we walked around the city and looked at some shops in the a mall called the Queens Arcade, very high class. Oh and the cross walks here… So weird and awesome at the same time, I think Portland should do this! At the big ones with lots of foot traffic they all allow you to cross at the same time, in all directions! Even diagonal, awesome huh, so convenient, right. We found a cinema and when we walked in it was more than that, it was a bowling alley, putt putt golf, a sensory maze, a paintball field and a full food court. We ate food and went to see Transformers, its exactly what you expect. After the movie we hit a store on the way home for breakfast food and snacks and beer, New Zealand beer ;-) And when back to the hotel to sleep. Koelby made me get up at 7am on Wednesday June 2nd to go to a bar and watch the USA World Cup game that started at 8am here. Although I made us a little late (7 mins) we still made it. The game was good until over time but i’m sure you all know what happened, ugh :-( During the game Koelby got at email asking him to call Annie at the OLCC so we headed back to the room to call her. Sadly it was bad news, Koelby didn't get the job :-( but the HR lady Annie said everyone loved him and the only reason he didn't get the job was because the guy he was up against had a lot of specific experience (over ten years) in this job area but that Sharon the manger recommended Koelby for another state job doing the same thing and Annie says Sharon never does that, so that made Koelby feel a touch better. Still sucks though! We both really wanted him to get that job it seemed perfect, oh well back to square one I guess. But don’t worry we are still coming home ;-) We decided to go back to the cinema mall place and have dinner and go putt putt golfing, its fun to act young sometimes, sadly for me Koelby won ;-) 

Fun game but Koelby won... Good job bub

We headed home after that to sleep because we are being picked up at 6:45am tomorrow for our all day tour. We were up before 6am to get ready for the tour, ugh. But we made it and where ready and down at the curb before the van arrived. Keith, our driver and tour guide, picked us up in a van and told us we were the only ones on this tour. That was okay with us ;-) We started by heading the few hours to Waitomo. Along the way Keith told us all about the history of New Zealand and the Kings land, which was what they started to call the area during the wars with the native Maori people and the British. The Maori people elected a King and so the area became King’s land. In Waitomo we went to the famous Waitomo limestone caves and took a boat through the glow worm grotto in the cave. There was no pictures allowed in the caves to protect them but it was very beautiful and cool to see.It looked like the stars at night but brighter and a neon green color. 

The awesome scenery on our way to Waitomo

Out front of Waitomo caves

We ate our lunch in the car ride to Hobbiton, it was a few hours drive through beautiful country side. We got to our Hobbitation tour at noon and boarded a bus to the Hobbit village. We learned about how the location was scouted and why it was kept as a tourist area. The hobbit village is on a cow and sheep farm, the family that owns the farm agreed to let the movie build the set for the Lord of the Rings movies for a fee and only if they put it all back to how it was prior to the movie set being built. Half of the village had been bull dosed when the weather turned bad so they stopped and while they waited for the weather to get better a ton of people contacted the farm owners wanting to see the movie set. This got them thinking and they ended up leaving the set alone and made a deal with the studio to re-build the set the exact same way, this took two years. After the two years tourists where able to come and see the village but the studio kept the right to use it for any movie, such as the two Hobbit movies. The Hobbit village or Hobbitation was really fun to see and hear about even though I haven’t watched the Lord of the Rings movies and I have only seen the first Hobbit movie. We took a lot of fun video that Koelby is making into a little video ;-) And we had some Hobbit beer that isn't sold anywhere else, pretty cool. 

Just as a note it was so cold that I had on a tank top, a t-shirt, 2 sweaters and a jacket - thats why my head looks so small lol

And thats Hobbiton ;-)

After Hobbiton we headed the few hours to a town called Rotorua. Both Waitomo and Rotorua are in the Kings country and are Maori names, Keith told us what they meant but I cant remember, they were always something funny like land of many trees or lots of birds, obviously thats not it but you get the jest right. We arrived in Routoura just before 4pm and went strait to Te Puia and saw a traditional welcoming ceremony and the haka. The haka is a war dance the Maori used to do before a fight to intimidate their enemies, now the Auckland rugby team the All Blacks do it before matches. It was cool to see and to me kind of funny because they bug out their eyes and stick out their tongs a lot and to me it looked and sounded like this is where the WASSSSUP came from lol. We had an option to wait for the guided tour of the Te Puia, which are Whakarewarewa thermal valley, bubbling mud pools and Pohutu Geyser. It was kind of cool to see and we got some cool pics. It looked all steamy and scary like if it was dark it would be perfect for a scary movie set. 

The welcome show

The Geysers

Since we did our own tour and didn't wait for the guided one we were able to walk around the whole thing without being stopped. Keith got us some food and we ate it at the cafe before we moved on, it was basically a thanksgiving dinner, with a Maori twist. Keith then took us to the government gardens and we say some beautiful old buildings and heard about the history of the bath houses. 

Sweet looking bathhouse, huh

They are still in New Zealand, there was public one and a private one. But the oldest and most beautiful was made into a museum and preserved. We didn't go into the museum because it was around 5:30pm but it was cool to see. As we left the town it was strange to see steam coming up all around peoples houses, in the neighborhoods and in a park, crazy. After this crazy long day I fell asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel but we got there by 8pm, perfect. I was exhausted and basically went straight to bed. On Friday July 4th (only the 3rd in the US) but happy 4th of July everyone!!! We woke up and showered and I had a fever and felt really sick, ugh… this was our day to see the Auckland Museum :-( I think the weather change and the long day just did me in, sad. We stayed at the hotel for a long time until we had to leave to eat something. It was around 1pm when I finally felt okay to leave and we walked around, ate and went to Auckland public library. The library is how every library should be it was massive (3 stories) and had everything you could think of. they had a huge section where you could check out sheet music and even a section where you could check out blue rays and video games. they had a 3D printer that you were allowed to use if you took their FREE class on 3D printing. the top floor was mainly a study area but also a small museum with rotating exhibits. Did I mention all this is free? The U.S. really needs to step up its library game! 

The library flood Koelby was in love with

Cool reading area for kids or kids at heart - that are small enough be fit ;-)

We got lost heading back to the hotel… I finally asked for directions and we had to back track.. oh well I survived. We ordered in pizza for dinner so I could rest since we were heading to Sydney the next day and that meant packing, ugh. I woke up on Saturday June 5th and felt a little better and we headed to the airport around 10am. We found out at the ticket counter that we had to buy a visa to get into Australia, what? Oh well, one more thing. Koelby bought them for us, $30 each but they last for a year, so bonus I guess. Then we were allowed to check in and we got the emergency exit, which Koelby was stoked about due to leg room, and headed to the security and again I got chosen for the surprise check, rude! The lady rubbed a wand on me and used a strip of paper to see if I had explosive material in my bags… I didn’t and she sent me on my way. We had a few hours before we left so Koelby got coffee and I tried to find a bagel but its not a thing here so I had a burger, I know not similar right? but there wasn't really anything similar so it is what it is. The flight was only 3.5 hours but we gained 2 hours so we left at 1pm and arrived at 2:30pm, well we arrived at 2:50pm because we had some “electronic issues” or at least thats what the person over the PA said, what??? Koelby and I got ready to assist with the emergency exit, just in case, lol. After customs and getting our baggage and everything we found a cab driver that seemed to think our hotel was very very nice, so we went with him. He was telling us about Sydney and different places to go and all about the area we were in, very nice of him. At the end of the ride we found out that he lives about 2 blocks from where our hotel was (in the center of china town), no wonder he thought it was so amazing. We checked in and settled in for a while until we were both hungry. We looked at the hotel restaurant but it was crazy expensive so we went out. We walked over to the Market Place, a mall and apparently a market all in one. Its in China town, which we didn't know. When we walked in we could see the ground floor was set up like many of the Mexican flee markets we went to, nothing in shop windows just all on tables everywhere as far as we could see. It looked like they were shutting down so we didn't explore. We headed up the escalators to the upper mall, now this was a mall with store windows and all, but it had an asian super market in it and the food court was all asian foods (seriously 14 asian restaurants) and one indian place, interesting. I got salad rolls and Koelby got noodle soup and we walked around a little more, checked out the asian super market and left. On Sunday July 6th we woke up and needed food! We decided to just try the expensive breakfast in the hotel and where told we had a two for one breakfast, cool thanks! We ate and then when back to the room to get ready fro the day. We spent the day walking around down town Sydney to the Opera House. 

So many beautiful building and sites to see

We didn't go inside the Opera House but did get some beautiful pics of it. We walked into many malls and shops to see what Sydney had to offer, some pretty cool stuff. And we walked back to the hotel, a lot of walking, Koelby got an Australian mullet (when he was explaining what he wanted the barber looked at him and said “in Australia we call that a mullet” love it lol) for a hair cut on the way home ;-) but I think it looks good. We didn't really want to venture back out for dinner so we attempted, and I say attempted because it was a super huge hassle, we did succeed, to order pizza to our room for dinner. I don’t think we will be doing that again, it was over cooked and they brought us the wrong sauces, ugh, and it was expensive, but thats what you get for being lame and trying to order pizza on vacation I guess. I tried to post this from Australia but the internet was so slow it wouldn't even let me post the words much less upload a pic. On Monday July 7th we hit up the two for one breakfast again and then got ready for the day. We stopped at reception on our way out the door and talked to a Canadian lady, we asked because she had no accent, and she set us up with a tour on Tuesday to go see the Blue Mountains. With the tour all set up we headed out to the town. We got another map, a better one, and went to find the 333 bus to take us to Bondi Beach for the day. On our way there we started walking through malls, they are half outdoor and half indoor here, and down streets we didn't know. We walked past like 3 backpackers hostels on our way and saw an airport shuttle for cheap, now we just have to make our way back there… but we have no idea where it is… Oh well we will figure something out. We kept going and found a chicken place and ate lunch, it was yummy. Then we waited at a War Memorial park for the bus. What we didn't realize while we waited for about 20 min was that we had to pre buy our bus tickets… We asked a lady and she didn't know but when she checked like 3 buses she told us they all said no and that we could buy a ticket across the street. And of course our bus arrived and said Prepay, shoot! So we crossed the street and bought the tickets and tried to get back before the bus left but just missed it. And started waiting agin, this time with tickets in hand. I was watching the buses and saw one, not the 333, that said somewhere via Bondi Beach so I asked if it stopped in Bondi Beach and it did so we jumped on! Bondi Beach was cold, its winter here you know, but so beautiful and strangely busy for a winter day. We walked down the board walk and watched the surfers and looked at the shops on the strip. They had a very popular ice skating rink set up on the boardwalk, kind of cool. We continued to explore Bondi Beach for a couple hours and headed back. 

Bondi Beach was very fun but I need to come back in the heat! Who's in?

This time we were waiting on the wrong side of the street and finally got told as such and ran across the street to meet our 333 bus that was there. Luckily there was a long line so our pathetic running was okay ;-) We looked at a few more stores on the way back to the hotel and called it a night, man when did we get so old?? We didn't even go “out” one night, ugh 30 is not the new 20 ;-) We woke up at like 6am on Tuesday July 8th got ready and ran down to eat before the bus picked us up. We made it in plenty of time, maybe Koelby is rubbing off on me, lol. We changed buses at the tour terminal and even though the bus was full managed to get seats next to each other ;-) We headed out to the Blue Mountains. We drove the 2 hours to Echo Point, a beautiful view point over looking the Blue Mountains and the Three Sisters. 

Yes this is Australia's version of Three Sisters

View point pics

Along the way the driver told us all about Sydney and its history and like every single building we passed, but it was cool to hear. The Three Sisters is a small rock formation of 3 peaks they call the Three Sisters. The story is funny, its basically that a witch doctor and the dad of the 3 girls tried to save them form a mythical creature killing them by turning them to stone, and when the creature turned on him he turned himself into a bird to get away and dropped his wand so he couldn't turn himself or them back… why didn't he turn them into birds too? Well I guess it wouldn't explain the 3 rocks then huh. It was a beautiful view none the less. At this view point there was the Waradah Aboriginal Center and we got to see a cultural show. The 4 people represented all different areas of Australia and explained their body paint designs and the story behind them.

Welcome show

 They told the story of the digery-do and did some dances. We headed to a place called Scenic World and the bus driver kept boasting these rides there… I was confused because I thought I knew what we signed up for but when we got there the “rides” he was talking about where the cableway, train and skyway to show us the Blue Mountains. We started by getting on cable way and going about 5 minutes to Scenic World, sadly we stood on the wrong side and couldn't see the waterfall but the views of Three Sister were nice. Once at Scenic World we headed to the train, which is the steepest railway on earth.

The train

It was pretty steep, I had to basically stand on the back of the seat in front of me not to topple over. It was pretty but short. We then went on a walk through the Blue Mountains valley and saw where they used to mine. I sat on the horse, very lady like ;-) 

Regular

Vintage pic, lol

We arrived at skyway and took it back up to the top and sadly again we were on the wrong side and missed the waterfall :-( but what can you do? We walked around the gift shop and went back to the bus so we weren't late and got left, one girl did get left… and never made it back to us the whole day sad for her, but this was the second time she was late and we couldn't wait any longer or we would miss the rest of the day. We drove to the little town of Leura and had a hour for lunch and shopping. After lunch we headed to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. The most exciting for me!!!!! We got to see Kangaroos just running around the park and pet them! I loved the tiny one but Koelby killed my dreams and said it wasn't a Joey and that real Joeys are so much smaller, but I still loved it!!!! So stinking cute! We also got to touch and take pics with a koala and see the tiny tropical penguins!!!!!! They were so cute I tried to convince Koelby that we should get one and it would be fine in Portland! We also saw a lot of other animals but these where the highlights for me. I think the highlight for Koelby were the dogs… lol, I mean dingo’s lol lol. 

He was sleeping but still so cool to get to pet him and take a pic with him

Pet a huge hamster anyone? Or a regular size wombat! 

The penguins are my favorite! Look how tiny they are compared to that bird. I want one!!!

A Tasmanian devil running in circles 

An albino wallaby 

Pregnant or just a joey inside her pouch

After we had to leave the park, sadly because I loved it, we headed home and got dropped off at our hotel, perfect. I was feeling nice so I suggested we stop to eat dinner at a Mexican food place for dinner and Koelby jumped at that. After dinner we called it a night. On Wednesday July 9th our flight didn't leave until 9pm and we had to check out at 10am. So we got all packed and ready to check out, thankfully the hotel was able to hold our bags until we headed to the airport. We decided to get crazy and walk away from the waterfront and see what else Sydney had to offer. We stopped for breakfast and found a mall to explore. 

The beautiful Sydney University - go to class in a castle anyone?

We walked around all day and got lunch and headed back to hotel around 4pm. We hung out in the lobby couch area for a while using the interwebs and finally called a cab around 5pm. We went straight to the bag checkin lines and then security and they explored the biggest mall in Sydney, the airport, lol. And that ended our time in Australia, we said good bye and headed to Hawaii. We got really lucky with our seats, we were on a 2 - 4 - 2 seating plane and Koelby and I were the only 2 in the row of 4 seats! It was awesome because I got to lay down on the seats to sleep. I tried to get Koelby to use 2 seats but he wouldn't so I used 3, thanks love ;-) Hawaii was a little bit of a nightmare, we had to go through customs and then pick up our bags and re-check them in. Then we had to walk to another building and go through security again and then finally get on the plane, fun stuff. But we made it and we got home at 11:10pm on Wednesday and had to get our luggage… Ugh to add to our 44 hour day there was so many people and so much luggage that it took us over 30 minutes to get ours. Then we headed to mom’s to pick up Rufio and I was starving so we got food on the way home and finally got into bed after 1am. Its gonna take a while to get back on Portland time. Sorry this took me so so so long to post but being back in Portland we have been so busy seeing family and friends and getting settled, hope you enjoy. 

Eighteenth Entry - posted on Friday June 13th from Papeete, Tahiti 

View of the marina from the Pink Coconut

After we left the hotel we were scamming internet from on Monday June 2nd we walked to the local market to buy dinner stuff. We got hamburgers, bacon (for everyone else of course), baguettes, tomatoes, lettuce, and some thousand island dressing to really make our dinner delicious. We headed back to the dinghy and paddled to the boat. Tom turned on the generator and the inverter so the batteries could charge. We hung out for a while just killing time before Allen came over at 6pm. I chopped the tomatoes and got the lettuce ready for the dinner while Koelby turned on the grill topside to heat up. At this point everything freaked out… The electricity started flickering and the fans stopped. Koelby and Tom headed to the battery bank and Allen pulled up to join us. Ugh, we have a guest and the boys decide they have to run to shore to get some special water to add to the batteries because they were very low. Allen awesomely let the boys use his dinghy to go to shore so they wouldn't have to paddle. Jenna, Allen and I got left to cook to hamburgers and the bacon while the boys ran around town look for the water. All seemed well until I was almost done cooking the bacon, thats right everyone I cooked bacon (gross lol), and the lights all went out! Completely dark with bacon crackling on the skillet and no boys in site… Luckily the lights came back on and awesomely the boys showed up at the same time!! We choose to ignore the problems for the moment and Eat! And let me tell you it was awesome! I love anything on a baguette! I could totally live here (or France) and get happily fat on a strictly baguette diet ;-) After dinner Allen served up his home (boat) made peach and apricot cobbler with a rum something sauce, thank you Allen. After Allen took off the boys did a bunch of trouble shooting and trying to figure out what the electrical issue was before deciding to run the engine for an hour. They sadly did not figure out the issue so we couldn't turn on any lights or fans for the night… That left Koelby and I sleeping topside! Sounds okay right? Nice breeze and all? Well… At 5am we were woken up by Tom running around like a mad man cleaning up the deck, why you ask? Well because it was raining! Ugh times 2!! Koelby and I went down to the sauna room with no fan and tried to fall back asleep. On Tuesday June 3rd Allen came by to get his dishes and see if we needed a ride to shore. Koelby and I took him up on it while Tom and Jenna stayed behind. We made a plan to meet on the dock at noon. Koelby and I walked to the hotel and used the internet until we walked back to the dock to meet Tom and Jenna at noon. We all made a plan to meet back up at 4pm. Tom and Jenna went to find the DHL to get the info to have the parts that were mailed to Koelby’s dad sent to us in Bora Bora. Koelby and I ate lunch at a restaurant called the Pink Coconut that is right on the dock. We had a cesar salad and some asian egg rolls and crab puffs, it was pretty good but not cheap, the price we pay for the wifi password. After lunch we took a walk around the dock to see the beautiful views and sail boats. We all met back up at 4pm and headed back to boat. We hung out on the deck and watched the sunset. Koelby and I made a potato, left over hamburger and onion stir fry. We added sauce and bread for a good dinner. Koelby and I watched a movie topside and went to bed. On Wednesday June 4th we all headed to shore so Tom and Jenna could go get the windlass. Tom wanted to call the auto body shop that was welding the windlass and Koelby and I wanted to go shower so we did so and met back at the bench next to the dock and pink coconut. After our awesome refreshing showers we walked back to see what Tom and Jenna had found out… The windless will not be done until tomorrow, ugh times 2 days now! So the 4 of us headed to the Carfour, which is the local market and small mall and dinning area. We ate at the only place that has a plug, and I mean 1 plug so we had to ask for the table. Koelby and I had a margarita pizza that reminded me of pizzas in Italy, yummy and good memories too.

Yummy pizza

After we were done and my dead computer was 3/4 charged we decided to look around the “mall”, it only has like 5 stores. And strangely most are expensive fashion like Roxy brand, but one store was a car lot? Weird, and all this with the main attraction being the huge Walmart style grocery/everything store, they even have dressing rooms, all in one stop I guess. After lunch Koelby and I headed to the hotel to sit by and play in the pool. Tom and Jenna said they were going to head back to the boat to get Jenna’s computer and meet us there. But once we were there we received a message from the in-reach saying they are not coming but they will pick us up at 4:30pm. Koelby ordered me a cold soda and him a coffee and we just layer by the pool for a few hours, I swam a little but he wouldn’t join me so it lost its appeal and I went back to tanning. It was really nice to be at this awesome resort hanging by the pool and beautiful views too. 

This was an aerobics class working out, nice view huh?

 

Selfie

Tom and Jenna asked us to pick up an appetizer to eat before the pasta dinner they were going to cook so we left the pool side awesomeness to hit the store on the way home. We picked up 3 baguettes, some sliced cheese and sliced meat and some cream cheese for tomorrows breakfast. When we got back to the boat I started making the little appetizers of small slices of the baguette with aioli, cheese and meat on them. Koelby suggested adding tomatoes so I did until they were gone along with all the rest of the ingredients and 2 baguettes. At this point we were full and decided the appetizer was the dinner and didn't make anything else. We all sat down to topside to watch Rio 2 but Tom bailed about 15 min in and the rest of us gave up about half way in and decided to finish it later. Koelby and I watched a movie in our room called The Book Thief and then went to bed. Such exciting days huh guys… Are you bored yet? Hope not because we just got here… :-) Woke up Thursday June 5th to Koelby not wanting to do anything… But I was actually on board because we didn't really have any reason to go to “town”. So we actually had a nice day. I layed topside and tanned and read and enjoyed the scenery while Koelby watched movies and napped. Koelby finally came and hung out with me topside around 4:30pm and we watched the sunset. Tom and Jenna came back to the boat bearing goodies!!! They brought a precooked chicken and made some rice and we all ate dinner. I was close to finishing my book so I read and Koelby watched a movie before bed. On Friday June 6th, what is it really friday already??? oh man time is flying, we headed to shore around 10am. Tom and Jenna called about the windless for the 4th day in a row and were told it couldn't be welded and to come pick it up, ugh times a million. After they left Koelby and I showered and did some interneting before we ate at an Italian restaurant on the pier. It was pretty good but expensive like the rest of tahiti. We headed back to the Pink Coconut to meet Tom and Jenna but got sick of waiting outside with bad internet so we went inside to get a drink and good internet, and what do you know Tom and Jenna were already in there. They had good and bad news… The auto body shop changed their minds and decided they could fix the windlass and it will be ready on tuesday. Unfortunately, that is also the bad news! They have been saying they can fix it for a week now and I guess we will keep waiting, ugh. We headed back to the boat and had rice and leftover pizza for dinner. We finished Rio 2, cute movie, and I read before bed. I know I have Zero right to complain because well, look where I am, but still I want to continue the trip and we are stuck with no end in site, sadly I have zero faith the windlass will be fixed on tuesday but all I can is cross my fingers and toes. Until tomorrow everyone. Oh look its tomorrow ;-) It’s Saturday June 7th and we have been here a week and 2 days and still no movement… But that’s life on a boat, I guess. Today we decided to get crazy and walk to to the hotel and attempt to play in the pool and tan on the sand they have set up around the pool. We felt a little weird about it so Koelby and I ordered food in the bar/restaurant first and then headed out to the pool. I laid our stuff out on the chairs and hit the pool while Koelby ordered us a few drinks. Our downfall was when Koelby went to get me a towel to use and one of the guys behind the bar asked what room we were in, Koelby tried to act normal and say he preferred to pay cash but the guy wouldn't let it go and Koelby finally had to admit that we were not staying here and that was not good. The worker then said we cant be at the pool or on the sand, all we could do was sit at the tables and drink our drinks. I was already in the pool so I had to get out and sit on a chair to sun dry off. Sad because this was our big day out… We were going to sit by the pool all day and enjoy the weather and scenery. Nope! Shot down. We stayed for about an hour so everyone else could use the internet and finish their drinks while I read.

View of the pool and areas surrounding it, sad they wouldn't let us in the pool...

 On our sad walk home we stopped to get food for dinner. The 3 of them had decided to get bacon for dinner so Koelby found a single hamburger patty for me to eat, thanks babe, and we headed back to the boat. I hung out topside reading and waiting for everyone to be hungry. Koelby cooked the bacon for them and the hamburger for me and I cut the baguettes into small circles because thats what everyone said they wanted. Since they loved the tiny sandwiches I had made the other night that they wanted to do them again but with bacon. I however made a sandwich and it was delicious. After dinner we just hung out for a while waiting for the sun to go down, why you ask? Well, we were invited to a party on the boat next door and they said we could come over anytime after the sun went down and the christmas lights on their deck came on. They came on around 6:30pm and we headed over. It was pretty cool, we got to meet a bunch of new people from all over the world and see their boat. Gregory the inviter gave us some local beer that had tequila in it and cut up fresh pineapples for us all, yum. Gregory, from Austin Texas, is very nice and is interested in sailing with Tradewinds all the way to New Zealand and he is possibly going to bring a friend named Margot, from Paris France, with him. Two more crew members for the crossing, sounds good to me. Around 8:30pm we invited everyone over to see our boat and gave them a tour. Koelby and Tom went back to the party while Jenna and I stayed behind to read and sleep, I know, I know how lame are we?!?! The boys didn't get home until midnight and they found out that as soon as they left all of the power went out and never returned. This sadly meant that we had no fan for our room and after Koelby got into bed I couldn't take it anymore and I went up topside to sleep. Awesomely I was awoken at 3am by rain and had to go back into the sauna :-( Oh well I made it to Sunday June 8th and got up around 9am. We all headed over to shower and Tom looked some stuff online while I walked around the dock and looked at the scenery. After such an exciting adventure we all piled into the dinghy to head back to the boat and got caught in a crazy tropical downpour. It was not cold by any means but we were drenched!! and not with salt water. We paddled as hard as we could but seemed to take forever because of the winds and the rain. We finally got back to the boat and the excitement was over for the most part. We all changed and I laid topside, under the cockpit cover of course, and read my book. Koelby has decided he is making a new video game, so him and Tom sat at the table for the better part of the day and worked on that. We finally got restless in the late afternoon and decided to just paddle in and sit at the pink coconut and use some wifi. The paddle in was interesting, we got 100% soaked by the rain storm that ensued and to top it off little did we know that nothing is open on sundays… ugh. We decided to try the Carfour, the grocery store/mall thing because Tom and Jenna said it was open on sundays and we thought we could sit at the restaurant outside of it, nope, the restaurant was closed so no wifi for us. But the supermarket was open so we headed in to get stuff for dinner. And man was it packed! We ended up getting baguettes, of course, stuff for a salad, some meet and a marinade for the meat. When we finally left the store we looked outside and it was dark, oh no… We rushed back to the dinghy and started to paddle back and where graced with more rain, fun stuff. But we made it back and the baguettes made it un scathed. Koelby cooked the meat and some rice and we feasted, well boat style feast, lol, meaning meat. Koelby and I ended the night with a movie and passed out. We woke up on Monday June 9th to a crazy day long rain storm, and extra wind to help it along. Koelby and Tom tried to set up an extension to our Bimany top in the hight of the storm and Koelby said the rain felt like it was cutting him open. We spend most of the day just hanging out, I read, but again we got restless around 3:30pm and decided to be insane and try to paddle in to attempt to get wifi again. The wind and waves where crazy so the boys tried to paddle alone next to the boat just to see if it was possible, it wasn’t… But amazingly the guy next door on a catamaran offered to tow us to shore. And let me tell you we All got soaked by the waves crashing over the sides of the dinghy. And to make everything better the Pink Coconut was closed again, no wifi… Ugh. So again we walked to the Carfour and again the restaurant was closed, noooo noooo wifi! But we decided we needed more baguettes so we got some and headed back to the dock. Koelby tried to purchase an hour of this internet that you can use almost anywhere called ManaSpot… And can you guess what happened? Thats right it wasn't working, very anticlimactic! So we decided to paddle back to the boat while it was still light out. I think someone was looking out for us ;-) because the winds calmed and so did the seas. We paddled straight out past our boat so we could let the current take us to the boat and it worked like a charm. We made it quickly and we no major water coming over the sides :-) We made dinner and watched a movie and I read before bed. IT’S TUESDAY!!!! June 10th!!!! And why you ask am I so excited??? Well because its the day they said the windless motor would be done!!!! I was up around 7:30am and ready to go, we however didn't leave until just after 9am. I guess Koelby couldn't sleep and was up “thinking” (whatever that means lol) until 4:30am, not a happy camper when I woke him at 8:30am to get ready to go. He was pretty much in a bad mood until he got coffee but that would have to wait for Tom to call the auto body shop. He called and they said… call back in 10 minutes?!?!? What? So we waited and called back and and and its not done… Tomorrow they say, tomorrow they say… Well when will tomorrow ever come? Only they know I guess… So what now? We shower I guess. But the showers where closed, nooooo the only nice thing about the day stolen, ugh. As we walked back to the dinghy or whatever and the lady that cleans the bathrooms, that we see everyday when we shower, asked us if we wanted to use the “Good” bathrooms. Yea Yea! So she asked if we had and key and when we said no she let us all 4 into the mens bathroom and said it was okay… Okay ill shower, thank you! And when Jenna was leaving the lady stopped her and gave her a key!!! Yea Yea this day is sort of awesome a little bit. After showers we found out that the Pink Coconut did not actually open until noon so Koelby and I paddled back to the boat to get our laundry to wash. We had to wait for a while for a washer but it was okay because we met a nice lady named Leslie who had sailed here from Spain, cool! We finally got to use a washer, $9 bucks later boo, we left it to wash and headed to the Pink Coconut so Koelby could get his COFFEE! And get in a better mood. And as much as I don’t like him drinking coffee I did like his crazy good attitude all of a sudden :-) We sat there for a long time so Koelby could download some coding tutorials and we ate these cheese potatoe things and I had water, not a good mood maker but I don’t do coffee so being hydrated would have to do. I checked on the clothing, no not done, then Koelby did and it was done so he piled it into the bag and tossed it on the dinghy. I was not a fan of this so Jenna and I stayed behind to finish the downloads while him and Tom paddled back to get and drop off stuff and hang up the clothing. We headed to the, wait for it, wait for it, the Carfour!!! So exciting… We got more baguettes and hamburger meat and veggies and headed back to the boat… So exciting, I feel like I've written this tale before? Is this ground hogs day? Am I suffering from deja vu? Okay, enough complaining. We hung out and ate up on deck, in the dark no less, Tom was being crazy and had 3 hamburgers to my 1 and Koelby and Jenna’s 2, hungry boy. I read while the boys coded, I think and Jenna watched a movie and we all went to bed. Wednesday June 11th started out very slow, we didn't even leave the boat until after 11am. Tom called the auto shop again… And, and, yes the guy was woking on it right now!!! We decided to go to the Pink Coconut, I know crazy right? and eat and use the internet a little. After that we all headed back to the boat. I hung out topside enjoying the sun and reading until it started to sprinkle, rude! We made Ratatouille and white rice for dinner, nice to have veggies but lets be honest it was canned. Again I read and watched a movie with Koelby and went to bed. I woke up on Thursday June 12th around 7:45am and packed Koelby and my bag to go into Papeete and stay at the hotel for 2 nights. Around 8:30am I tried, yea I failed, to wake up Koelby but he said no and went back to sleep. So I read a little and fell back a sleep until 10:30am when I woke up to Koelby asking me a question and instantly felt really nauseous :-( so I laid back down while Koelby did the dishes. After I felt like I could get up we all headed into shore and Koelby had the office call a cab. Tom had called the auto shop to make sure it was done and IT WAS!!!! So we had the cab take us there on the way to Papeete, and amazingly they didn't even charge for work! They said it only took 10 min so it was no charge :-) Happy news! Now lefts just hope it works. We made it to the hotel by 12:30pm and checked in and went out to get some food. Tom and Jenna wanted to go to this little restaurant about 6 blocks away so we followed them. It was really good and relatively cheap, for Tahiti that is.

Koelby'd sandwich, can you tell he was very proud.

 After we ate we headed back to the hotel to relax in a comfy bed and use the internet, sadly this hotel does not have a swimming pool :-( Koelby napped for a long time until I woke him up to go eat. We walked down to the Three Beers restaurant and Koelby and I shared a 1lb steak and fries. 

Restaurant and dinner crowd, they even had a live band, well a woman and man singing and playing guitar. 

Well Koelby ate most of it but it was really good. After dinner since we are pretty lame we just went back to the hotel and hung out internetting until bed. On Friday June 13th… :-) Koelby and I walked back to the three beers restaurant for breakfast and to watch some World Cup before Koelby’s interview today. Im posting this before the interview so you will have to wait for the outcome… ;-)

Seventeenth Entry - posted on Monday June 2nd from Papeete, Tahiti ——

Sorry no pics yet but ill get them added as soon as I can

Can you believe it??? Yes thats right the Edlund’s are back!!! Koelby and I are so excited to be back!!! We talked to the crew a week ago and found out that the 2 girls that were here decided to leave. So we decided in a day or two to come back… Bought tickets and spent the last week getting all of our home stuff in order to return. So on Thursday May 29th Koelby and I got dropped off at PDX at 9am to make our 10:55am flight. Said goodbye to my mom and headed out.

Goodbye to my pup

Hello airplane to Tahiti!

We had a few too many bags due to bringing a lot of needed supplies and personal things to the boat, but somehow it worked out! We checked 3 bags and didn't get charged for any of them!!! So that was nice. After we landed at LAX we had no idea where to go because we flew Alaskan to LAX and we were flying Quantas to Papeete, Tahiti so they couldn't give us our boarding passes. We finally just asked where to go and was told to leave LAX and walk to another building called the Thomas Bradley International building. So we left the airport and made the trek. Once in the international airport it was like we were back in a third world country… no lines or direction at all and people just running around everywhere just like us trying to find our airline. We walked up an down every desk and none said Quantas, ugh! So we tried to self checkin but again no Quantas… We ended up asking like 3 or 4 different people where to go because we kept getting told to go to the wrong areas. Finally we found it… well sort of… We found Tahiti Nui Air and the lady at the desk said it was our flight and that Quantas just does that I guess. So annoying, how were we supposed to know that? But whatever we made it, almost. We had to go back through the security and that took a long time. I was hungry so we stopped to get a sandwich and I paid $17 for a sandwich and water, LA is crazy. We realized that we needed to get to our gate because the flight had started to load 20 minutes before. And it was a maze to get to our terminal and when we did no one was there… But we just started looking around and found it luckily a few terminals away. Once they checked our tickets they sent us to a bus that drove us the plane. And 8.5 hours later we made it to Papeete, Tahiti. 

So cool! Even through it was late they still had a welcoming song and dance.

JT and Mandy met us at the airport and that was a fun surprise. We had to take a taxi to the marina and paddle the dinghy to the boat. Yes I said paddle… We are defiantly back… Koelby and Tom paddled all of the luggage to the boat and then came back to pick us up. Everyone except for Jenna stayed up for a while and hung out and talked. Koelby and Tom stayed up the longest. We woke up on Friday May 30th to Jenna and Tom telling us they were going to paddle to shore and would be back soon. JT and Mandy got up and made us pancakes :-) Yumm. After breakfast we waited for Tom and Jenna to return and we all headed over to shore. By headed over to shore I mean we paddled the dinghy over… Losing weight already… Once on shore Mandy, JT, Koelby and I walked about a mile to a hotel that has free wifi. Awesome right? Well, we found out why it was free, because we couldn't load any pages. We were able to iMessage a few people and I attempted to email my mom - did you get it mom? Tom and Jenna rented a car and picked us up at 3pm from the hotel. Koleby was hungry so we walked down the street to a small local market at bought a huge 2 foot long baguette and some cheese spread for way cheap (everything in Tahiti is crazy expensive, they use currency called the Frank. I don't know if it is the same as the Switzerland Frank) and it was delicious. Maybe I won't be losing that weight after all… With the french influence here the baguette is a staple of their diet. You see people eating them everywhere and every different kind of food comes in them. Even chow mien, crazy right. After our lunch, eaten outside the market on the street by the way, all 6 of us packed into the tiny car meant for 4 and headed the hour to Venus Point. Apparently it was the last car available on the island so we made it work, Koelby, JT, Mandy and I got very comfortable in the back. Venus Point is a black sand beach and very picturesque. We wanted to stay for sunset so JT, Mandy and I played in the ocean while Koelby laid on the black beach. The sunset was very pretty. 

Fun playing in the water at venus point, beautiful sunset and good friends, what more can you ask for?

Venus point is where Captain Cook came and attempted to calculate the distance from the earth to the sun. I say attempted because it was reported that he failed, but he did write a lot about the indigenous people and their culture. There is a light house in the place of where he attempted his research. 

After sunset we headed to the city of Papeete to eat at the food carts. We stopped on the way to Papeete at a view point and saw the lights of the city and the water, so gorgeous.

Viewpoint overlooking the city lights

There were 20 to 30 food carts all set up on the water front and a live musical show. Not a bad way to spend an evening. For being food carts the food was pretty expensive so Koelby and I ended up getting burgers that where pretty cheap and awesome!! Koelby and I were pretty tired so we all headed back to the boat to shower and sleep. Since we are anchored out we don’t have access to the bathrooms or showers so we have to just walk by and hope they are open or someone comes by. They were not open and no one came to use them… ugh… So I ended up using the outside shower at the dive shop. I had a swim suit on so I just took a relatively normal shower and Koelby just stuck his head in. To make it more interesting it was dark and the bar, outside of course, was having a live band playing. So I got to have an audience :-) Fun stuff!! But i’m clean so I think I won this one :-) After showers we headed back to the boat and I went straight to sleep! We all woke up and where headed to shore by 8am on Saturday May 31st. We pilled into the car again, the biggest ones in the back ;-) and headed back to the city of Papeete. We dropped JT and Mandy off at a marine store so JT could try and return the spear gun he had bought. Sadly JT and Mandy are leaving the trip. They are flying out to Australia tomorrow and spending a month there road tripping around :-( :-( :-( So ironic, when they arrived we had to leave and now that we are back they have to leave… :-( :-( :-( Thankfully JT was able to return his spear gun and get the cash back. The 4 of us continued on to another marine store to find some boat stuff. We hit up a few other stores after that, like one called “the American store” haha love it. But really they did have american stuff in it like cheese-its and herbal essence shampoo, too funny. After the Tahitian American adventure we headed to the Papeete market to look around. 

A pic of somewhere in downtown Papeete

We walked around town and ate lunch at a place in the market, there was no where to sit and eat so we went outside and ate on the curb. Tom and Jenna said we had to try the french fry, chicken baguette, so I did and Koelby had the chow main baguette. I wasn't really a fan so Koelby finished mine, but he loved his! After lunch we walked the ways back to the car and headed back because the car had to be returned by 1:30pm. JT, Mandy, Koelby and I went to the local supermarket to check it out and got some local juice to try and walked back to the marina. We were back on the boat by 2pm and I took the opportunity to lay down. Unfortunately my feet forgot what is was like to walk around so much and hurt! Rude of them!! They will need to get over that and soon! After writing this :-) and reading a little I fell asleep for a few hours. Tom and Jenna had plans to have dinner on a guys boat that they met and where picked up at 5:30pm. Since it was JT and Mandy’s last night the 4 of us stayed on the boat to hang out. We all helped but Koelby made us a potato, egg and spinach casserole, very good. We ate dinner talked, drank and hung out. After dinner and dishes where done we headed into shore to try and shower again, since JT and Mandy have a 2 day flight to Australia due to a 9 hour over night layover in Auckland, New Zealand. Sadly the showers where closed again so we all shower outside at the dive shop again… So fun with people 10 feet away eating dinner… But thats boat life. After the refreshing showers we paddled back to the boat and made smores, yummmm. We all stayed up and talked, Tom and Jenna got home after 11:30 when I was already in bed. The 3 boys stayed up the latest but i finally got Koelby to bed around 1:40am after he woke me up. Its now Sunday June 1st and the saddest day so far… JT and Mandy are leaving, sad. JT and Mandy made a pasta lunch and Tom and I did the dishes around 1pm. Koelby and I rowed JT and Mandy and all of their luggage to shore and waited with them for the taxi, and said good bye :-( But they will have an amazing time in Australia so thats a good thought. The same guy, Allen, that Tom and Jenna had dinner with last night came over at 3pm and took us all to this amazing swimming spot. It was so cool. It was like a sand bar a mile from shore that had this movable restaurants that people rent and eat and listen to music and swim. It was a party and there where tons of locals. As we pulled up in Allen’s dinghy we saw a huge ray in the water. But by the time we got the dinghy set up and out of the water it was gone. We did get to see other sea life that I was not a fan of. Every fish and sea slug we saw was white sand colored so I was unable to stand or walk in the sand… I know you think its silly but to bad its my feet and I'm not stepping on anything :-) Luckily I had my handy dandy buoyancy belt and Koelby of course to keep my feet from anything touching them :-) all in all it was an amazing day and a cool adventure. 

This is a pic from land of the swim spot we went to and the huts in the water, no people because it was taken during the week, its packed on weekends.

Tom and Jenna needed Allen’s help cutting something so he took us back to his boat and they cut it and we got to look at his cool old wooden boat, nice guy. We invited him to dinner for tomorrow night so that should be fun. We had planned on heading into town for a food run but Tom wanted to finish fixing the generator so we ended up eating on the boat. Jenna made rice and a tomato pasta soup for dinner and we sort of had smores for dessert. Meaning we just are the smores without roasting the marshmallows, still good. After dinner Koelby and I watched the Wikileaks movie and went to bed. On Monday June 2nd we got up and helped Tom fix some stuff on the boat and headed to shore. We were able to shower in doors!!!! Yeah! And then walked to a little market and got baguettes and cream cheese spread for lunch, while we walked of course. We continued on to the same hotel to get internet. It wasn't working in the lobby so we had to go into the bar and get drinks to use the internet and add this post :-) Hope you enjoy its been a while for me.

Sixteenth Entry the Final Entry and U.S. leg - posted on Thursday April 10th from Portland, Oregon

We woke up on Sunday March 2nd to it snowing outside. So very pretty but cold, burrrr. We got ready for the day and Ian let me use one of his mom’s jackets, thanks Ellen!!! Ian drove us around Park City and showed us some view points and the ski resort he used to work at, so gorgeous. Then we headed into the little old town Park City where the Cans Film Festival is held. We ate at a cute restaurant for lunch and just walked around.

Taken from one of Ian's back decks of his house in Park City, Utah 

From the Olympic site in Park City, Utah

Taken from one of Ian's back decks of his house in Park City, Utah

Once we were done with that we headed to the outlet mall and walked around. I got some cheap and awesome nike sweatpants that will be perfect for a pregnant belly :-) After the fun at the outlet malls we went grocery shopping and headed home to make dinner. We played pool and yahtzee and went to bed. On Monday March 3rd we headed into Salt Lake City on our car buying hunt… Needless to say we didn't buy a car. We went to a lot of car lots and found a few that were okay but the price was to high, we aren’t holding our breath on any call backs. We decide we would do more research and try again in a day or two. Keaton needed to go to the Mac store so we went to a mall and walked around until his computer was ready. We headed  back to Ian’s house to relax and make dinner. Although we all woke up early on Tuesday March 4th we didn't leave the house until 1pm. Ian was meeting a friend in Salt Lake city so we caught a ride in to look at more cars. The first lot we went to had two Volvo XC90s but by the time got there one was sold and the other was on a test drive and when the couple returned they started paperwork to buy it… ugh. So we headed to the next car lot and hoped for better luck. And we found it!!! We test drove a 2005 white Volvo XC70 and really liked it. Koelby haggled with the owner of the small car lot until we got a price we could live with and luckily they took our personal check and we drove off the lot!!!

Not a great pic, but here she is

We had to use a personal check because Utah doesn't have Bank of America or Navy Federal banks, so we were stuck and so happy to find this car lot! Koelby and I ran some errands and ate at chick-fil-a before we headed back to Ian’s house. All in all it was a good day. Koelby, Keaton and I spent Wednesday March 5th hanging out around Ian’s house and packing to leave thursday. Ian’s friend got him a free pass to go skiing so he did that and got back around 3pm. Koelby and I packed everything and loaded the new car full of luggage and went to bed. We woke up at 5:30am on Thursday March 6th and ate some food and were on the road by 6:20am. Keaton decided to stay behind and spend some more time in Utah before flying home. So Koelby and I hit the road to the Arches National Park to, well, see the arches! They were really pretty and cool to see. We didn't have time to hike in to see all of the arches but seeing them from viewpoints were very cool.

Road Trip selfies...

So beautiful, we are defiantly coming back to hike and see it all someday 

After we left the arches we looked at the maps and the times to get everywhere and had to make the decision to skip the Grand Canyon and head straight to Las Vegas. We did this because if we would have went to the Grand Canyon we would have gotten there around dark and don’t have the time stay the night there. Vegas here we come!!! Should be there before 8pm and will be staying at the Flamingo Hotel, fun stuff. We got to Las Vegas and found out that the Flamingo was actually on the strip!!! And since Koelby was driving it was not a relaxing fun viewing of the strip… It was Koelby all agitated about driving around with all the people and to add to it we couldn't find the Flamingo parking lot. After about 20 minutes and an up and down drive of the strip, so fun, for me anyways, we called the Flamingo and found the parking lot. We went straight to the room to shower and get all fancy for our night on the Vegas town. We got dinner and walked around the casino and played a little be for we went to a Vegas show called X Burlesque. The show was okay, the dancing was cool and the people we met sitting next to us were nice and from England :-) We had to leave Vegas around 7am so we went to bed after the show. It was a fun time all in all.

The strip and the Flamingo, Love Vegas!!

Gotta dress up in Vegas, I think its law...

Hitting the slots before the show

We headed all the long long way to South Lake Tahoe at 7am on Friday March 7th. We had a doctor appointment that ran longer than we thought so we had to drive to the Reno airport to pick up my mom before we dropped Koelby off at his bachelor party cabin. Its Max’s bachelor party weekend and all of the old gang from his ATO fraternity were there. After we dropped him off mom and I headed to the hotel. On Saturday March 8th Koelby headed to Mt. Heavenly to go snowboarding with his boys, while mom and I hit the a few casinos, lost some money and got pedicures and manicures, fun day. We had dinner with Koelby at a really good Italian restaurant and dropped him back off at the house to party with the bachelor. I woke up on Sunday March 8th to a text message from the bachelor party asking me if Max and or Koelby were with me… Really??? No there weren’t! So mom and I got ready and headed over to the bachelor cabin to see what was going on and still there was no Max or Koelby. Mom and I were about to go get breakfast when the 2 missing boys came waltzing in laughing and WASTED! Max starts to pull hundreds and hundreds out of his pockets and in all he won over $5000!!!

Such awesome views on the way to Lake Tahoe

Max the batchlor and his winnings...

So awesome for the bachelor to win big on his party weekend. I looked to Koelby see him do the same thing, but he didn’t… Oh well he seemed to have fun. He had lots of animated stories about the long all nighted they pulled drinking and playing poker, but he was wasted so we will never know if it was as fun as he was telling us it was. But it sounded like they had an amazing night. Koelby was in no shape to drive or move or be alive so we headed into Carson City and got a hotel that let us check in early so he could sleep. Mom and I went to a casino and saw movie and returned to the room to wake up Koelby to go get some dinner. After dinner Koelby was still being lame and mom and I were board so we took a walk around downtown Carson City. On Monday March 9th we hit the road to go see Yosemite National Park. We made it close but stopped in a small town a few hours away so we could get to the park early the next morning to see it all in the light. On Tuesday March 10th we drove through Yosemite National Park and walked unto a few waterfalls.

Gorgeous views on the way to Yosemite National Park 

I love Waterfalls and I loved Yosemite National Park! We will also be coming back here to stay a while and see it all!! Can't wait.

It was very beautiful. It would be cool to spend a week or two there and hike all around. After we left Yosemite we headed towards San Francisco because we had reserved tickets to Alcatraz for Wednesday. We found a hotel an hour and a half outside of San Francisco and called it a night. On Wednesday March 11th we headed into the city and walked around the waterfront and ate lunch. We went to the Alcatraz pier a hour early only to find out that the tours had been cancelled for the day due to high winds… This is Koelby and my second attempt in a few months and my third try in my life, ugh! We got new tickets for Thursday and headed to Santa Rosa to stay the night with Evan. We got to Evan’s around dinner time so we walked through Santa Rosa to their downtown area and ate dinner. Very cute area. On Thursday March 12th we got up early and headed the hour and a half back into the city to see Alcatraz! I was determined!! And a miracle happened!!!! We got to go to Alcatraz!! And it was really cool. I learned a lot I didn't know about The Rock and it was cool to learn about it and see it at the same time. So excited we actually got to see it :-) We finished up with Alcatraz by noon and got some lunch before we hit the road.

Love, Love, Loved Alcatraz!!! 

Koelby and mom decided they really wanted to head up highway 1 to see the beautiful scenery. The winding roads made me feel really sick so I feel asleep to avoid car sickness. But sadly that made me miss the beautiful views. Luckily I woke up before it was dark and was able to see some of the nice views of the ocean. Oh, the ocean, the ocean we should be sailing on right now… I will sail on you again soon! We decided to stop in Fort Bragg because it was getting dark and we were hungry. We got a hotel and headed to dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant and it was not as good as the price made it seem… Gotta love the states ;-) On Friday March 13th we continued the drive up the coast and to the Avenue of the giants, also known as the Redwood forrest on our way to Eureka, CA.

So cool right? Go see the trees!!

Yep, we did it! We drove through the tree...

We made it to Eureka, CA friday night and stayed with Koelby’s Uncle Dave and cousin Christian. It was so fun to see them again. On Saturday March 14th we hit the road again for Crater Lake. Unfortunately when we looked up the best route we found out that all the places to stay were closed. Although we could have drove around the lake and seen the views we wouldn't have had a place to stay so we made the decision to head straight the Eugene to see Koelby’s mom. Kathy and Wes were moving into a new house so we only stayed for a few hours to talk and then headed back to Portland and our own bed!! We made it home late saturday night and passed out!!! So nice to be in our own bed ;-) Such a fun road trip, thanks mom for joining us and thanks Koelby for being our driver.
 

Now for the sad and upsetting news. We found out that I miscarried the baby and spent the next 2 weeks going to doctors and dealing with all the medical ramifications that go along with something so sad and tragic to deal with emotionally. We have been keeping this to ourselves and dealing with it on our own. Thank you for all of the support but please no comments or responses, its a little soon to deal with but we know you are all thinking of us. Thank you.

Fifteenth Entry - posted on Saturday March 1st from Park City, Utah

On Saturday February 22nd after I was done posting to the blog, JT and Mandy set us up with a excursion adventure to a wildlife reserve and to go snorkeling. Koleby and I had planned to stay in a hotel room one night here so we put it off until sunday night after the excursion. At the time we had planned on leaving to Ecuador on Monday afternoon so Sunday was our last chance. We all just hung out and attempted to make plans on Sunday for the next stop of the trip. On Sunday February 23rd we were all up by 7am and ate breakfast on the boat. The boat that was taking us to the wildlife reserve was here to pick us up at 7:45am. Unfortunately Koelby wasn't feeling well so he decided not to go, sad. It took about 45 minutes to  motor to the wildlife reserve. It was a beautiful beach area.

The gang, minus sick Koelby and Jt who was taking the pic

Love me some palm trees on the beach

Selfie of Mandy and Me

Our guide was really nice and very helpful and knowledgeable. She showed us many animals; toucan’s, tayra and kinkajou, 3 tiny howler monkeys, and sloths! But the highlight of the trip was meeting Sweetie, a spider monkey!!! She is so sweet and funny, she wanted you to scratch her in random places and she would show you where to do it, lol, too funny. At one point she jumped up on JT’s lap and stayed there having him scratch her.

This is a tayra, she was so sweet and cute

This is a kinkajou

Wild bores 

The cute howler monkeys, there were 3 but they would not all get together for the photo op 

Sloths... So lazy lol

Sweetie is her name

And getting people to scratch her is her game

She loved JT

My attempt to be friend her, what you don't see is that I'm scratching her shoulder :-) 

The owner of the reserve is named Carol and every animal here is a rescue animal. She keeps them until they are healthy and releases them if she is able to. Sweetie was released years ago but chooses to stay around. And the 3 howler monkeys are unable to be released due to the other howler monkeys in the area being in clans and they will not accept these 3 into their clan. A while back one of the howler monkeys got out of the cage and the local howler clan killed it instantly, so sad! So Carol has made the 3 remaining into a small clan and they live a good life, with food and an area to destroy everyday and the staff brings them more stuff to destroy the next day, lol. After we left the wildlife reserve the boat driver took us to 2 different snorkeling spots, the first was nothing but sand and murky water, but the second was really cool with coral and many fish.

So beautiful

Ian and Keaton on the boat ride

And as a treat on our way back we passed a bottle nosed dolphin who played with the boat and came to within 5 feet of it! It was so cool. But we were all hungry and decided to head back for food and rest. Koelby and I ate lunch and checked into the room and enjoyed the huge shower and the AC!!! Oh man the AC!!! Weirdly enough the plans changed again… But I guess this time I was responsible for it… As I was looking up Ecuador and Peru I found out that Koleby and I did actually need the Yellow Fever vaccine that we did not get… Now normally this wouldn't be an issue, we would just head to the hospital and get it, right? Well not so easy to do when you are pregnant, yes I said I'm PREGNANT!!! surprise! And due to this I cant take the vaccine being that it is a live virus. So South America is out of the question for the moment. Another reason we have made the choice to head home is because of the quality of healthcare here… I went to the hospital, the only one within 5 hours and it was insane!! No one spoke english and when I asked for a physical exam, an ultrasound, or a doppler (to hear the heart beat, since I am almost 10 weeks along) I was told no to everything! So much for the first trimester doctors visit.

This is the Hospital I went to...

What do we do you ask? Well we could just head straight to the Marquesas, which is what the boat plans to do. Why don't we do that you ask? Well on March 11th I will be 12 weeks and officially into my second trimester! This means I need to be eating fresh fruits and veggies and gaining a pound a week and if the trip so far is any indication of how we will be eating, it is not conducive. I have already lost so much weight since we left Seattle (which is good but not when pregnant) and just in the last 11 day sailing adventure I lost another 5lbs and that needs to stop!!! I don't think it is fair to my child for me to be selfish and continue this trip at the babies detriment. So Koleby and I decided to grow up and make the adult decision to come home! So we have spent all of our AC and hotel time looking at cruises to LA and San Diego and when that didn't pan out flights to LA and Utah. The hotel was amazing and the AC was even better and everyone enjoyed it immensely!! Its now Monday February 24th and we had to check out of the AC room and are still looking for flights. Ian just left on his bus to San Jose for his flight out tomorrow. We are not sure but LA sounds perfect for the next leg of our trip. We want to see friends and family there and possibly buy a car to do a 3 week roar trip home to see some of the things we haven't seen yet, like Yosemite national park. The other option is to fly into Salt Lake City, Utah and stay with Ian and do the same road trip just backwards. We need to decide soon because the boat is heading from Golfito to Punteranus, a bigger city about 150nm north of us. In Punteranus we will be able to get to San Jose much faster and easier and the boat will be able to do a proper food shopping trip for the crossing to the Marquesas. Its just a much better port. Also the boat is trying to get 2 more crew members since 4 of us are leaving, Ian, Keaton, Koelby and I. So Koelby, Keaton and I booked a flight to LA for tuesday March 4th and then couldn't get ahold of anyone to see if they could pick us up and let us stay with them… So around 10pm our time we cancelled the flight to LA and purchased one to Salt Lake City, Utah. The moment I cancelled the LA flight we got messages back saying we could stay with a bunch of people, ugh. So I guess we will just go to Utah and buy a car and head to LA and do the road trip backwards. When we woke up on Tuesday February 25th the 4 boat members left decided not to go to Punteranus or at least wait for a while to do so. At this time they will only have 4 people to do the 6 week crossing and that might be a little much, but they all seem excited to do it!! They have an add on a website and have been getting inquiries but also want to leave soon. Mandy has a girlfriend that is going to meet them in the Marquesas so they need to get there at some point. Keep watching their blogs to see what happens. Koleby, Keaton and I are going to continue on a small adventure of our own and I will continue to post to the blog until we get home.

This huge turtle hangs out at the marina all the time...

And here is why, the staff feed him fruit! He is eating some watermelon, love this!!

So as Koelby and I were trying to get all of our stuff off of the boat we realized it just wasn't going to happen, so we headed to the duty free market to see if we could find some luggage. Koelby, Keaton, JT, Mandy and I went to the duty free market together. It was interesting… All these stores with american items, we found some nice (Orange) luggage and headed back to the marina the attempt to pack up our boat life… Sad!! Koleby, Keaton and I rented a hotel room at the marina’s hotel and lugged all of our (TONS) of stuff into the ACed room and started to pack and figure out what we could get rid of. Keaton was already packed so he pretty much stayed out of our way and let us work. Koelby and I packed the 3 new luggage pieces and packed his backpack and that is all we are bringing on the plane. So… We still had so much stuff left, so since we couldn't find any boxes anywhere we took our 2 grey 114L rubber made bins from the boat and filled them up with Koelby’s iMac computer, all of our snorkel gear and a hundred other nicks and knacks. Unfortunately even after all this we still had a bin full of books, 2 hiking backpacks and a bunch of clothing and nick knacks left to still pack. By the time we were done packing (almost anyways) FedEx was closed for the day so Koelby set up an appointment with the owner of the marina to meet her at 8am to call FedEx and see if they can bring a box with them so we can mail 2 huge bins and one box home… Ugh, this is going to be expensive. We got the room semi organized so everyone could hang out in the AC and with us. We ate dinner at the marina, surprise lol, and the boys headed to the store to get some wine and beer to have a last celebration! Even though we aren't sure if we are going to leave tomorrow, if we can mail it all tomorrow we will. We want to get closer to San Jose, its 5 hours driving and 8 on bus, and see some more of Costa Rica, but we will have to wait until tomorrow to see what we do. So everyone, except me :-(, started drinking and hanging out. We stayed in the room since there isn't really anything to do here in this town and it has AC. We figured out how to set the computer up to the TV and watched Pitch Perfect! HaHa so funny and a fun night, but not the huge send off I expected. I mean Koelby didn't even get wasted and be ridiculous, lol, is he growing up? Becoming a dad?? Love you bub. On Wednesday February 26th Koelby called the FedEx people early and got them to come today… Or so we thought, they told us 1pm and its 4:15pm… The office lady called them and they said they will be here by 6pm, we will see. We mainly hung out and ate food and headed into town once to get money and duct tape to send the packages. Not a super exciting day but it will be amazing once all the packages are sent and on their way and we can get out of here. Also, change of plans… Weird because that never happens. Well we are now flying out on Saturday March 1st to Utah. We planned on going to a dinner place in town with JT and Mandy but FedEx wouldn't come… They finally got here around 8pm right when we ordered dinner at the marina restaurant, but whatever they came! They gave us a box and I rushed back to the room to fill it with the rest of our stuff! And I almost did it to, I only forgot one bag and couldn't fit the 2 skateboard decks. But we taped it up and paid the obscene amount to FedEx and our stuff was on its way! After dinner Koelby and I fit the skateboard decks into the large luggage and Keaton is going to fit the bag in his luggage so we seem to be set. Everyone came back to hang out in our room for a while after dinner and JT, Mandy and I played some funny poker with a pinnacle deck. Mandy was learning so it was cool for her to have ridiculous hands all the time, like a royal flush for the win!! At around 11pm the 4 of them headed back in the dinghy to the boat since it is now anchored out.

My last sunset over the water... Costa Rica is very beautiful at sunset

On Thursday February 27th Keaton and I were up early and we waited for Koelby to wake up. We are thinking about heading straight to San Jose to be able to have all of friday there so we can see the city, its an 8 hour bus ride so we will see what is decided. So we ate breakfast and headed to the bus station and bought our tickets to San Jose, we officially leave at 1:30pm. Its pretty bitter sweet… JT and Mandy walked us to the bus and I didn't cry (which seems to be a miracle these days, all I do is feel like crying, what’s that all about??) when they left but I was pretty sad to leave them and this adventure. It just feels like we are quitting our dream half way through but I know once I see or feel my that first kick I wont even be thinking about sailing or missing out on anything! But I'm not looking forward to this 7 or 7.5 hour bus ride. And there is no Bathroom on the bus… This could be bad… The bus ride wasn't so bad, I just got off the bus anytime I could to pee and slept for a while and we were in San Jose!! It was around 9 or 9:30pm by the time the bus arrived and the taxi vultures where there to meet us begging and shouting for our fare. But we had to go with the driver who had the biggest car, an old mini-bus. We just have so much luggage!! The drive was really nice and called the holiday inn express for us to make sure they had a room for us (you see we only booked a room for friday night…) and they did not! So he brought us to a nice hotel near the airport that was actually cheaper, can you guess why? No its not so bad just not a holiday inn, that sounded weird but i think you get it. Koelby and I were starving so the hotel manager told us where we could walk to some fast-food that would still be open. Not ideal but food!! I had taco bell and Koelby had burger king… Gross right! But it was close and cheap, I think… I give them US dollars and get Colones in return so I really have no idea what I'm paying for anything. It’s okay though because we leave tomorrow for the states and I know their prices :-) After our gross dinner we watched some TV and looked up stuff on the internet and them went to bed. On Friday February 28th I couldn't sleep and was up at 6:45am??? What… So annoying especially because Koelby wont get up! But I get it I wish I was still asleep!! We went to the mall called Mall International, it was not the nicest mall but it was close to us! So it won. We found a perfect laptop case for Koelby to be able to carry it onto the plane and to carry the laptop, lol. After we ate lunch we came back to the hotel to nap and finish up any loose ends we needed to before we left the country. We walked around the area around our hotel and found a cute little cafe to eat dinner at and it was pretty good. Then we kept walking around and discovered we were in the happening area of town, there were so many people out and about. It was a cute area. We went to bed early because we had to leave for the airport at 5am the next morning. So we woke up at 4:30am on Saturday March 1st (today) and headed to the airport! At entrance to the line to check our bags 3 different people kept saying the word Tax to us and we kept asking what they meant and finally Koelby decoded the information some how and went to go pay the Tax to get out of the country. After that mess we checked all of our bags, even our carry-ons because it was cheaper to do so, $185 later…

6am at the airport

Plane ride to the states, sad...

We headed to our flight and luckily made it on time!! Unfortunately at the ticket counter we attempted to get all 3 seats together and ended up in the very back row in aisle seats… So we couldn't lean our seats back, were right next to the bathrooms and weren't even next to each other, unless you count each side of the aisle next to each other. The next surprise was that Costa Rica was apparently out of fuel or something??? So we had to make a pit stop in Cabo San Lucas for fuel… Hummm, I'm gonna miss this. All in all the flight was okay, I slept and we made it close to the original time of arrival. We had about 4 hours until our flight so we let everyone else off first, well we were in the back so we didn't fight to get out, lol. We ate lunch at an expensive but really delicious restaurant in the airport and then basically waited around for the flight. It was snowing in Denver, Co so the flight were delayed and we left about an hour late, thankfully Ian was at his brother’s in Salt Lake City so he didn't have to wait at the airport for the extra hour for us.

The snow all over the runway in Denver, Co

So that brings us to now… We are at Ian’s mom’s house in Park City and I'm posting to the blog. But don't fret I will continue to post our State side adventure’s, if you are at all interested, and you can keep following the blog to see where the Tradewinds goes! Mandy has already started to post on her page so check it out!!! I so wish I could be with them but I know and all of the mother’s out there know that once I feel a kick and see my baby for the first time all this sadness about missing out will be forgotten as if I never felt it. Until next time.

Fourteenth Entry - posted on Friday February 21st from Gulfito, Costa Rica 

After I posted to the blog on Sunday February 9th at around 8pm I headed back to the boat to rest and make sure our room was ready for sea. The immigration guy had told Tom that we all had to pick up our passports with him on Monday at 8am, so we were all up and in the immigration office by 8am. We got our passports back with no delay, which was really nice. Koelby and I stopped at the bar to eat breakfast, some fresh fruit before we left and then headed back to the boat to get it all ready to go. We still had to stow the lazaret and deflate, clean and pack the dinghy. Once all was complete we had time to spare before the escort took us over the sand bar at 11am, so some people packed and organized their rooms while others went to play on the internet before we left. The escort was on time and we were motoring out of the marina and across the bar at 11am.

Good bye El Salvador!!!

 After motoring for like 30 minutes we tried to turn on the auto pilot and it wouldn't work so we stopped motoring and Koelby jumped in the water to see if the boat speed monitor or depth sensor where clogged with barnacles from being at anchor/marina for a month and they were!! Koelby spent a lot of time trying to unclog all the through holes and scrape the bottom of the boat and he succeeded because when he was done the autopilot worked! Way to go bub! We were able to start sailing around noon and seem to be going strong until around 6pm when the wind died and the sails had to be taken down. Koleby and I were in our room at this point watching a movie and resting before our watch. Koelby had made a version of a vegetarian shepards pie that everyone seemed to love. There was zero wind until almost the end of Koelby and my watch. Around 12:30pm Koleby said it was time to put up the sails. While I turned on the motor and steered into the wind Koelby and JT put up the main sail, then Koleby put up the genoa. It was dark so it took us about 30 minutes to get all sails up but once they were we were cursing, with 12 to 15 knots of wind we were getting 6 to 7 knots of speed. On Tuesday February 11th when Koleby and I got up for our watch at 10am we found out that we had been cruising at 5 to 7 knots all night!! On Tom and Jenna’s watch from 4 to 7am they said the wind speed got up to 20 knots… So in total, even with the hours of nothing, we went 87nm in a day, from noon to noon. If we keep this up we will be to Isla De Coco in 2 days!!!  At around 2pm we started to see dolphins and Mandy saw a flying ray of some sort. And with the many turtles we had been seeing all night, JT and Mandy are almost caught up on all of the sea life sitings!

Beautiful sunsets never get old

Captured a moment...

Me and Koelby in front of the lowering sunset, so serene 

Wednesday February 12th was a good sailing day. We had winds from 12 to 20 knots all day until around 9pm when they decided to stop. We are going from 12pm to 12pm for our daily calculations on how far we have gone, and today we went around 85nm. Not unpredictable but I have been sea sick for the past 3 days, basically ever since we left the marina. Today I spent from 9:30am until 5pm topside to attempt to not feel sick, and it actually worked for about an hour. Now I have become used to this and thought I remembered what to expect but being off the boat for a month apparently made me forget, because it SUCKS!!! And I feel bad for Mandy and JT because they are sea sick too :-( The 3 day mark will be tomorrow at noon so here’s to hoping Koelby is right about that and all 3 of us will feel awesome tomorrow and the rest of the time… Stay tuned to find out. At 5pm Koelby asked me to watch a movie in our room and promptly fell asleep, typical. We headed out of our room around 9:30pm to no wind so Koelby started the water maker, it had its everyday issues but finally started. Thursday February 13th was an exciting day… First of all it was day 3… And actually I did start to feel better after noon!! Not 100% but better, I didn't feel like I was going to puke every time I lifted my head so i’m going to take that as a win! And JT and Mandy seemed to be feeling a lot better too!! All around a good start to the day. So I hadn't mentioned that Ian and Keaton had changed the propane tanks a few days back and mentioned they thought they heard a leak, but also thought they fixed it, it didn't seem noteworthy. So for the past few days, just to be safe, anytime we weren't cooking something we turned on and off the propane to make sure it didn't leak. Well at some point today it didn't get turned off… And yes, you guessed it… We are out of propane. No way to cook anything, what will be next?? At least we are still 175nm from Isla De Coco and another 500nm from Ecuador… Sailing is so much fun, welcome JT and Mandy, how much do you love it?!?! Everyone had individual mini panics and then collectively we all made a huge joke out of it, because really what else could we do? Then someone realized that Ian (our savior…) had brought like 4 boxes of MREs with him from San Diego. Now i’m not saying everyone was excited, some where down right upset, but its food and its in a convenient little pack! What could go wrong? Well they could taste horrible is one thing… But come on people lets not think negatively! So we figured out that we have enough for everyone to have 6 each. That seems good right? Well we may be sailing for more than 6 days and thats only one a day for 6 days… Luckily Koelby and I can share one each day and last for 12 days, but my thought is we will want more than one meal a day… Koelby and I shared the vegetable lasagna, it wasn’t half bad. and its kind of cool how the MREs have little snacky stuff in them, like ours had bread and peanut butter, and a spice cake for dessert. After dinner the wind seemed to be dying down but we held on for the extra few miles to our destination. But by Koelby and my night watch (10pm to 1am) the wind was dead, we took down the sails at around midnight and have been floating ever since. Its now 9am on Friday February 14th (Valentines Day!!!!) and we are still just floating, no sails out, ugh! Will we ever make it to Isla De Coco? We have collectively (not my vote) decided to not eat the MREs and to save them for an “emergency”, I thought thats what this was lol. So we have been letting pasta soak in the sun and soup cans heat in the sun… The soup is actually okay but the pasta, gross. The pasta is so starchy and soft its very inedible, to me at least, everyone else seems to be okay with it, to each their own. We do however have powdered or dehydrated potatoes, just add water, and they are delicious! Koelby made me some after our first pasta dinner experience, that I couldn't eat, and I was so happy!!! Thanks love! Happy Valentines Day! It was a very uneventful day. We didn't have much wind and we put down the sails to swim in the ocean.

Koelby and his back flip preparations 

And he's in...

Im ready to get in the water!!

The water is so amazingly blue and it was so beautiful. We got out the snorkel masks and a few small fish came out to play under the keel of the boat. Looking into the beautiful blue abyss of the ocean is sobering. After the swimming fun we went back to not sailing. We dropped our way point at noon and only went around 50nm today and thats not good. On Saturday February 15th we still had 100nm to go until we got to Isla De Coco, ugh! At noon we found out that we had our second 50nm day and we had to decide if we were willing to motor some or not??? We talked about it and have decided that 50nm days just aren’t going to work with our food situation how it is. So we are going to motor as much as is needed to do 80nm days from Isla De Coco to Ecuador!!! That will mean we will theoretically be there in 7 days after leaving the island. We will see how well that works. On Sunday February 16th the day pretty much went as the rest have… Some wind sometimes and zero wind others. We stopped to swim in the afternoon when the heat was at it highest. Its always fun to stop and swim a little. On Koelby and my night watch (10pm to 1am) we still had 32nm to go and our goal was to be to the island by 9am so we motored for an hour and made 5nm :-) We stopped motoring after that and just hoped for wind on the next watches.

Isla De Coco as we were arriving

Me and Isla De Coco, so close

Koelby and I were pleasantly surprised when we woke up at 9am on Monday February 17th and we were almost to the island. I came outside to take some pics as we approached the island. We anchored in a cove next to a tourist motor boat. And while we were looking into the water to make sure we could anchor we saw a white tip shark! So cool!!! As soon as we anchored the tourism patrol from the island showed up and told us not to enter the water until they returned and saw our passports and paperwork. So Koelby made us all pancakes (I forgot to tell you that Ian and Koelby both had backpacking camp stoves with them so we are able to cook a little) while we waited. One of the people from the tourist boat dove in and swam over to our boat to talk to us. His name was Jared and he is 28 and living in Charleston, SC and works at the naval power school there, of all places… Crazy small world. He was very nice and loved our trip and was jealous he couldn't come. The tourism patrol finally came back and informed us that we in fact could Not check in on the island and could not stay on the island. We were allowed to stay for 8 hours max but where not permitted to snorkel on the island or set foot on it. We were however able to “fix the boat”. This basically means we can go in the water right next to the boat but cannot look like we are snorkeling :-( This is a disaster!!! Everyone is so upset and some didn't even go in the water at all :-( I couldn't stand to come all this way and not at least see something so I basically spent the whole time in the water. I could see some big fish around the boat and some cool colored ones down much deeper. We could not see the coral really, due to how deep it was and the water was not 100% clear.

Ready for a day of sort of snorkeling...

Panoramic of Isla De Coco and Keaton

Koelby and I

Its a one piece!!

So pretty, to bad we cant go exploring

We did get to see around four more white tip sharks on the sea floor about 30-40 feet under us. It was cool to see them but not the excitement we all had prepared for. After all the not snorkeling… We were all talking about what to do next. Go to Ecuador? Go back to Costa Rica? And we all pretty much made the choice to head to Costa Rica since it is so much closer and we are starting to run out of food. The only hang up is that we could not see any marinas on the charts for Costa Rica, so Mandy and I decided to swim over to the tourist boat and ask. One of the crew members and the tourism patrol assisted us and told us to go to the marina they came from because it had everything we needed, a town, food, gas and propane. They also told us that Gulfito had a marina too but was not the ideal place for us and our needs. We also met Jared’s dad, Steven and they told us if we went to the marina they came from that they would be there in 5 days and had a car and a house! They invited us to use the car for our much, much needed grocery trip and to come over to the house for dinner and a hot shower, they invited all 8 of us. Before we left their boat they gave us their phone number and told us to call when we got in. We reported this all back to the rest of the crew and started the discussion on where to go. We left it up to Tom, Jenna, JT and Mandy to make the decision and it is to go to Gulfito (this saves us over 100 miles of travel in the long run). So I guess no car or house are in our future. Stay tuned to find out whats there… The island patrol came by again around 1pm and told us we couldn't be anchored where we were and would need to move so we decided to just leave. We pulled the anchor and headed away from the island of disappointment… So sad isn't it?? I know, I know, your thinking poor us on a beautiful island in the sun and not working right?? Well you have to put it perspective, people pay a lot of money to come to this island and its one of the top 10 snorkeling/diving destination in the world. So to be so close and not get to snorkel and see it is a little devastating if you ask me. But we cant think that way, the glass is always half full, right? We have more trip to come and we did see a few sharks (white tips that where very small and 30 feet down) which was cool. And we got another surprise a few hours after we left. We saw WHALES!!! Jenna looked them up and said they were called porpoise whales! And the coolest part was that they were right next to the boat and actually swam towards the boat and past us in the back. It was so cool, one was completely white and they did this cool thing where right before the surfaced the water turned an aqua marine green color. Can’t really get that on camera but it is worth seeing for sure.

Koelby and I hard at work on our daytime watch

Tuesday February 18th was basically spent floating or motoring to get us as close to Costa Rica as possible!! On Wednesday February 19th Koelby fashioned a wind scoop into our room, and its amazing!! So its an umbrella but it works! The sad part is that we didn't think of it earlier and that it only works when we are going up wind… But when we are its Amazing!!! No more complaints about the sauna room, lol! Well at least for those few moments of the day ;-)

Here it is...

It was a lazy day and we had mac and cheese for dinner for the 3rd night, so you can imagine how ecstatic we all are, but the boys try and keep it new by adding different stuff to it, like beans, or tuna, or tomatoes and veggies. But lets be honest it still mac and cheese. It was about 9:30pm and I was reading in our new wind blown room and JT and Mandy were watching a movie in the salon (Tom and Jenna were asleep) when Koelby yells down to us all saying that him, Keaton and Ian have fastened a weight to a glow stick and are going to drop it in the ocean and do we want to come watch? We all looked at him like he was insane and started laughing. But in the end we all came out to see the science experiment, lets be honest, what else are we doing? The moon was not out yet so the night was really dark and had hundreds of beautiful stars out. So Koleby dropped the glow stick and we could actually see it for a long time diving in the water, even though we couldn't see how clear the water really was this gave us a good idea. After that exciting minute we decided to play with the water and see the bioluminescence using the net and running it through the water. This was only fun for a minute so I told Koleby he should jump in and we could watch him in the bioluminescence! And what do you know… He did!!! It looked so cool! He was glowing in the water and the movements on the surface looked like when a diamond twinkles in the sunlight. He looked like an angel sparkling in the water, no pics unfortunately because a camera cannot capture it. While Koleby was entertaining us all the moon decided to make its appearance and we all got to witness the moon rise. Have you ever seen one? Its one of the most beautiful things I have seen. Makes all the bad times and stresses of this trip worth while! If you get the chance, don’t miss it! When Koelby and I woke up on Thursday February 20th we still had 91nm to go and the main sail was not up so Koelby pulled it up and we started to move pretty fast! We are stressing just a tad because we need to get into the marina on a weekday, which means Friday!! Tomorrow!!! Or else we will have to either anchor out for the weekend (kill me) or pay through the nose to have the workers come in on a weekend… ugh!! Fingers crossed we make it by tomorrow at a timely matter, because not all countries work a 9 to 5pm like we do in the states. We made a plan to motor as much as we had to in order to get to Gulfito my 10am. What we didn't think about was the gas tanks and what ones where filling the day tank. So… We temporarily ran out of gas… Yes I said out of gas. But luckily Koelby and Tom looked at the tanks (we have 3 gas tanks, forward, middle and aft) and changed the valves and we were able to refill the day tank and measured the gas so we know we have enough to get there!! We motored from 8pm until around midnight, this left us with 30nm left to go. Tom and Jenna started motoring again at 4am on Friday February 21st and didn't stop until we made it here and by 10am!!!!

Pics as we came into Gulfito

The Banana Marina

There is always a first for everything, lol, Us being on time when we planned!! We got all checked in and found out that the marina was $2.50 per foot per night, ugh! So we are staying tonight, anchoring tomorrow and then staying one last night before we leave. We all ate lunch at the marina bar, yum real food!! Tom and Jenna left to go to customs and the rest of us stayed behind to research grocery stores and make a game plan for Costa Rica and beyond. Its not 2pm and i’m posting to the blog… Taxes are next!! So internet is bad so no blog posting at the moment… But taxes are done!! :-) And funny story, so Tom was picking up the propane tanks to get them filled and one was really heavy??? Why you ask??? Oh, yeah thats because it was not empty at all!!!!! Yes, we suffered for no reason!!! As they say all apart of the adventure right??? NO I say! I guess someone put some tape on the connection area and it made it so the line could be tightened enough so the propane could not get to the stove. Tom removed the tape and tightened the propane as tight as he could and low and behold it works… Oh man!!! Fun times on the boat! Did a half post to the blog and its 6pm so ill try again tomorrow to add all the pics. Thanks for your patience. We just hung out and ate dinner at the marina bar and went to bed. Its not 10:20am on Saturday February 22nd and i finally finished this post!!!! Good bye for now.

Thirteenth Entry -  posted on Sunday February 9th from Bahia Del Sol, El Salvador

I did it!!! I Finally completed a blog post! Sorry it took almost a month to post but internet has been elusive and like I’ve said before carting the iMac (a 21 inch screen desktop computer) just wasn't happening, but now that we have a laptop I should be able to post anytime we have internet!!! I’m pretty excited if you couldn’t tell. So its still Friday January 31st (and still Shell’s Birthday!!! Happy Birthday!!!) at 5pm. We ate dinner and watched a movie on the and went to bed. On Saturday February 1st, can you believe its February??? Anyways we were up early and ate breakfast and I started to upload all of the pictures from our computer to the blog, via flickr. Around lunch time Koelby, Rick, Jens and I headed to the beach. We ate lunch at the beach side of the resort and then hit the beach. Chuck was there and lead us to a little palapa on the beach. Koleby, Rick, Jens and I headed out into

The pretty birds at the marina

Rick, Chuck and Koelby at dinner at the Beach side of the resort

the surf with the boogie board to see what kind of waves we could catch. Everyone attempted the buggy board but didn't have much luck. Koelby said he could ride the wave for a few seconds but then it would die out. The current was really strong and kept pulling us to the left, but the issue was that the good breaks were to the right. So we fought the current to catch the good waves. Since I am lighter than Koelby he kept putting me on the waves!! It was so much fun! I’m so glad we bought the buggy board. After the fun and the sun, Rick and Jens got burnt, we headed back to the marina side of the resort and hung out in the pool for a while. I spent more time up loading the pics to flickr and then hit the showers. Koleby wanted to watch the Duck basketball game and the Blazer game so Rick, Jens and I changed and took the dinghy down the way to a little pupusa place. The dinghy was being weird again… This time it was my fault, I started it but forgot to put in the choke so it puttered out and stopped. And with the crazy strong current it just made it harder. Jens got in and got the motor going and we fought the current to the pupusa place just up the estuary. One of the waiters came out to the dock and assisted in tying up the dinghy and seated us. The pupusas were delicious and dinner was really fun, you missed out Koelby! After dinner we coasted in with the current to the marina and tried to kill the engine before we hit the dock… No such luck. We slammed into the dock and the current held us there. Rick and I got off and tried to push the dinghy away from the dock, with no luck, but Jens finally got it off and we tied it up and headed back to the marina bar to see how Koelby was doing. I stayed up at the bar with Koelby until around 10:30pm when I was finally done uploading the pics to the blog and then went to bed. Rick, Jens and Chuck were all watching a movie topside and Koelby stayed at the bar to finish the game. On Sunday February 2nd we got up and had breakfast and waited for the gang to show up. Carol, Tony, Tom, Jenna, Ian and Keaton all showed up at the boat to hang out. Tom and Jenna gave Carol the grand tour. After the boat show everyone headed to the beach for some fun in the sun. Koelby, Rick, Jens and I all stayed behind to eat and then met them at the beach after. Keaton, Tony, Koelby and I used the boogie board to surf the waves for a while and then headed back in. Ian and Tom had already headed back to the boat so the rest of us joined. A few of us hung out in the pool and some at the boat. I showered to get the sand and salt off me and went to the bar to hang out. Ian, Tom and Jenna went back to San Salvador with Carol and Tony. Keaton stayed behind with Koelby, Rick, Jens and I. Koelby, Rick and Jens watched the Super Bowl at the marina bar. A quarter into the Super Bowl the local presidential election coverage took over all channels on the TV, so Koelby brought up the iMac desktop to stream the game. I was really tired for some reason and just went back to boat and went to bed. We all woke up early on Monday February 3rd to clean the boat and get it ready for JT and Mandy to come tomorrow!!!! Koelby and I went through all of our clothing and drawers and cleaned out all we didn’t need. We filled up his old sea bag with the extra clothing and shoes and Jens agreed to check it as his free checked bag home. We are so lucky he was willing to do that for us, Thank you! Keaton cleared out the rubber made bin he was using and also sent some clothing home with Rick, in his checked bag. Since Koelby and I cleared out so much we now have 3 cabinets empty for others to use. Keaton filled up one and we will see if Ian wants one and will give the 3rd to JT and Mandy, since this is in our room we asked the cabinets to be filled with shoes and clothing they don't wear often so we don't have 4 extra people in and out of our room on the daily. Gotta love boat life… On the up side, JT and Mandy now have both bunks empty for sleeping and 2 very large rubber made bins available for them to use and store their clothing. It looks like all 8 of us will make it after all :-) Koelby had set us up with a ride into San Salvador with a cook from the marina who gives rides on his day off. His name was Martin and he was totally awesome and exceeded our expectations!! We didn't have a hotel so we asked him to “take us to the one at the airport” yeah I know… But once we were at the airport he stopped and asked around and took us to the Quality Inn and let us check in and drop off our bags, this place was U.S. nice! Then he drove us into San Salvador and to Carol’s house for Keaton to drop off his bag. And then he took us to the artisan market so we could shop around for more gifts. Martin then asked us if we wanted him to wait and drive us back to the Quality Inn at the airport? We were like hell yes, except we have a few more places to go and he took the information of the places we wanted to go and scouted them out while we were at the artisan market and then came back and picked us up. We got to go to the really cool store that Kelli took Wendy and I to when she was here. The store is called Qumbo and it is really cute items made locally out of recycled material like old bike tires or chip bags or telephone wires. I got both items Wendy asked for and was able to send them home with Rick for Wendy!!! After the Qumbo store Martin dropped Keaton back off at Carol’s and we left her the gift we had bought her and then he drove us to a grocery store for Rick to get the special El Salvadorian cheese he needed and then took us back to the Quality Inn. He was totally awesome and Koelby set it up for him to pick JT, Mandy and the 2 of us at the airport the next day at 1:30pm. We were all very hungry so we dropped off out loot in the room and hit the hotel bar for some food. It was okay. We just hung out in the room, watched some american tv, in english!! and fell asleep early. On Tuesday February 4th Koelby went with Rick and Jens to the airpot at 7:30am just to help carry the bags and was back before 8am. We showered and ate the free breakfast and laid around until 1pm when we headed to the airport to pick up JT and Mandy. As we were waiting and waiting for them Koelby decided to walk around to see if he could find Martin and instead he found JT and Mandy!!! Somehow we missed them and they had been waiting around a corner, lol. After we found them Koelby found Martin and we all pilled into his van and he brought us back to the marina. JT and Mandy settled into the boat and we went down the way to the pupusa place. Luckily the current wasn't insane so we motored over in dinghy with no issues. The server brought us 2 extra pupusas so Chuck and JT took that bullet and ate them. After dinner JT and Mandy unpacked and got totally settled and we all watched a movie topside and then went to bed. On Wednesday February 5th we went to the beach and boogie boarded and played in the ocean. After that we went down the street to a local store to try and buy some fresh vegetables for dinner and had no luck. Once back at the marina Mandy and I went in the pool for a little while with the boys headed to the boat to make lunch. We all ate mac and cheese, with added pupusa cheese and tomatoes and pepper that the boys came up with. Turns out pupusa cheese is very very salty and I cant really eat that… After lunch I took a nap while everyone else surfed the interwebs. We ate dinner and just hung out for the rest of the night and watched a movie topside before bed. On Thursday February 6th JT and Mandy caught a ride into San Salvador with a couple we me met at the resort to explore the city. Tom and Jenna came back around 2pm and Koelby and I just hung out and didn't do much! JT and Mandy came back before dinner and didn't seem to happy with the adventure into the city but where glad they went. Tom and Jenna finished fixing the windless!! We watched another movie topside and went to bed. On Friday February 7th we all took down the genoa and laid it out on the deck of the marina bar and washed it. A nice lady Jean let us use her sewing machine so we could fix the sail. We could not figure out how to set up the sewing machine so after an hour we called Jean for the assist. She set it up in no time and the sewing was on its way! We added sail tape to the huge tear and sewed over it so fingers crossed it will hold!! Good team work everyone! JT and Mandy made a pasta and baked bean dinner on the boat, thanks guys! And at 10pm we all got ready and headed over to the beach side of the resort and the “disco-teca”…

Crazy disco-teca... lol

unfortunately there was no one there…. But we made the best of it and danced the night away anyways, well until midnight when it closed. We were back to the boat and in bed by 12:30am. Its not Saturday February 8th and we are hanging out at the bar on the internet waiting for the ride to the grocery store that Koelby set up for us. At 2pm Koelby, Mandy, JT and I went with Martin to the grocery store. He is so nice!! We were back by 3:30pm and loading up the boat with all of the new food!! I got the chile and vinegar chips i had been craving so I was happy!! We took a dip in the pool and then went to the boat to put up the genoa and start stowing the boat for sea. We leave tomorrow at 10am with our escort over the bar. We ate dinner at the bar and showered. Koelby stayed up at the bar to watch the Blazer game and I went to the boat to read and sleep. We were all up before 8am on Sunday February 9th to get ready to leave. While Mandy and I stowed the salon and kitchen for sea Koelby and JT went to clean and deflate the dinghy. Tom came back to the boat and told us that the port captain would not be in until Tuesday so we couldn't check out of the country until then… What? Tom and Jenna had gone into the office earlier this week to ask if sunday was okay and were told yes! So you can imagine our surprise and disappointment. Koelby and Tom went up to the front office to see what they could do and somehow got the port captain to come in and meet us at 4pm today!!! Yea! now we can leave tomorrow instead of late tuesday or wednesday. its now 10:03am and we are hanging out at the bar and planning to hit the pool. One more day of no sailing I guess. Immigration showed up at like 1pm and no one was here so Koelby asked for an hour to try and round everyone up. I stayed at the bar to wait for everyone while Koelby ran over to the beach side of the resort for Keaton and Ian. We got everyone together and all the passports and Tom went up to immigration and got us all checked out. We had to add Mandy and JT to our manifest so they kept our passports over night and asked us all to pick them up at 8am tomorrow morning. After a swim in the pool with JT and Mandy, Koelby and I went to the boat to watch a movie. Koelby and JT made dinner for us on the boat, thanks guys. We officially set sail tomorrow for Costa Rica’s Isla De Coco!!! It’s about 480nm away so our goal is to be there in under a week, wish us luck. Sorry no pics this post but i didn't take any… See you soon.

Twelfth Entry - posted on Friday January 31st from Bahia Del Sol, El Salvador

On Friday January 3rd I had to give up on the adding pics to the blog at 2am because I was tired and wanted to get up early the next day to finish the blog before Wendy and I left the marina. On Saturday January 4th I was up by 8:30am and trying desperately to add more pics to the blog and did succeed in adding a few but I will have to add the rest in El Salvador if we can get internet at the marina. Wendy and I had to make the decision to take a bus to El Salvador when we found out that we could not check out of the country until Monday morning. So Wendy and I booked a hotel in Tapachula a town about half an hour from the marina in Chacahua. The cheapest and nicest bus we could find was the Tica bus and it left at 7am on Sunday to Guatemala City. When Koelby and I were in the marina office asking about checking out of the country and paying for the marina we met 2 very nice gentleman who spoke English and offered to drive us all into Tapachula to Walmart and offered to drop Wendy and I off at our hotel. We gladly excepted and we all piled in and

Our good bye pic... Sad Wendy is leaving soon :-(

hit the road by 1pm. Koelby decided to join Wendy and I in our hotel room for the night so the 3 of us could have one last night together before Wendy goes home. After we checked into the hotel we all walked to the bus station. . . So apparently there are like 5 bus stations, ugh, so we just kept walking until we found the right one. Once in the bus station no one spoke English and Koelby's attempts were not cutting it so finally a really nice older man took pity on us and helped us talk to the bus attendants. We found out that we had to come back to the bus station at 6am and buy our tickets then. Well 6am it is then, ugh I'm so not an early bird! On our walk back to the hotel we stopped at a little cafe to eat a late lunch. Once back at the hotel we all interneted and I got the pleasure of dealing with Verizon and their mess up!! Thank you a million times mom and Jay for all of your help! Finally mom aka me, lol, got it all figured out and Verizon fixed their mistake! After that drama we all got ready to go out to a sports bar/brewery for some drinks and Mexican and American football.

Night out, was a lot of fun!

The bar was really fun and Koelby managed to make friends with a half Japanese and half Mexican man that kept buying us drinks! Needless to say I was a little more than tipsy when we finally went home and fell asleep! I was out by midnight and had the alarm set for 5am. I snoozed the alarm until 5:30am on Sunday January 5th when I had to get up because we had to get a taxi for the bus station. Sadly we had to leave Koelby behind :-( tear, but we made sure he had a wake up call at 8am and kissed him good bye. Koelby, Tom and Jenna had set up a historical tour of the city and the volcano and the ruins near by with the 2 gentleman who drove us to the hotel and they were picking him up at 8:45am. Wendy and I were really disappointed that we wouldn't get to go are all of the sites and Koelby rubbed it in later when I talked to him by telling us we would have really enjoyed it and it was exactly what I have been wanting to do this whole time in Mexico :-( rude! But I'm glad he enjoyed it and experienced some history. The Tica bus was okay but not as nice and clean as we would have liked. It had AC but it must have been broken because it was absolutely freezing! And the bathroom had no toilet paper, but it had a bathroom! Luckily I anticipated

Pic from the Tica bus station taken at 6am... ugh so early

All pics taken out the window from the Tica bus, some Leaving Mexico and some in Guatemala

this and brought some from the bus station. At the boarder we checked out of Mexico and into Guatemala with relatively no issues. I had my paperwork from checking in so I didn't have to pay but Wendy didn't get any at the airport so she had to pay :-( but it was only like $25 us so not to bad. A Canadian gentleman that was on the same bus with us assisted us with the customs representatives. We asked him about a money exchange from pesos to the Guatemalan currency and he told us that you can only exchange with people on the streets and they are vultures, his words not mine, but once I walked out of the customs office I agreed 100%! There were so many of them and they attacked us instantly. . . Luckily the Canadian gentleman spoke fluent spanish and kept them away from us but not without one of them trying to fight him, or at least that's what it looked like. But he handled himself well and nothing bad happened. We walked across the boarder and into a small shanty town with more people attacking us to exchange money. One guy latched onto me and kept his arm around me the whole walk to the Guatemalan customs office. It wasn't too far but we were really happy to see the bus. I was so happy in fact that I started to go straight to the bus and the guy holing me said no and pointed to where the customs was. Wendy is awesome and walked behind me the whole time to make sure the guy didn't try anything or get into my backpack, thanks love! It was a little weird checking into Guatemala because the Canadian man told us we didn't have to pay and if we said no they couldn't make us?!? What?? So he went first and I guess he told the guy no because Wendy and I didn't even get asked to pay anything. After that we re-boarded the bus and were on our way, with no Guatemalan money mind you. We arrived to Guatemala City at noon and instantly a guy approached us and said he would take us to our hotel and take pesos so we were happy! Until. . . He charged us almost the same amount as we had just paid for the bus ride from Mexico! Ugh!! But we didn't know what else to do because the bus station was off the highway and in a bad part of town and we had no was to exchange our money. I'm sure if we would have just thought for a minute we could have walked somewhere to find an ATM and taken a cheaper taxi but the guy talked so fast and already had our bags in the van, so we just went with it and cursed ourself later for not thinking! Oh well you live and you learn. We got to the hotel by 12:30pm and it was so amazingly nice we forgot all about the overpaid van ride. We were unable to check into the hotel until 2pm so they stored our luggage and we went out to find food. There was a chicken place a block away and we hadn't eaten at all so we went there. The food was okay and it got better when we realized it only cost $5.50 us each!! Then we just started to walk around the streets and see what was out there. Guatemala City is separated into zones and we were in zone 13, a really nice zone! The street was closed to cars and there were hundreds of people out walking their dogs and kids and eating and socializing! It was so cool! I actually thought it was a walk for a cause or something but when we asked someone they told us it was Sunday and every Sunday the street is closed for this purpose. The whole street was lined with park blocks and there was even a kids roller coaster there. The best part was that no one asked us to buy anything or bothered us at all, they were just enjoying the beautiful weather and the people they were with. At 2pm we checked into the hotel and relaxed for a little while. Then took a taxi to the mayors plaza to see some sites. The mayor's house was

Us in the square in front of the Metropolitan Cathedral

Plaza Mayor and Mayor's house

Close up on Mayor's house and the crest

Metropolitan Cathedral in Guatemala City, Beautiful. No pics from inside due to a service being held when we walked in.

Same Cathedral from across the square to show the thousands of people

The thousands of people roaming the streets

We never really found out what this was, but it was pretty so we took some pics

beautiful but not as beautiful as the church next to it surrounding the plaza. We went into the church to see if but Sunday mass was going on so we left. In the middle of the plaza were many venders for food and traditional Guatemalan clothing an thousand of locals hanging out and shopping. And once again it seemed like no one even noticed us and didn't even once ask us to buy anything! It was so refreshing! Guatemala City was really beautiful and had nice paved streets, I would recommend you visit! (Side note, Koelby hates Guatemala City and says avoid it at all costs! Go to Antigua!) We walked up a street covered in people and did some window shopping and actually found a store that sold real Toms shoes! We didn't get any and kept walking. There were tons of street performers and many many locals surrounding each one to watch the show. Most of them we saw were dressed as clowns, we tried to watch a few but since we didn't understand what jokes they were telling we just moved on. After a few hours we headed back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner. Wendy had asked the bell hop from earlier where he recommended we go and he said the hacienda Royal restaurant was amazing and had a

Most delicious dinner in Guatemala 

Cant really tell but it was a tree inside the restaurant!! So cool. 

Gotta love mirror selfies, lol.

shuttle that would pick us up and drop us back off for free. Wendy found it online and it said it was the number one restaurant in Guatemala City so we ordered the shuttle for 7:30pm. The shuttle arrived by 7:45pm and when we saw the restaurant we were more than impressed!! It was so beautiful! It had trees and vines growing down the sides and throughout the restaurant and a fountain in the middle of it, a play area for children and so many beautiful decoration all around. It was basically an outside restaurant inside, so cool! One of the servers spoke English and helped us order. We got a mixed seafood ceviche for a appetizer, Wendy got the tenderloin with a mushroom cream sauce, a baked potato and corn and I got the fillet mignon with mashed potatoes and salad with oil and vinegar dressing! And let me tell you it was the most delicious dinner thus far! And to top it off they brought us out warmed garlic bread! It was so good, we were more than impressed and happy! We asked the waiter if there were any young hip clubs to go to and he said not on a Sunday and since we ate way to much we decided to just head back to the hotel and crash for the night. The internet was not good in the rooms so I didn't get to talk to Koelby, sad, night love! We were up by 9am on Monday January 6th and I finally got to Skype with Koelby for a few minutes. He said the 12 hour tour of the city and the ruins was so amazing and I would have absolutely loved it! Crappy for me and Wendy but I'm glad he enjoyed himself and saw some history. Wendy and I headed to a bank we saw down the street and had no luck with exchanging the pesos but were told to go to Banco Azteca a Mexican bank and try them. We got the hotel to find the bank and call them to see if in fact they did take pesos and they did!!! So we jumped into a taxi and headed over. Well, they did take pesos but at a 25 to 30% loss for us, so we just said no and we would look somewhere else. We then did the only logical thing and went shopping :-) There was a huge mall next to the bank and Wendy found a cute top and I found a fun jumper dress in a reddish orange, trust me it's really cute!  After the mall we headed back to the same area we had explored the day before to find what seemed like the only store in all of Guatemala City that carried toms. We found it in no time and it was interesting trying to find a pair that fit. They only had what was out there. So you just had to search through them all to see if any fit. I found a few in weird colors that fit but finally settled on a dark grey and about the same color for Koelby in a size 12 so hopefully they fit but the only 11 was a kinda weird color (they didn't fit at all, they where tiny like I suspected but fit Ian so not a total waist). Wendy found some really cute orange ones so all in all it worked out. Then we hurried back to the hotel to check out at 1pm with all of our loot in hand! We checked out of the hotel and they offered to hold our bags until we got on the bus at 4pm, such a nice and accommodating hotel, I would recommend to anyone going to Guatemala City! Since we were so busy with all the shopping and pesos ordeal we forgot to eat, so we ran over to the chicken and pizza place next door and had some good, all be it unhealthy food :-) I got the pizza so I could have some left overs for the bus ride and dinner since we wouldn't be to Carol's house before 9pm. After lunch we lounged at the beautiful pool for over an hour until we had to check in

Pics by the pool, these are Wendy's feet. 

for the Del Sol bus to El Salvador at 3pm. Koelby FaceTimed Wendy's phone at like 3:20pm since he can't call me because our iPad and my iPhone are the same, he would essentially be calling himself lol. And I got to talk to him before he left to sail down to El Salvador. Yes you are reading correctly!!! They didn't leave for El Salvador until after 4pm. . . I guess because of checking out of Mexico and the tide being too low. But man they are never going to get to El Salvador at this rate! And Wendy leaves Wednesday January 8th at 9am, ugh I'll be all alone. After the brief FaceTime call I changed into comfy clothing for the bus ride and we were in the bus by 4pm. At first Wendy and I were freaking out because the lady at the door to the bus took our passports and told us to get on the bus?!?!? So we did because it wasn't like we could ask what was going on, man I need to learn spanish! But a few minutes later she boarded the bus and we were on our way, we felt a little better that she was at least on the bus with us. So the bus was extra extra nice!!! Leather seats with AC but not to cold. The bus attendant lady came around with coffee and soda and even a subway sandwich later in the night all the while playing movies for us. Although they were

Bus pics and selfies... Love

in Spanish with no English subtitles I appreciated it anyways. This bus was nicer and cleaner than most America airlines!! Wendy and I felt very fancy!! And it was only $25 each. With all this pampering I didn't even need to eat my leftover cold pizza :-) At the boarder to El Salvador the bus attendant checked us out of Guatemala with no cost to us. There is a bridge at the boarder to El Salvador and it recently, or maybe not recently I don't really know, was damaged. A gentleman told us that it could not support the weight of the bus but could only support smaller cars and trucks so we had to walk over the boarder and onto a new bus on the El Salvador side. Maybe something was lost in translation because what??? Um, okay? So we all got out and left our luggage, Awwww, and walked across the small foot bridge attached to the larger "damaged" bridge. .  . We made it but we were a

Walking over the "damaged" bridge into El Salvador

little wary in the dark with the bridge damage and not being able to see the water below, yeah that's how high we were. But Wendy and I made it with no casualties and relatively few pics while we walked across lol. At the new bus we saw our luggage being loaded out of the bed of a small truck and the new bus was just as nice so we were happy. A little while later we were given our passports and a customs official boarded the bus and checked our passports but weirdly enough didn't stamp it? Oh well they let us in for free, fingers crossed I get out, just kidding, Wendy had no issues at the airport so I'm not worried! We finished our trek to San Salvador and Carol, Tom's sister, is so awesome she had a taxi waiting for us with our names on a sign and everything!!! Wendy and I again felt very

Love the sign!!! So fancy.

fancy!!! Thanks Carol. We arrived at Carol's house at around 9pm. We met Tony before we went home and just spent a little time chatting with Carol and figuring out what we were going to do the next day. I showered before bed because we had decided to just ride in with Carol and Tony in the morning instead of taking a taxi and she leaves at 7am, ugh so early for me lol. On Tuesday January 7th Wendy and I were up and ready to go before 7am and again Carol spoils us by calling her girlfriend Kelli, a tour guide, and setting us up with a private tour for the day!!! Carol you are so amazing!!! Tony arrived at around 7:15, 7:20am and he dropped us off at Carol's work and Carol walked us over to the mall across the street and to the Starbucks so we could eat breakfast and have wifi. We interneted until 9, 9:30am when Kelli joined us and we told her everything we wanted to do and see and she made a plan in her head. We wanted to go to the tourist markets and get souvenirs and see the San Salvador volcano (San Salvador is surrounded by them) and see all the history and at least one museum. And let me tell you, Kelli (wavestoursfiestas@gmail.com) exceeded our expectations!!!! She not only took us to a volcano that we walked to the top for pics and views of the city, but she took us to 2 different markets and a local shop that had the most amazing story and items and she took us to the agricultural museum and explained Everything! She took us to all the monuments and out to a local place for a traditional El Salvadorian food called pupusas

View from the El Salvador volcano to another volcano on the other side of the city

Pic of me from the same view point

The proper name of the El Salvador volcano, but you can call it either

Pic down into the volcano

Pic of me from the view point into the volcano

Pics from the pupusa place Kelli took us, beautiful city views

Fernando Llort a famous artist, see below for his style of art. He actually taught others in El Salvador to copy his style and allows anyone to copy it and sell it, really awesome of him

All his original art and signature style. To buy a copy its dollars but to buy an original in thousands.

Cool and sad story here... Fernando was commissioned to do the design on the door of the Metropolitan Cathedral shown below. And when new power came in they decided they didn't like it and took it down, Fernando asked if he could take it down and keep it, since it was his life's work, the church said No. So the popped off all of the tile and it fell to the ground and shattered, Fernando then asked for the shattered tile and was also told No, he has recovered a small amount from people who stole it or found it in the trash, sad and rude of the catholic church.

Here is the Metropolitan Cathedral now, just painted a dull white. Below is a shrine to the most famous Arch Bishop Oscar Romero, it is in the basement of this cathedral. He was assassinated by the government while giving a sermon at a church, in front of hundreds of people. This is one of the factors that started the civil war that didn't end until 2001.      

Theater in El Salvador, were the plays are shown

The National Palace used to be where the laws were made, but not only holds the archived records

Iglesia El Rosario is the name of this dome style church. Ruben Martinez a prominent sculptor was commissioned to buide it. The sad story behind this amazing church is that Ruben was commissioned to build it, he is a famous El Salvadorian sculptor, he does iron work and you will see his sculptors around El Salvador in squares and round abouts. The Arch Bishops from the Metropolitan Church tried to stop him from building the church, but Ruben appealed to the Vatican and won, but he was only given $200,000 to build it. He studied architecture for 2 years and began to build. He had so little money he used anything he could find, recycled iron from other jobs, stain glass from the trash and tools. 

Pic of the square from the steps of the Iglesia El Rosario Church. During the civil war the square was used for protest and one day the government opened fire on the protesters and they ran into the church for safety, the government kept shooting into the church, there are still bullet holes in the door. They killed 22 people and would not let anyone out for months and the dead bodies began to root so the people in the church broke into the floor of the church and buried the dead. There is now a plaque where the bodies are buried.

Pics from inside the beautiful church with the sad story. 

that we wanted to try. Wendy got everything she needed In terms of souvenirs. The local store we went to is all recycled items made by homeless children and other locals to be able to make money for free and recycle items. It was so neat! They were also invited to attend the Emmy awards and now have celebrity's ordering their stuff, so cool. The picture I add will have description about what they are and what we saw. This was the most perfect day for Wendy since she has to leave tomorrow!! Thank you Kelli and Carol for making Wendy's last day perfect! Kelli dropped us back off at the Starbucks at 5pm. Wendy bought some coffee from a shop suggested by Kelli as being the best local coffee in San Salvador. And we met Carol for dinner. I needed to wifi for a bit and Wendy still wanted to get some chocolate for her co-workers so I stayed at Starbucks and Carol took her to a local chocolate shop. Wendy and Carol decided on a sushi restaurant, where I are salad lol, and we all enjoyed the dinner and the company. We had invited Tony along as well but it was his sisters birthday so he had to decline, next time. We took a taxi home, decided what we were wearing the next day and passed out! We were up by 5:30am on Wednesday January 8th and safely and sadly in the taxi by 6am. We thanked Carol and took off. I rode with Wendy to the airport to try and exchange my pesos and since the Bahia Del Sol marina and resort was only another 20 minutes so it was cheaper for Wendy and I. The taxi driver was so nice and tried to help me exchange the pesos with no luck, ugh! He got me to the resort by 7am. I paid a little extra to have an early checkin at 10am so I still had 3 hours to waste. They held my bag at reception, gave me the wifi passwords and sent me on my way to the pool. The pool was nicer than the wifi signal and over looks the marina. I checked in at 10am and passed out until 12:30pm when I headed to lunch. This is an all inclusive resort so I get 3 meals a day, 2 snacks and all the drinks and alcohol I can drink!! Good deal I think! After a good lunch I spent a few hours interneting, trying to Skype mom and trying to contact the boat. The boat will need an escort to meet them when they get to the El Salvadorian sand bar. So I have been trying to keep the marina up to date. As far as I can tell I don't think they will make their Thursday at 9am scheduled time, the best time tide

Beautiful pool views at the resort

Bahia Del Sol Resort pics

Hanging at the pool alone, waiting for the boat to get here.

wise, but we will see. Carol has been so awesome and has been keeping me updated since it's practically impossible to see their speed and distance on my iPhone! Just too small of a screen I guess, thanks again Carol! After too much interwebbing I headed back to the room to relax and change for dinner, oh and to write this :-) Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, the rooms are really nice! There is a living room, a bathroom and one bedroom with a huge and very comfy bed! Dinner was really good, but again I need to learn spanish!!! Apparently some of the things on the menu are not included in my package but I had no idea what the waiter was saying so he had to get someone else to help, ugh, I feel dumb, oh well! Smile through it :-) The dinner I finally did get was really good and they brought me some kind of dessert I wasn't sure what it was but I tried it and it was okay. After dinner I did more interneting and Skyped with mom and then went back to the room to sleep. It's now Thursday January 9th and I'm just waiting for the boat. I booked the room for another night, fingers crossed it's my last, and I will just read and eat and drink and internet and hang at the pool and wait, can't forget wait! This is kind of good Koelby being gone and doing something different than me! That means he will have to write something on him own page?!?! Who thinks he actually will?? Any bets? Lol! After lunch I was hanging at the pool and a guy came and talked to me. His name is Shaker but he said for me I can call him Chuck, easier to pronounce correctly I guess. He is 25 years old and from Israel.  He is here working on a 63 foot sail boat. His first language is Hebrew, he also speaks English and is now learning spanish. He was really nice and showed me the beach and the boat. (it's insane nice!) It was nice to not be alone all day even if it was only for a few hours. I ate dinner alone and went to bed early because I was tired from the sun. On Friday January 10th I was up and in the reception area by 9am. I got to hear Tom call in on the radio! The marina sent a boat out to escort them in across the dangerous bar and they were here by 11am. I met the boat on the dock and helped moor it. Tom, Jenna, Koelby and I went to check the boat into El Salvador and then Koelby came back to my room with me to shower before I had to check out at 1:30pm. We tried to see if we could book another night because Koelby wanted one in a hotel but they were even more expensive and all booked up, so we just decided to stay on the boat. We walk around town a little looking for a store. We kind of found one but all they had was drinks, so we got some. We spent the rest of the day hanging by the pool and researching what we want to do next. Had dinner at the marina/resort restaurant and went to bed early around 10pm. On Saturday January 11th  we were up before 9am since we went to bed so early and we took our laundry to the laundry service, $1 a pound, ugh but no other option. After that we played at the pool and on the internet and took a short trip up the street to a local eatery and had hamburgs for lunch,

The attractions on the way to the local eatery. 

they were cheap but good. We ate at the marina/resort restaurant for dinner and anchored the boat about 200feet away. Koelby took me back to the boat around 8pm and headed back to watch the blazer game that started at 9pm. On Sunday January 12th we were all up pretty early and headed over to the marina. Tom, Ian and Keaton did the internet thing while Koelby and I got our laundry. We waited for Jenna to get her laundry and shower and all 3 of us went back to the boat to pack for our trip into San Salvador. Koelby and I returned to the marina and a while later Tom, Ian and Keaton went to the boat to pack. Koelby and I ate lunch at the marina restaurant and a very nice lady named Jean drove us to La Libertad to meet Kelli for a Lucha Libre tour. Kelli and her friend Luis where there waiting and we all pulled into the truck with Koelby, Ian and Kelli in the bed of the truck and headed into San Salvador. We got into San Salvador around 3:30pm and Kelli gave us a walking tour of the centro area. The same one she had given Wendy and I, but it was cool for everyone else to see it. After the tour we ate at a local buffet style restaurant and then walked around the market. We had some time to spare so we stopped for a beer. Lucha Libre started around 6:15pm. There was 4 or 5 fights with one of them being a 3 v 3 fight. We had a special treat in that one of the featured fighters was a gringo from the states. He was the bad guy but we still cheered for him! Now being in a tiny ring you can imagine with 6 fighters it didn't stay

So funny and entertaining, totally go see this if you ever get the chance!!

Not amazing pics but as good as I could get them, videos to follow, just ask Koelby on his page until he does it, thanks for the support :-)

Someone put a baby on stage with the winner and the metals, lol, nice!

The kids from the audience playing after the show.

in the ring long. They were all out in the audience fighting and entertaining. The last fight was for the title and trophy. It was really funny and entertaining the entire time! It was more theatrical so I really enjoyed it! I don't like fighting and watching someone get hurt so this was cool because it wasn't real but was super funny. I would defiantly recommend it. After the fight was over Luis and Kelli dropped all 6 of us off at Carol's house and we joined her BBQ party she was having. It was really fun and cool to meet all of her and Tony's friends. Around midnight I had to call it a night. I'm not sure when Koelby came to bed but I know I was passed out, lol. On Monday January 13th we all headed into town and to the 3 malls that are all in a row next to Carol's work. We needed to internet and look around for a few things. Koelby, Keaton and I took a taxi home so they wouldn't be late for the soccer game starting at 7:30pm with Tony and some friends, we made it with an hour to spare. I headed over around 8:30pm to watch for a while and we all headed back home at 9pm when the lights turned out. The soccer game was called futsol and is essentially indoor soccer played on a smaller concrete field with no rules. Keaton scored a goal :-) On Tuesday January 14th we again headed into town but went to the 3rd mall in the set of 3 and set out on a mission for shoes for Koelby, his are all pretty much destroyed and have holes in them. After all day of looking he finally got a pair of vans, he is hoping they don't hurt too bad. I got a phone/coin purse, a $5 pair of sunglasses, a fanny pack (yes I said fanny pack and it's awesome!!!! So don't hate) and a cute pair of flip flops, so I was happy! And all for not much more than Koelby's shoes but it's cool he needs them. We bought food at the super selecto and brought it back to Carol's for a BBQ. Her and Tony's friend Ramiro was

Carol with Monkey!!

leaving back to Michigan, where he lives with his wife, so he came by to say good bye to everyone. It was fun and really cool to get to know him and everyone better. On Wednesday January 15th everyone except Ian headed back into town but this time we went to a 4th mall a ways away. This mall is special in that it was build around a famous mansion. When the mall was going to be built the city was going to tare down the old mansion but people protested and saved it and now it's in the middle of the shopping mall and has shops in it like Starbucks. It was cool to see but just kind of looked like it was a part of the mall. Maybe they mirrored the feel of the mall around the mansion, but I don't know. Koelby, Keaton, Ian and Tom all went to play soccer with Tony, Otto and the rest of the boys, so the girls stayed behind to catch up in some much needed relaxing and sleep time :-) On Thursday January 16th Koelby and I got up extra early to go to the embassy with Tom and Jenna. Tom needed to renew his passport and we needed to plan our trip to Guatemala with them.  Since Ian and Keaton had already decided not to go the 4 of us needed to plan a little, and with Rick (Koelby's dad) flying in on Friday January 24th we really needed to get to Guatemala asap so we had the chance. Koelby and I didn't get to go into the embassy because we had brought our iPad and that was not allowed so Koelby and I headed across the street to a super selecto and sat in the cafe to use wifi. After Tom and Jenna where done and had a chance to eat and we all made a tentative plan for Guatemala we headed back to the 3rd mall, aka the Multiplaza, so we could so more small shopping and we are lunch. We headed home before Carol was off work and got ready for the night. Carol, Tony and Auto took us all out to a pupusas restaurant and to a fun bar after. I was feeling sick from allergies and I think a head cold so I went home with Carol, Tony, Keaton, Tom and Jenna and passed out. Koelby and Ian stayed out and hit another bar with Otto, Josue and Josue's girlfriend Mariella. Not sure what time they got in but Koelby told me he had fun the next day. On Friday January 17th I was still feeling sick so I slept pretty much until 2pm when Tony and Otto came over to Carol's to drive Koelby, Ian, Keaton and I to the boat to change clothing and get stuff for Guatemala and we showed them the boat. It was really warm at the beach!! Unfortunately it had been really cold at night in San Salvador so we needed some warm clothing. And I'm not trying to rub it in but 55 degree weather with only leggings and a light sweater just doesn't cut it. We ate lunch at the marina and the boys had some beers and we packed and showed off the boat and headed back to Carol's. Once back in San Salvador Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I all changed and went out to a bar called the horseshoe,if translated to English, for dinner and drinks. After dinner and drinks Carol, Tony, Tom and Jenna headed home and Koelby and I went to another bar with Otto and Josue.

Otto's favorite bar called The House of Kabab.

We wrapped up the night at like 1am and Auto dropped us back off at Carol's. Unfortunately for Ian, Koelby and I couldn't figure out the door lock and he had to finally come let us in, sorry Ian. On Saturday January 18th I woke up around 9am and got ready to head to the artisan market and explore San Salvador with Carol. Koelby wasn't feeling well so he stayed behind while the rest of us hit the bus and went to a restaurant for a traditional El Salvarsan breakfast. I realized after breakfast that I had all the cash and Koelby didn't have any or a key to the house so he couldn't leave... I told Carol and she sent Tony over to check on him. Apparently he just slept all day so he was fine but hungry when we finally came home, I gave him money and he got a pupusa. Meanwhile, Carol took the rest of us on a walk around the Santa Tecla down town area and and we got on another bus to the artisan market where we all got something traditionally El Salvadorian. We continued to explore the area and went to a fun design shop that had a small organic market out side with fresh veggies, honey and teas. We were all a little hungry at this point so Carol took us to a local chocolate shop that also had really yummy food. I know I, not really a chocolate fan but it was local so I had to at least try it, so Keaton and I got a ton of different chocolates to try. The white chocolate and almond was my favorite and I actually got Koelby to try some. The plan was to make breakfast for dinner that night so we hit yet another super selecto before we headed home on the bus. We found Koelby hanging out with Tony and Chilo at Chilo's house and took him home with us. Carol, Tom and Ian made pancakes, bacon, eggs and waffle fries for dinner, very delicious! After dinner Koelby and I repacked our bags for Guatemala and then he, Carol and Ian headed over to Chilo's to watch a soccer. Our bus was leaving at 6am on Sunday and our taxi was set to pick us up at 5am so I tried to sleep. Koelby got home before 9pm and we both tried in vain to sleep, ugh tomorrow is gonna suck! We finally fell asleep around midnight I think. On Sunday January 19th we were up at 4:40am and got ready fast because the taxi was early and we were on the road to the Tica bus station by 4:55am. We arrived at Tica bus by 5:15am and bought our tickets and ran down to the Denny's (yes they have a Denny's lol) because it was the only thing open, we ordered fast and had to run back to the bus because it was waiting when we came out of the Denny's. But we made it and we were safe on the bus and on our way to Guatemala by 6am. Now sleep time, right... Well I got about an hour before we had to get off the bus to check into Guatemala, ugh now I can't sleep and they are playing a movie dubbed in Spanish with no English subtitles,I guess I'll write in my journal, hi! Okay so we made it to Guatemala City, found an ATM to get quetzals and took a taxi to the crowne plaza hotel. We decided on this because it's the only hotel I know in Guatemala City and it's in zone 13 which is one of the nice and safe zones. Once there we quickly found out that Guatemala is weird and will only allow 3 people max in a room?? What?? So they let us use their business center to look up hotels and hostels or book a room there, since online rate are way cheaper. After what seemed like forever we  decided on a hostel in zone 1, although zone 1 is not nice and we are told by many it's dangerous we take a taxi there anyways. We ended up staying at the cheap hostel in the bad part of town because it was close to the presidents house and the centro. We took yet another taxi to the centro area, due to it being unsafe, and walked around and explored a little. After a few hours we were all tired and jumped in another taxi back to the hostel to shower and sleep. Koelby and I attempted to shower but he ended up getting shocked by the running water and freaked. He can explained more if he likes; Koelby? (i guess not, sorry folks) So no shower for us. I feel asleep because I hadn't really slept for 2 days. I was woken up by pizza delivered to our room around 8pm and ate and went back to bed. We woke up by 3:30am on Monday January 20th to take a taxi to the Monjia something bus that takes us took us to a town called Coban. We were shooting for the 5am bus but were there in time for the 4am bus so we took it. Unfortunately this meant the bus was full and Koelby I not only had to sit apart but he was stuck in the back in the middle of 2 men that did not fit in the seat. I was in front of him with his knees digging into me and a broken arm rest so I basically almost fell out of my seat every time we turned... Fun times. But at least it was only a 5 hour bus ride. Once in Coban we took a van, that was apparently a bus? To

Selfie of us on the van to Lanquin

Pics of the beautiful views out the window of the Van

Lanquin, which is where the hostel and the tours to Semuc Champey are. The "bus" was okay for the first hour or so until they tried to pack like 60 people onto it when there was like 20 seats. Ugh, but luckily we were in the back so no one stood on top of us but people where hanging out of the door and off the back, oh and it was raining. We road like this for another 20 minutes until we were dropped off at the hostel, we made it!!! We got to the

View from the restaurant at the El Retiro hostel in Lanquin.

hostel by 11:30am and got a room and ran down to the restaurant to eat. We were lucky enough that the 2 hostel managers, Josue and Jill where headed to Semuc Champey and said we could join. So we ate as fast as possible and were in the truck, in the back of the caged truck by 12:15pm and on our way! The ride there was very bumpy and unpleasant for me due to my horrible back :-( but I made it through. Once at  Semuc Champey we striped down into our swimsuits and went into the caves, lit only by candle light. It was really cool and fun and a once in a life time experience. I took off my wedding ring before we went in because I didn't want to lose it, but guess who didn't? Yes that's right Koelby. We were about to leave the cave and he looked down and said hey my ring is gone... He still insists that it's good because he has had it for 6.5 years but I say it's not that hard to take it off so you don't lose it, but it's done now so we will just get him a new one. I decided to be awesome and do the cliff jump in the cave and did the one thing you don't do, I didn't bend my legs when I jumped, ugh so I hit the bottom and added to my already very achy back. But the caves were awesome and the waterfall in the cave was cool. After the caves it was 2pm so we had to skip the inter tubing portion and went straight to the beautiful shelf like pools. We hiked up the mountain to a look out point and took gorgeous pictures and then headed down to the pools. And let me tell you the pictures do not do them justice! You must go if you are ever in Guatemala they are insane beautiful and one of a kind and awesome to swim in. They even have little fish that eat your dead skin off your feet, fancy huh. This was such an amazing day that unfortunately had to end with the same truck ride back... Now I didn't complain at all, except to Koelby but that doesn't count, but this truck

Koelby in the truck headed to Semuc Champey

Views of the river as we walked to the caves

Koelby jumping off of the bridge

Me posing from the bridge to show the river and a pic of the river from the bridge

Semuc Champey this way...

Pics and the amazingly beautiful views from the top of the hike unto the view point to see this amazing feet of nature.

Pics of the pool we got to swim in from up close, the same pools you can see in the pics from above

Selfie action at the pools :-)

Showing off the pools and how beautiful they are!!

More pics of Semuc Champey, so beautiful its hard to explain you just have to see it yourself!!!

ride back might have been the most painful ride I have ever taken. But again I made it back, barely. And subsequently headed straight to the room to lay down before I cried, not really but that's a saying right? Anyways, everyone else went to the restaurant to hang out and attempt to surf the web while I stayed behind to nurse my back and hopefully make it to dinner at 7:30pm, we will see, stay tuned. I made it to dinner and it was really good, it was a buffet with lots of fresh veggies!! Koelby and I signed up for a shuttle to take us to Antigua Guatemala and Tom and Jenna signed up for one to Flores Guatemala. After dinner Koelby and I passed out. On Tuesday January 21st we were all up and at breakfast by 7am where Koelby closed our tab and paid for our shuttle tickets to Antigua. We headed to the shuttles, which were the same buses we took from Coban to Lanquin so I was worried. We approached the one saying it was going to Antigua but the driver closed the door and said no to us because we didn't have a ticket so Koelby ran down to the office to get us a written ticket. While Koelby was gone the bus, or van really, driver closed the door and said no more people. So I kinda freaked out and he told me I had to go with the other tourist agency, what? So when Koelby returned he found out there was another bus and we boarded that one, sat all the way in the back again and hoped no one had to sit in front of him, his long legs don't really fit, like at all. The bus loaded and was relativity empty so we were hopeful. Well.... We stopped at 2 more hostels to pick people up and in all every seat was taken, including the fold down isle seats, sorry Koelby. We finally left Lanquin around

Good Bye beautiful Lanquin, we will miss you

Koelby and I in the van on the way to Antigua!

9:30am and made 2 pit stops for bathroom and food breaks before we got to Guatemala City to drop off one girl. There was traffic so we didn't get to Antigua until after 5pm, 9 hours later even though we were told only 7 hours but we made it and we survived :-) Everyone on the shuttle/bus/van all dispersed to find hostels and hotels and Koelby and I did the same. We were dropped off at Antigua's Central Park and we walked to what looked to be a nice hotel. It was called the La Sin Ventura and the rooms looked nice enough and it was only $18 per person so we booked it, later we found out it was a hostel... Oh well they had hot water and a private room with bathroom so we were happy. We ventured out to eat and then went back to the room to Skype family because the internet was good for once. On Wednesday January 22nd we got up and lazily found our way to lunch around 11:30am and started to walk the town. Koelby had found us a ride back to Guatemala City and a bus to San Salvador for Thursday at 9am so after we booked that and got a map of the city we started to walk. We quickly realized we had no idea what or where we were going and luckily we found a bus tour of the city and booked it for 2:30pm. We had time to waste so we went to an artisan market and got Koelby a new wedding ring since he lost it in the caves at Semuc Champey. He got a cool looking silver ring with a quetzal bird on it, not sure if this will be his forever ring but it will do for the rest of the trip anyway. We met the city tour bus at 2:30 pm and it was only Koelby and I and one other older couple from Mexico so we basically had a private tour of the city. It was so beautiful! We saw many churches and ruins and an amazing view of the city, we also went to a jade museum and got to see how the jade is worked and where it comes from. In Guatemala jade comes to the surface and there is no need to mine it like in other countries. We were told that jade used to be the currency in Guatemala until the Spaniard's came and said gold was better and made gold the new currency, effectively crippling the Guatemalans. It was a 2.5 hour

Taken from Parque Central (central park) and this is the Cathedral of San Jose

El Palacio del Noble Ayuntamiento (The Palace of the City Council or Town Hall)

Taken from the tour bus down a street in Antigua showing the volcano in the back ground

Hermano Pedro ancient Hospital

Iglesia De El Carmen Church Ruins, was beautiful back in the day, most of the ruins were built in the 1600 to 1700s.

Pic from town up to the Cerro De La Cruz, view point to all of Antigua

Church and Convent of Nuestra Senors De La Merced 

Pic of Cross out front taken from the front of the church

Close up on the beauty of the Church and Convent of Nuestra Senors De La Merced

Inside of the Church and Convent of Nuestra Senors De La Merced

The Santa Catalina arch

Iglesia Escuela de Cristo" (School of Christ Church)

City street pic

La Candelaria Church ruins 

Cerro De La Cruz (Hill of the Cross) is the viewpoint overlooking the city of Antigua, gorgeous!

An iron fabrication shop and store, Antigua is known for their iron work

Jade Maya is a showroom and museum. Jade is found in Guatemala without the need for mines, the only place in the world that Jade is found this way. They have the green, lavender, black and a yellow orange color or Jade here. The lighter colors of Jade are almost see through. So beautiful. Jade used to be the Guatemalan form of currency before the Spaniards came and said gold was better and made the Jade currency obsolete.  

Bridge and used to be a water wheel to run the cities' mill

Ruinas De La Hermita De Santa Cruz is one of the oldest chursches in Antigua, it was built in 1664 and the earthquakes in 1717 and 1773 and left it in ruins. It is now used for its acoustics and bands come and play here in the front of the church, you cannot go inside.  

Iglesia El Calvario (Calvary Church), Construction of El Calvario church began on November 19, 1618, when a cross was built there. Construction work completed in 1655 and in 1657 the last of the great paintings of Antonio Montufar was placed in it, as well as others made by Thomas Merlo.

The Ruins of St. Augustine (Ruinas de San Agustin) evoke a feeling of peace that could arise from the tranquility of the place where it is located. Its construction was finalized until 1657. Its history is parallel to that of other buildings in Antigua, as the temple suffered considerable damage due to a strong earthquake in 1717, and the fruits of its reconstruction were again damaged by earthquakes in 1751 and 1773. What was left was used for other purposes, such as a stable and, finally, the remnants of the roof collapsed, leaving in its ruins a vague memory of what it once was.

Ruinas de San Jose el Viejo, the earthquake of 1773 destroyed the building, leaving it in ruins, and used for purposes that had no religious connections, like weddings, receptions and parties

tour of the city and after it wrapped Koelby and I headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. After dinner we Skyped family more since it was such a good time being only the 2 of us in a private room. Hi family, love you and miss you. On Thursday January 23rd we were up by 8am to meet our transportation to Guatemala City. We had heavy bags so I waited with them while Koelby went to find us water. And the lovely man that he is came back with not only 3 bottles of water but a bagel for me!! I love bagels! Thanks love. It's now 9:10am and the office is still closed?? The lady we booked the shuttle with stressed to us to be on time and she is not here... We will see what happens, stay tuned. Our ride finally showed up after 9:30am and it was the travel agent lady in her own car... She had an SUV and 2 French guys in the back so Koelby got the front and I sat between the Frenchmen. It wouldn't have been so bad since the drive is only 30 minutes with no traffic, but she had no idea where their hostel was or where the Tica bus station was so she picked up her daughters boyfriend and the 4 of us smashed in the back seat and drove around for another hour and a half before we finally found the boys hostel. The travel agent lady asked like 30 random people on the street and finally got a taxi driver to drive there while we followed and the funniest, well the only funny part, was that the hostel was the same crappy one we stayed at in Guatemala City. What are the odds? After we dropped off the Frenchmen the daughters boyfriend took over driving and got us to the Tica bus in under 20 minutes but being in the car that long was not fun. It was around 11:30am so Koelby and I got some food and hung out in the Tica bus station until 2pm when the bus left for San Salvador. The ride was nice enough except for the 7 year old and mother kicking mine and Koelby's chairs for the Entire trip. I just don't get why parents let their kids be so disrespectful of others?? If you are a parent, tired or not, please respect the people around you and teach your kids to be respectful too. Anyways, to add to the fun of the day we got stuck at the boarder for like 3 hours not moving and not getting off the bus. We have no idea why but this made us arrive an hour late to San Salvador and poor Otto (our San Salvadorian friend) was left waiting for us. Thank you again Otto for the ride, you are a good friend. We stopped at a store on the way home and Koelby got some beer for Otto and the boys and we headed home. I was tired for the exciting day so I went to bed and all 4 boys headed to Otto's favorite bar to attempt to watch the Blazer game. They came home around 12:30am and Koelby said the Blazers won so I guess they got to watch it! On Friday January 24th Koelby and I got up and out the door by 10:30am and headed to the first of the three malls to get some internet so Koelby could check his email to see if the guy who is giving us a quote to fix the boat had emailed. Whoa, long sentence. We stayed at the mall until the stock market closed because it was a crazy day and we had to see how it ended up. We headed home around 2:30pm and over to Tony's house. We met his mom Mercedes. She is so nice and sweet. Tony took us to a hotel around 5pm to book a room for Koelby's dad and he drove us to the airport to pick up Rick and his friend Jens. Rick and Jens finally got though customs and we loaded in the car and headed back to Santa Techla by 7:15pm. We went straight to the hotel to drop the bags and then back to Carol's to meet up with Keaton and Ian. All of the boys went to the corner pupusa shop and got 16 pupusas and some beer from a corner store for dinner. We ate and headed back to the hotel, Koelby and I stayed at the hotel with Rick and Jens. We had a plan to have Keaton and Ian meet us at the hotel at 10am on Saturday January 25th but by 11:15am we headed out and went to the centro in

We showed Rick and Jens all of the same churches and building Kelli took us on the walking tour, here is the original Presidents house, it was beautiful at one point but the earthquakes destroyed it and no one has preserved it or tried to fix it.

San Salvador without them. We took Rick and Jens on the walking tour Kelli took us on but unfortunately the pretty church was closed so we didn't get to go inside. At around 1:15pm we headed back to the hotel to change and then went to Carol's to see what Keaton and Ian were doing. We decided to go to the little downtown Santa Techla area to walk around. Keaton and Ian said they were going to take a bus and meet us at the hotel because Koelby and I needed to drop off our bags to stay another night and get some laundry done. Again the boys didn't show so at 6:15pm we headed to dinner at Techlabab where we ate

The guys had a blast!

donor kabobs and Otto met us. We walked around the downtown area and went to another bar Otto's friend owned. Around 10pm we went back back to the hotel and Koelby watched the blazer game on the laptop. Our laundry was only half done so I could only half pack. The hotel kept saying it would be done later and later and I insisted it be done tonight since we had to leave at 7am the next morning. My thought was that if I insisted for tonight it would actually be done by tomorrow morning... And I was right! The laundry was complete by 7am on Sunday January 26th! But... They didn't give back all of my clothing... The only item I know for sure is missing is a sweater but I'm worried more is missing, sucko! The worst part is that they didn't even seem sorry, almost like the lady who did the laundry did it on purpose? But I don't know Spanish, I only know facial expressions and hers was rude and annoyed and not forgiving or sympathetic, but it's only a sweater so I'm not letting it ruin my day. We got to Carol's house early and just hung out until Kelli (wavestoursfiestas@gmail.com) arrived around 8:45am. We all loaded into the mini van and hit the road to Juayua, El Salvador. We got here by 11am and checked into our hostel and left to walk around town and experience the food festival. The food was good and it was fun walking around the artisan shops.  After we walked around we got back in the car and headed to Ataco, El Salvador, a small town up the hill. We walked around this towns food

Selfie and pretty church at the top of the hill at the food festival

From Rick's GoPro, taken of town

From Keaton's GoPro, taken of the food festival

From Keaton's GoPro, taken of an insane tree at the food festival

Keaton's GoPro pic of the artisan markets around the food festival

Church in Juayua

Inside of the church, famous for this depiction of Christ. Its one of only 2 churches that depict Christ with indigenous features and brown skin.  

Inside of church, very beautiful

In the back of an artisan shop showing how they make the blankets, etc.

festival and artisan shops as well until 2:30pm when we headed up to the hot waterfalls. We met the tour guide and piled into the back of his truck. This truck had seats but still only bars for walls. And due to El Salvador not being the safest place Kelli had set up guards for us during the while tour. The guards worked for the city and really wanted to protect us and make us feel safe to promote tourism and word of mouth for their city and the adventures they have to offer. And they were great!! Not one issue and they were nice and helpful the whole time, come here to Atiquizaya!! It's crazy!! The water is really warm. Koelby and

Pics taken on top of the waterfall, we had to walk to it and clim down the side

Koelby and Keaton jumped it, video to follow, and went behind the waterfall. And said it was so hot they could barely breath

Keaton GoPro pics of us and waterfall

The Edlund's

Truck ride selfie

River, waterfall and selfie pics

Bridge to hot spring where the hot and cold water come together

One last selfie for the raod

Keaton jumped off the top of the waterfall... Kelli said she has never had anyone on her tours do that before. But they made it and quite frankly made it look easy and fun. So I decided to jump off the lower area that is allowed. It wasn't too high but it was scary because it was really slippery. I made the jump fine and so did Tom, Keaton and Koelby, unfortunately Jenna's foot slipped on her take off and she belly flopped into the water. But she was fine and actually thought it was funny and was glad we got it on video. We hung out in the different pools around the waterfall for a while and them headed to the river where the hot water and the cold water meets. It was insane to sit on a rock and on one side it was hot and on the other it was cold!! So cool!! The hight up River you go the hotter it gets so I stayed near the mix but Koelby swam up River a little and said it was like swimming in a hot tub. It was so amazing and so beautiful. I've only been to hot springs once and it was in Washington at like 4am and it was basically sitting in mud with a tiny but of water in the middle of the night... So you can imagine how much nicer it was during the daylight in a River and not mud pits!! I totally recommend coming here if you are ever in El Salvador! After the hot/cold river experience we went to actual pools that were made with natural rock bottoms and filled naturally with the lake water. The pools are cool because you put your feet in and the fish in the pools eat the dead skin off of them. It feels so funny and cool and weird at the same time. It took a minute to get used to it but once I was it was really nice. First El Salvadorian spa experience and it was a success! We headed back to the van and drove the 30 minutes back to the hostel to change. We were all changed and ready for dinner by 7:45pm. We ate at a local coffee shop and restaurant and it was cheap and amazing!! Thank you Kelli (wavestoursfiestas@gmail.com) it was awesome! Koelby and I headed back to the hostel after dessert to shower and finish the upload on the Mac book. We have a long day of hiking and seeing more waterfalls tomorrow so we need our sleep. On Monday January 27th everyone was up and ready by 9am and we headed to the hike and waterfalls. It ended up being Koelby, Keaton, Tom, Jenna, Kelli, the guide Jose and his brother, 2 guards and myself. Rick and Jens opted out due to the strenuous hiking we would be doing. We soon found out this was probably the best idea for them to have not come! We hiked up and down and up and down for hours and hiked across ridges with amazing views of the coffee plantations and the volcanos. We hiked over and past waterfalls above us, below us and across from us. It was one of the most beautiful things I have seen. The biggest waterfall we hiked to was actually the one we sort of repelled, sort of walked down. I say both because the boys (Koelby and Keaton) said they could have almost walked down it, I on the other hand may not have made it, without falling down it that is, without the rope that was set up for us to hold onto while climbing down. Although we were not strapped in by any means as long as I had the rope to hold onto I could practically run down the waterfall! And I did ;-) Don't worry I didn't fall and I had a blast!! It was so amazing! I've never climbed down a waterfall and may never again but I would 100% do it again!! And so should you!! After the climb down the waterfall we headed down the river to another waterfall spot where Jose and his brother made us all a delicious lunch. We picnicked watching the waterfall fall down that rock wall, it was gorgeous. After lunch we continued the up and down and up and down until we got to an aqueduct. It was amazing. It had waterfalls and a pool to swim in and tunnels to go though. Jose took Koelby, Keaton and I though the tunnels. It was dark and a little scary but I could touch the bottom so I was okay. The first tunnel we had to clim a little to get to and it spit us out behind a waterfall!! So cool! Keaton has video of it, but he has so many to edit not sure when it will be up, I mean look how long it took me to post this! After a half an hour of swimming and going through a few caves we finished the hike where we started, at Jose's house. Thank you Jose and brother and guards and Kelli for a one of a kind experience. We

All pics are from Keaton's GoPro (our camera was put away due to not being waterproof)
Jose's house just before we set out on the hike

Soccer field and amazing view of the volcanos

We happened to see a coffee picker and he showed us his stash, these are the green ones (aka not as ripe) that they pick out, they still get money for them but less

The most amazing views i cant even describe and cant be truly seen even in these pics

Such beautiful, amazing, spectacular waterfalls!!!! Come see them asap!!!

River at the bottom of the waterfall we climbed down

Koelby climbing down the waterfall, go baby go

So many waterfalls, I loved this day

The rivers we trekked through to get to the pic below

The wall of water we ate lunch in front of just watching it in awww

Love

Love

Love

The Edlund's on a rock in front of yet another waterfall, this is where we had lunch, so pretty

These are the aqua duct and pool and tunnels we went through

Keaton standing on the edge of the aqua duct, looks so cool

All pics were taken from Keaton's GoPro (our camera was put away so it didn't get wet, still need a waterproof one) - This is him looking down the aqua duct off the waterfall.

got back to the hostel before 3pm and vegged out for a few hours. I hit the showers and we all headed to dinner before 5pm. The restaurant Kelli (wavestoursfiestas@gmail.com) choose was traditional El Salvadorian and was really good. I didn't feel too hungry after the long hike so Koelby and I shared but it was not enough for him so he grabbed a pupusa on the way home, he was happy. We all watched Step Brothers the movie as a hostel family and Koelby and I went to bed. Rick and Jens stayed up to chat up the other guests at the hostel and played a Spanish sayings game. If you come to Juayua defiantly stay at the  hostel, Daren the owner is really nice and accommodating and the atmosphere is priceless. On Tuesday January 28th we were all up and packed and on the road by 9:30am. We headed to breakfast and then to Ataco for the coffee tour. It was really interesting, see below pics for more details on the process and what we saw - sorry but the pics are out of order and i cant get them to correct so i have numbered them by stages, so there may be more than one state 4 or 5 pic. After the coffee tour we drove

1) Weigh Station for the trucks bringing in the coffee cherries. All coffee comes in on trucks in the cherry form and is weighed

2) Number 14 trough, just an example of one

1 and 2) Panorama of the weigh station and some of the numbered troughs the coffee cherries get put in when they arrive. All coffee is numbered and kept separate from each other to not be mixed  

4) View of the second stage of troughs, once the coffee is de-shelled and officially "green" coffee it sit in these for 6 to 12 hours in water to be fermented. 

5) After the cherries are fermented and have been de shelled from the red covers they come here to dry and are now called "green" coffee. Each different finka (coffee farm) is kept separate from the others. The coffee can take anywhere from 12 to 16 days and has to be constantly moved and rotated (me doing the moving and rotating). At night or in the rare case of rain they cover the coffee cherries with tarps 

5) The different finkas are shown by each square patch 

5) Close up of the "green" coffee. They call it "green" after it has been de shelled from the red cherries

3) Machine that de-shells the cherries from the coffee and turns them into "green" coffee

3) Another part of the de-shelling machine

6) This is the storage room for the "green" coffee. The Finka's pay to have the "green" coffee stay here until they have a buyer for the product. A few tiny sample bags will complete the process and be sent out to potential buyers. Once there is a buyer the process will continue until the coffee is seen as "golden" and most buyers take it from there and roast it themselves, see next steps for process to "golden"

6) More pics in the "green" coffee storage room

7) All the "green" coffee goes through this machine to separate the small bad ones from the larger goof beans

8) After the "green" coffee has been separated it goes to this conveyer belt and around 80 women go through it by hand. Once they have completed this a sample of 30 grams is taken and is only considered complete if the sample has 4 to 10 defect (such as broken or chipped beans) depending on the country and their rules. For example the US will allow 10 but Italy will only allow 4. The hand sorting process will continue until a sample of 30 grams comes out with the correct defect or less. 

9) Once the coffee is proven to be "golden" and has passed the 30 gram sample test they are ready to be roasted. Here i am moving the beans around so they don't burn after they come out of the roaster.

10) After the beans are roasted and cooled they sit in a wooden box for at least 6 hours to get the aroma to come out of the coffee, smells good

11) Grind the beans and package them and you are ready to drink...

Traditional EL Salvadorian coffee makers, Keaton bought one

Are you all ready to make your own coffee now? Only 10 easy steps.

an hour and a half to the Joya De Ceren ruins. They are the only ruins in El Salvador and are so amazing because the depict how the common people lived. The ruins were found on accident and are an amazing discovery. They were almost perfectly preserved by a volcano eruption, the ash covered the houses and crops and a duck and preserved everything. Although there were no huge temples it was really amazing to see where the commoners lived and how they lived. And it was in very tiny houses. We left the ruins and

Joya De Ceren are the only ruins in El Salvador

Map of all the ruins in Central America

Thought to be someones home before the volcano erupted and covered the town in ash

Thought to be a home or meeting place due to its larger size

Koelby and i at the ruins

The back building that is in great condition is thought to be a sauna or sorts. Maybe used for ceremonies or cleansing 

Add caption

More ruins, possibly family homes

Showing off at the ruins

Thought to be a shaman's home, for healing and ceremonies 

View from the ruins

headed the last 45 minutes into San Salvador and went to a really cute little French infusion restaurant. Kelli knows the owner, he is from France and has a goat farm so all of his goat cheese and meat is fresh. Rick had the goat for the record, not me. The food was delicious and the dessert was better! After we were sufficiently stuffed we dropped off Keaton, Tom and Jenna at Carol's house and headed back to the Bahia Del Sol marina. We only got lost once and made it to the marina by 9pm, Kelli had to take off because she still had a ways to drive home. Thank you again so much Kelli (wavestoursfiestas@gmail.com) we really appreciate everything and would recommend anyone coming to El Salvador to look you up. We attempted to check in Rick and Jens to the resort but the room they were given was really far away and only had one bed so they cancelled the reservation and we went to the boat... Oh yes we had problems... The dinghy motor started and then died and wouldn't start again so we paddled to the boat, had troubles with the lock, again! But finally Jens tried and got it first try, thanks Jens! So we were on the oven of a boat and went to bed, long few days! On Wednesday January 29th we all got up and headed over to the marina restaurant for breakfast and to hang out until noon (high tide) when we went back to the boat to get it ready to move it to the marina... Yes we had problems... The dinghy engine wouldn't start again for Jens to go back to the dock to catch lines, then the windlass (the motorized winch that pulls the anchor up) wouldn't work... Ugh... Luckily the dinghy engine didn't start because Jens found the issue and him, Rick and Koelby did a temporary fix and we got the anchor up and motored the few hundred yards into the slip, success, and more work for another day, to properly fix the windless. Koelby got us a deal for pretty cheap for the next 2 weeks, so we will be at the marina until we leave! Convenient!! We hung out around he pool and the restaurant all day, had dinner and saw Chuck. We showed Chuck our (messy, messy) boat and he gave us all a tour of the boat he is a crew hand on. He came back to our boat to watch a movie. After the movie we all passed out. On Thursday January 30th we were all up and at breakfast by 9am, we just hung out at the pool and bar and napped all day. Koelby, Rick and Jens headed to the closest store around 5pm to get beer for the weekend. The election and voting is on sunday so the country as a whole will not see alcohol from saturday to monday... and since sunday is Superbowl, this just isn't going to work for the boys. They came back empty handed on the beer, it cost the same as the resort so they want to try elsewhere, but they did bring back pupusas for dinner, yum! after dinner we watched a movie and went to bed. its now 9am on friday January 31st (my bestie Shell's Birthday!!!! Happy birthday love, miss you) andI have finally moved all of the photos from the iMac to the Mac book pro and am attempting to post... wish me luck. Also I added the rest of the pics to the post below, thank you all for your patience.  I really hope you all enjoy this post and i never have to wait this long to post again because i started uploading pics at 9am and just finished at 4:47pm. Omg this is a full time job :-) Enjoy and there will be more to come!!

Eleventh Entry - posted on Saturday January 4th from Puerto Madera aka Chiapas - Second half of pics added on Friday January 31st from Bahia Del Sol, El Salvador... Finally!!!!

While everyone was showering at the hotel on Friday December 20th, Koelby, Wendy and I made our way half a mile down the beach to the dinghy and out to the boat to put all Wendy's luggage on board and change for the water park. We got back to the hotel and got Wendy all checked out by her 1pm check out and headed to the water park. Now you have to be warned that Acapulco is not an American tourist destination, at Wendy's hotel we were the only Americans, I'm not saying it's not a tourist destination because it is for Mexicans. Knowing this we have realized that we will most likely never find anyone who speaks English. When we got there no one spoke English and they were trying to tell us something about the park but we didn't understand so finally a worker that did speak

English came to tell us that only 2 slides were open and the park closed at 5pm so we were all deciding if we even wanted to go when they came and said they would give us a cheaper price for the park, the wave pool, the 2 slides and the dolphin show, so we all decided that was good and headed in. We only heard one other person at the whole water park speaking English. We ate some food, played in the wave pool and went on the 2 water slides until 2:30pm and went to the dolphin show. Now I've never been to a dolphin show and it was all in Spanish so I'm not really sure what was going on most the time but the dolphins were really cool and did fun tricks. The part that shocked me was when 2 little boys went up on stage, they were maybe 3 and 5 years old, and the trainers put them in a raft and the dolphins drug the raft around the tiny pool. Kind of cool but is that normal? I just felt bad for

the dolphins having to be in such a small space :-( after the dolphin show we went back to the 2 slides and the wave pool and played until 4:45pm and went to go shower and change but there were only out door showers. So Wendy and I took full showers in our swim suits and Jenna conditioned the ends of her hair and tried to not get her clothing wet. I'm sure the boys found us entertaining if not annoying because of how long we took :-) It was after 5pm when we left so we headed to a grocery store and did some shopping for fresh fruit and veggies and headed back to the boat and made and delicious stir fry veggie dinner with the deli pre cooked chickens we bought and it was the best meal in Acapulco thus far. On Saturday December 21st Koelby, Keaton and Ian got up at 7am and went into town to get food for breakfast! So sweet of them!! They returned with yogurt and granola and fruit and this was the best meal in Acapulco so far! After the amazing breakfast everyone except Koelby got all of our laundry and headed into town to clean it, and yes I strapped on a huge hiking backpack with mine and Koelby's clothing in it and hoofed it around town, we had too much so Wendy helped me by carrying all of the towels to be washed, thanks Wendy! We found 2 cabs to take us to the launderia, Spanish word for laundry, but he brought us to one that they do the laundry for you and proceeded to tell us that's all there was. Apparently there are no do it yourself laundry matts in Mexico, we haven't realized but the only ones we had found were in marinas. So we all sucked it up and paid. . . $30 US dollars later my laundry will be done at 7pm tonight, ugh, but what else could I do? We walked to a Starbucks for some cold drinks and free wifi, because it was like 100 degrees today. Tom and Jenna found a marine

In Wendy's hotel relaxing

shop and headed there to see if they could find the zinc we needed to fix the generator while Wendy and I headed back to the boat to see if Koelby wanted to come get dinner and hang out with us. Ian and Keaton stayed at the Starbucks. Wendy and I got the dinghy in the water with no help, go us, and paddled out a ways to give me time to start the engine. Well. . . It was plenty of time to start it but then everything went to hell! I didn't realize but the handle was flipped the wrong way so when I put us in forward we went in reverse and right over a rope and I couldn't get the motor to turn off because the gas handle was still backwards and you have to flood the engine to kill it it so it's already hard. Mean while... I'm trying desperately to get the motor to shut off Wendy had jumped off the boat into the water and apparently a group of kids were trying to help and Wendy is yelling at me to stop the motor and the kids to get away from the motor and trying to not get the rope caught in the motor or the motor in the sand. Finally I did something a the gas handle moved and I flipped it over and figured out that it was backwards the whole time, ugh so dumb :-( once I had the engine the correct way I was able to kill it and pull it out of the water easily. We were basically back on the beach at this point so Wendy got back in and we paddled really far out to give me time to get it started again, it took two times of paddling out before I got it started and we were on our way out to the boat. The rest was cake :-) we stayed on the boat for a while so Wendy could dry off and we all changed and when we went to get back in the dinghy it was gone. . . Turns out the waves were too much for the tie Koelby tied and the dinghy had drifted to shore, so Koelby dove in and swam to shore to retrieve the dinghy, our hero. I guess when Koelby thanked the guy on shore that had held the dinghy for us he wouldn't give it to him without compensation, but Koelby had swam so he didn't have anything, the guy finally gave him the dinghy with Koelby's promise to come back to give him money. Since Koelby said the guy was rude, Wendy and I told him not to give him anything but it's Koelby so he went back to him and gave him some money and thanked him, and again the guy was rude, ugh, Acapulco is just not our spot. After all this excitement and adventure the 3 of us headed back to the Starbucks to pick up Keaton  and Ian to go get some dinner. We ended up at an Italian restaurant... we think, they pretty

Look how pretty their eyes are!

much had everything. Koelby and Wendy got the 6 tacos for 25 pesos (that's 2 dollars) Keaton got a huge sandwich, Ian got lasagna and I got a personal pizza and salad. The food was really good and priced well. After dinner the boys stayed behind to surf the web while Wendy and I ventured out to find a nail salon to get out nails did. We found like 4 but all were booked up for the night or the week so we just stopped at a restaurant across from the laundry mat and had a few beers while we waited for everyone else. A few coronas later we could see everyone had arrived so we got all the laundry and finished our beers and walked back to the boat. Everyone put clothing away and stowed the boat for sea and fixed the generator and the zinc on the Diesel engine and we were off to sea by 10pm. Sunday December 22nd was a pretty lazy sailing day, the wind was light and at the hottest time of the day Koelby, Wendy, Keaton, Ian and I all went swimming to cool off. At one point the boat was going 3 knots and it was hard to get back onto the boat from the water but it was fun. During Koelby and my 1am watch that Wendy did with us on Monday December 23rd the wind started to pick up and we really started to move. At 10am when we woke up from our nightly nap and it was Tom and Jenna's watch we were going 7 to 9 knots! It was awesome but by our noon watch the wind had died and we went swimming again at around 3pm and cleaned the bottom of the boat and rudder until the jelly fish were getting to be too much so we got out. At 6:10pm there was a turtle swimming around the back of our

Turtle, captured by Wendy

boat and Koelby jumped in with the go pro and swam to him and filmed him for a few minutes, it was so cool!! The video will be posted soon (Keaton has it). At around 1:30am on Tuesday December 24th we anchored at Bahia Chacahua, Koelby and I stayed up until around 2:15am just to make sure the anchor didn't drag and then we went to bed. Everyone was already up at around 10am and I got Koelby up to make everyone breakfast so we could go into town. The view from the boat was gorgeous! All we could see sand and palapas, looked amazing. We all piled into the dinghy and were on shore before 11:15am. We soon found out that the website advertising the little surf village was not quite accurate. The website said there were turtles and alligators and resort style cabanas and an Internet cafe. Well. . . It had cabanas, but they were sort of a room with a bed and community showers and bathrooms. And I'm sure there were turtles but we didn't see any. And for the Internet cafe? Um, yeah so there is zero internet in the entire village, of 300 people by the way. Keaton needed internet and printing and faxing for some bank stuff so we started to ask around. We meet a really nice couple, the husband Tim is from South Africa and his wife (I didn't catch her name) is from Mexico, they have a 13 year old son and have lived here for the past 6 years. They showed us thier home and it was so cool. The top deck over looked the beach and water and had hammocks to relax in, so my style ;-) Tim told us that we could find internet/printing/faxing in the town of Rio Grande, and we listened intently as he told us how to get there, it was a long explanation needless to say. So Wendy, Keaton, Koelby and I walked over to the dirt road for the first leg of our trek. The first leg was to get into the back of a truck where we sat on wooden benches strapped to the sides with rope. Not too bad right? Well it filled up pretty fast and soon Keaton and Koelby were on top of

Ridding in the truck, Koelby and Keaton's view from the top of the cab

the cab of the truck in the luggage rack (no kidding... Keaton has the video!), and to add to the excitement it was probably a 20 to 30 minute ride down a dirt road filled with pot holes and dips and the driver was going anywhere from 50 to 60 miles per hour. But we made it though and Keaton said he got some sweet go pro action from the roof of the truck, so that video will follow as well. The truck dropped us off at the man groves (the jungles version of the swamp) and we boarded a water taxi to cross the water towards Rio Grande, the water taxi was cool because we all had seats and the view was beautiful, it was like a 10 minute boat ride. After the boat ride we got into a taxi that took us from the boat landing to the

Our water taxi adventure and views

highway. And from the highway we loaded onto a bus that took us another 40 minutes into town. I guess there are 2 different taxi systems, one works from the boat landing to the highway and the other from the highway into town and they aren't allowed to encroach on the others territory, but it was okay with us because the bus was there when we got out of the cab so no delay. Once we were in town we found the Internet cafe and pizza place Tim told us about and while Keaton was doing his bank stuff the rest of us had a few beers and ordered a pizza for lunch. The pizza place had free wifi so we called all the family we could get ahold of. Mom I tried you and Jay on Skype multiple times but no cigar :-( I was able to talk to Aunt Barb, Uncle Dan, Todd and Taren, I hope they hugged and kissed you and grandma for me. I was going to try and stay long enough to call Aunt Barb back on her phone when she got to grandmas but the last truck back to Chacahua was at 6pm and we had to take the bus, then taxi, then water ferry back to the truck before 6pm so we left the pizza place around 4:30 pm, 2:30pm your time, to make sure we would be okay. We ended up catching the last boat ferry back and the last truck back to the beach. We were back on

Our view of the boat anchored from the beach

the beach before 7pm and were able to meet up with Ian, Tom and Jenna for a dinner on the beach. After we ordered our food all of the lights in town went out. We were left waiting to see if we were still getting food in pitch black. Someone finally came over with candles and a while later our food arrived. We ate by candle light and it was actually a pretty good meal. Unfortunately Tom's hamburger never came and he had to wait until the rest of us were done eating before he finally got his, but he said it was really good. With no lights in

Panoramic view of Chacahua from the boat

town at all we all had to use the moon light to trek back to the dinghy, rocks and all. The bioluminescence are out in full force tonight and the dinghy was glowing as it flew though the water back to the boat. We all found this mesmerizing until we realized it hindered us from seeing the sail boat. Our eyes couldn't adjust and we forgot to leave on the anchor light so we were basically blindly following the direction we thought we left the boat at. Once we finally got to the boat we realized that it had drifted over 550 feet, oops. The swells in this cove were really bad so Koelby and Tom put out the stern anchor to help, and unfortunately even with their best effort, it didn't help, but thanks for trying guys. I must have been really dehydrated from the adventure to Rio Grande in the sun all day because I had the worst headache of my life and went to bed before 10pm. We woke up on Christmas Day and shaved a Christmas tree into Keaton's chest hair, hey we had to have a Christmas tree, and took some Christmas pics on the boat. Tom had found another town about 30nm away called Puerto Escondido that has internet and is actually more of a city than a little village so we stowed for sea and set sail by 11am to get there in time for a Christmas dinner in town. It's now 6pm on Christmas Day and we are still like 2 or 3 hours from our

Merry christmas to all

destination. . . But Koelby and Keaton are making us a casserole that smells really good. And we have been hanging out and watching the hundreds of flying fish and either sting rays or manta rays in packs swimming by us and jumping/flying out of the water. It was so so cool! And Wendy got some really good pics of the sting rays/manta rays flying out of the water. After the hundreds of packs of fish and rays we started to see turtles. Like 20 to 30 passed us on our way to Puerto Escondido. We are having a really cool animal inspired

Koelby in the water while sailing trying to capture the Rays as they swam by. . . he didn't :-(

These are just some of the insane pics Wendy got of the Rays, zoomed in of course

This was a bird hanging out on one of the turtles we saw

Christmas :-) after The delicious dinner Keaton and I made everyone a double layer white cake with red raspberry jam for the filler and made frosting from powered sugar, water and some jam, it was really good. We made it to Puerto Escondido and anchored by 9pm and

Keaton and I bake!! with limited resources and on a boat :-)

even though it's night right now it looks very big! We all sat down in the salon and watched the old claymation made for TV movie of Jack Frost. This was Koelby and Keaton's favorite growing up, I don't remember it and sadly I couldn't hang, I left to go to bed about 30 minutes in. On Thursday December 26th we were all up and in he dinghy headed to town by 10am. We did an elegant beach landing with only one injury, Wendy got caught in the rope on her way out from the back of the dinghy and the boat was being pulled in by someone in the front of the dinghy so needless to say her foot got rope burn and a bruise, but she survived. We sat down at a restaurant on the beach and used the wifi to find a post office for Keaton and see what we could do in the city we were in. We left the restaurant to check into the city and got to deal with that hour long drama. The lady helping us didn't speak English and didn't have a copy machine and said it would take over an hour to complete and that we didn't have to wait but none of us wanted to just leave our boat paper work or passports there and leave so. . . Keaton and Ian had already

Puerto Escondido

left to do what they do and Tom and Jenna went to run some errands so Wendy and I stayed at the office waiting while Koelby ran around town trying to find a copy machine because as far as we could tell the lady in the harbor master office didn't have one. Needless to say Koelby couldn't find a copy place open so we just waited longer for the lady to make the copies. Once that drama was done we went to meet up with everyone at the super che, a large grocery store, to do some shopping. While at this store we all decided to wait until tomorrow to do that shopping and find a hotel to stay the night and be able to shower for the first time in 5 days. Tom and Jenna found a nice hotel to stay at and Keaton and Ian said they were just going to stay on the boat. So Koelby, Wendy and I went to a tourist lady to see what a good cheap hotel she would recommend. Her name was Gail and she sent us to the Ben Zaa hotel. It was cheap and the best possible place we could have found. It turns out the husband who runs the hotel is American and was in the us navy, and his wife is from here. So the hotel and hotel restaurant is the "gringo" (America and Canadian) hang out in Puerto Escondido. So we meet some really cool people who all spoke English and we had the most amazing open faced turkey sandwich and mashed potatoes and Koelby had a hamburger. The daughter of the couple who runs the hotel, Violeta, helped us at dinner and told us she would meet us in our room at 10:30pm and take

us out. So after dinner we went to the room to drink a little and get ready to go out. Violeta

Pics from dinner before our night out

Fun night out at the bars and clubs in Puerto Escondido  

took us to a strip of bars on the beach about 10 minutes away. We went to 2 different bars/clubs and drank and danced the night away. Wendy, Koelby and I called it a night around 2:30am and Ian, Keaton and Violeta stayed out to continue the fun. On Friday December 27th we woke up late and went down stairs to the restaurant for breakfast. Before check out at noon Wendy, Koelby and I showered again and packed up to check out. Tom and Jenna went with Nancy (a very nice lady we meet at the restaurant the night before) to the market to do the shopping. We also met up with Linda another lady we had met the night before at dinner for her to come with us to Huatulco. She was headed there on Friday December 27th anyways to meet her daughter so Koelby invited her along and she decided to come :-) At the last minute Keaton and Ian decided to stay behind in Puerto Escondido and spend the night with Violeta and her friends for the night and for Ian's birthday (which is on December 28th) and will take a bus down to Huatulco tomorrow to meet us. We were back on the boat and ready to set sail by 2pm. The sailing was pretty slow to begin with but we were blessed to see many turtles, and jumping manta rays really near the boat, a yellow belly sea snake, a hump back whale and at sunset we had some dolphins come out and play by the boat by jumping and riding the bow for a little bit, all in all it was a cool day for sea life and cool for Linda and Wendy to see them all in one afternoon. We had to alter the watches because we were a whole watch section down, so Koelby and I stayed up until midnight so Tom and Jenna could get some sleep since dinner took until 7pm for everyone to eat and clean up. Tom and Jenna made us spaghetti and meatballs and cheese bread and it was awesome. Then on Saturday December 28th Koelby, Wendy and I got back up at 4am until 8am for our last night watch, and let me tell you 4 hours of sleep is not fun, but that's life on a boat I guess, happy birthday Ian. We were in the Chahue marina in Huatulco, Mexico by 3:30pm. We said farewell to Linda and all

We set up Wendy's Camera to take the pic and i ran back and this was the best one we got!

hung out and  showered and attempted to get on the inter webs. Wendy, Koelby and I headed out for a nice Thai dinner in town. Wendy found some reviews for a restaurant that said they had the best mojito's in town, unfortunately they were very bad :-( but the food

Koelby was there too, he took the pic of us

was good. After dinner we walked around a little and headed back to the boat. Wendy and I watched a movie top side and Koelby went to the marina bar to stream the blazer game, we lost :-( On Sunday December 29th Tom, Jenna, Koelby and I went to the "ruins" here in Huatulco. I say "ruins" because they were barley ruins, there were a few half structures and

The information about this ruin was that they think it might have been for ceremonies and possibly a ball game 

More ruins, not sure what this was. A platform or bottom of a structure?

Continued excavation   

Very beautiful views from the top of the hike after the ruins, looks over the beach and ocean.

some nice view points up the mountain but it was cool to see. Wendy and Keaton walked around town and Ian stayed at the marina to watch soccer. At around 2:30pm Keaton, Ian, Wendy and I took the dinghy to go snorkeling and found a remote cove to pull the dinghy up on. It was really pretty and we saw more fish than we have seen at any other snorkeling site thus far. We also saw beautiful light blue coral, a sea snake and Keaton and Ian saw a sting

View from dinghy to land, beautiful

Most popular snorkel spot, too many tourist there

We found a private inlet to snorkel!!

Pic from Wendy's camera before it died :-( It said it was waterproof i swear!  

Classic Keaton pics

Beautiful fish, pic taken by Keaton

ray and Keaton got a video of it! It was really fun and relaxing. After snorkeling Koelby made us all dinner on the boat and we headed up to the marina bar for dessert and a few drinks. On Monday December 30th Koelby, Wendy and I headed into Santa Cruz to a hotel resort pool that our neighbors Jeff and Amber had told us about, the hotel lets you hang out at the pool all day if you eat and drink there, and they showed up with their 2 kids later in

Fun times at the pool with my favorite people! Off to shopping...

the day and we all relaxed and hung out. We left the hotel pool around 3:30pm and walked around the little tourist shops where Wendy got a hand painted ornament and a really cute swim suit cover. Koelby went on a tequila hunt while Wendy and I shopped for hats. He found a small bottle of tequila at one of the first shops but since every shop lets you taste the tequila he kept shopping for it the whole day. Wendy and I never found hats we wanted but at one point Koelby got drug into a hand crafted jewelry shop and decided to buy me a ring, and since he was feeling so generous I got a really cute dress out of it too ;-) After roaming the town and annoying Koelby with way too many tourist shops we finally headed back to the boat around 6pm. The 3 of us made dinner on the boat and watched a movie together. The other 4 showed back up around 9:30pm, they had been snorkeling and went to bar for dinner and to stream the duck football and blazer basketball games, they won, but sadly the blazers did not :-( Koelby and I woke up on Tuesday December 31st around 10am and everyone but Wendy was gone, we found out later it was to the Super Che grocery store, to stock up before we left on our 3 to 5 day trek through the Gulf of Tehuantepec. We have been hearing from other sailors waiting to cross it that it is one of the most dangerous crossings and everyone was waiting in the marina for a lull in the weather to head across, one couple for 3 weeks now. Since we have a bit of a time crunch in that Wendy flys out of El Salvador on December 8th at 8am we decided to take the first window we saw. The window was for Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday to have low winds and we were told if we hug the coast we should have no issues. Due to this window we needed to leave the marina by 3pm on Tuesday since we were still 60nm from the Gulf of Tehuantepec. Once everyone was back from shopping we stowed the boat for sea, deflated the dinghy and packed everything up tight. Then we all got one last shower in and Koelby, Wendy and I ran to the Super Che for some champagne to be able to toast New Years since we would be on the boat for it. We were all set and sailing by 3pm! We quickly realized that the seas were not going to be very nice. . . They had good wind but bad swells that forced us to fight them and the current. This meant that we had 10 to 15 knots of wind and at best were going 3 knots of speed, and that's very bad. During Tom and Jenna's watch from 10pm to 1am they were forced to turn on the motor just to stay on course, the wind and swells kept forcing the boat sideways and without the motor we were unable to recover. Needless to say we might have to motor the whole 80nm around the Guif of Tehuantepec, ugh hemorrhaging money but keeping us safe and on schedule. It's now Wednesday January 1st, happy new year to all, and I just woke up for my noon watch and we are still motoring, I'll be back to let you know our progress, even though you probably have already seen it on the blog gps. During Koelby and my watch it was really windy so we put up only the staysl and where sailing an average of 3 to 4 knots, it was awesome. On Thursday January 2nd during Koelby and my noon to 5pm watch Tom looked back at the hand line around 1pm and low and be hold there was a fish on it! It was another

We have had so many bloody fish photos I opted not to take any, but Tom did a great job!

15lb Bonita for us to grill up for lunch. Tom filleted it and saved the skeleton to make fish bone soup for dinner. Koelby marinated the fish fillets and Ian grilled them while Tom made rice and Wendy and I made ceviche with one of the fillets. We ate the ceviche while the rest of lunch was cooking. I am not personally a fan of the fishy fish taste of the Bonita but everyone else ate it. Tom slaved over the stove for a few hours and we all ate our first experience of fish bone soup. Again I don't really enjoy the fishy taste but Keaton and Ian raved about it so I'm sure it was good, I tried a few bites for good measure. Thank you Tom for trying something new and expanding our horizons. On Friday January 3rd during Koelby, Wendy and my 1am to 4am watch all hell broke lose. . . First we were cruising and then the wind completely died and we had to motor to keep away from the fishing boats trolling around us. While we were motoring Koelby noticed that the engine was not charging the battery banks and worried about the alternator being broken. Then when Wendy went to wash her hands she discovered there was zero water in the water tanks. Koelby checked the water pump to make sure it was working and it was. . . We woke up Keaton and Ian for their 4am watch, turned off the engine and when Keaton and Ian told us their floor was soaking wet we jumped into action. We opened up their floor and the floor in the kitchen and the floor in our room and also opened up the engine compartment from all sides to see what was going on. The whole engine compartment was filled with water and so was the kitchen and the boys room, our room was clear. Koelby woke Tom up to let him know the drama that was unfolding. While Tom got into the engine compartment to see what had happened Koelby and I began the long task of hand pumping all the water out into buckets then dumping it overboard. Once we left the boys room and the kitchen was clear we moved to the engine compartment in our bathroom. Tom suggested that we pump directly into the toilet or sink to go faster and I agreed to do the toilet because we had no water to clean the sink out if we pumped into there and with diesel and grime in the water I said no to the sink but yes to the toilet. I was in the small bathroom with Koelby pumping away and breathing in diesel exhaust and I felt like was going to pass out and puke at the same time so I tagged in Tom and he took over. Tom found our fresh water hose unattached in the diesel compartment and reattached it (what had happened is a fresh water hose came loose and pumped all of our drinking water... About 150 gallons into our engine compartment) With the crisis mostly averted and since it was 5:30am we turned on the generator and the water maker and after Koelby and I washed up topside with the salt water pump and dish soap we finally went to bed. After 5 to 6 hours of "sleep" in a diesel smelling sauna we woke up to no wind and no sails up so Koelby and I started to motor and awesomely enough the motor was charging the battery bank!! At around 1pm we stopped motoring and put up the main and genoa to see what kind of sailing we could do. By 2pm we were headed back to shore but we were sailing at 5 to 6 knots with 10 nautical miles left to go to get to Puerto Madero. Our goal is to be able to check out of the county today but we will see when we get there. We got into Chiapas aka Puerto Madero and anchored by 5pm and took the dinghy over to the boat next door to ask about going to the port captain or checking out of the country today. The guy at the next boat was Canadian and really nice and told us to go to the marina and they would come to our boat and the marina would take care of all the customs stuff for us so we high tailed it over to the marina. The marina was really nice and so were all of the workers. We ate an excellent dinner at the marina restaurant and bar and Koelby and I came back to the boat during dinner to be on the boat for the port captain to check us in. After dinner we had an amazing shower and came back to the boat. Since we finally had internet on the boat I decided to finally after a million days post to the blog ;-)





Tenth Entry - posted on Friday December 20th from Acapulco, Mexico - I'm on the iPad so pics will be added as soon as I can. . . Pics added on January 4th from Chiapas

Tuesday December 10th - after I updated the blog it was about 6pm and we needed to move the boat so we didn't have to pay for another night at the marina. But we were all so unorganized and had dinner plans in La Cruz that we just decided to suck it up and stayed in the marina one more night. Alejandro's family had invited all of us over for dinner on Tuesday night December 10th. We met Alejandro and Poncho at 8:30pm to go to dinner at Alejandro's family's house. His sister, Poncho's fiancé, made us chicken enchiladas and they where extra amazing!!! The sauce was out of this world! His mom, Rosalinda got home around 10pm and we just hung out, talked and drank. Rosalinda speaks perfect English because she lived in LA, California from I think 5 to 15 years old and then came back to Mexico. We were so astounded at how nice and welcoming they were and how they welcomed virtual strangers into their home, it was an amazing experience. Alejandro's friend drove us home and we passed out. We had invited Alejandro to come with us to

Yelalpa and told him if he wanted to go that we needed him at the boat at 10am on Wednesday December 11th. To our delight and surprise Alejandro was right on time. We made sure there was a bus for Alejandro to get home. Again we were very unorganized and still needed to do grocery shopping and check out of La Cruz with the harbor master. So while Koelby, Jenna , Tom and I checked out of La Cruz, Keaton and Ian went grocery shopping with Alejandro as there guide. By the time we were all back on the boat and stowed for sea it was around 3pm... Yeah I know, 10am is the plan and 3pm is the reality, ugh, only 5 hours later. Since Yelapa was only 10 miles away we made it there by 6pm and anchored. We headed into town to look around and try to find

Yalapa view from the boat

a hike around 7pm. It was too late and getting too dark for a hike so we settled for dinner. Yelapa was very picturesque from the boat, with all of the houses and buildings in town built into the mountain side. We were back to the boat by 9pm and sailing again. Since we have a time constraint to get to Acapulco by December 18th and pick up Wendy, we decided to get on the high seas and headed to Manzanillo. Koelby and I had made sure, via the inter webs, that there was a bus that would get Alejandro back to Puerto Vallarta. We sailed and motored (to make water, we ran out again...) Wednesday night, all of Thursday December 12th and most of Friday December 13th and made it to Manzanillo by 6pm and anchored in the dark for the hundredth time. While sailing we put out the hand line and Alejandro caught 2 mackerel fish. He bled them and filleted them with the grace and ease

View from boat of Manzanillo

of a practiced hand, his father Jose has a fishing boat and Alejandro works on it with him.

He made ceviche with the first fish and it was really delicious. Once the boat was settled in its anchor spot (we always wait at least an hour to insure it doesn't drag too far) we headed into town to check it out. We could see a roller coaster and other rides from the boat. We

ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant... It was not ideal. After the not so satisfying dinner we headed to the rides to check them out. Koelby, Alejandro, Keaton and I decided since it was Friday the 13th that we would go on the haunted roller coaster... Let's just says it was less than scary and more comical than anything else, but I would have always wondered. There was only one real roller coaster and we all went on it. It was short but fun, the only really scary part was when the turns came and it felt like you would just shoot over the edge and into the water. Yes, the rides were on the water front. After our roller coaster adventures we kept walking through the town and found an ice cream shop. We wondered around for a bit and hit a mini mart for a few items and headed back to the boat. On Saturday December 14th, my awesome brother Jason's birthday!! I won't say his age because it will age me as well being his baby sister of only 2 years, we are sorry we missed it but really hope your day was filled with love and laughter and absolutely no drama!! Love you! Tom and I got up around 7:45am and made breakfast for everyone. We headed across the bay away from the little water front

So excited for the Mexican roller coaster. . .

town to the other side that was all beaches and hotels. We landed semi gracefully on the beach and were greeted by a guy from Seattle, Washington of all places who actually grew up in Portland, Oregon, small world. He was renting an amazing 6 bedroom house with a pool right on the beach. He told us we could put our dinghy at their back deck and it should be okay because people would think it belonged to the house. He invited us in for whatever we needed, he even offered us free calls to the U.S. We took him up on the outdoor shower to get the sand off our feet and thanked him for being so kind. Koelby wanted to see if we could shower there but his flight was leaving at noon and we wanted to make sure Alejandro was able to find a bus before we did anything else. Alejandro asked a few people how to get to the bus station and was told a few different things, like it was a 15 minute walk and about 10 minutes later that it was still 3 kilometers away. We decided to split up, Tom, Jenna, keaton and Ian found a cafe with wifi and stayed to research what we were going to do in Acapulco, while Koelby, Alejandro and I got on a city bus to the bus station. We made it there, and let me tell you we would have never found it and it would have been a long long walk down a highway, we got Alejandro a ticket set to leave at 12:30pm. It was around 11:45am and Alejandro got us in a cab and headed back to the cafe to meet everyone else. We said our good byes and made tentative plans for Alejandro to come visit us in the states in a few years when we move back. Once we were all together again we headed back towards the dinghy. We stopped at a local out door taco shop and Koelby, Jenna and I all got some pork tacos and they were really good and only cost 10 pesos each (about 80 cents). After the tacos we headed to the beach and walked to the dinghy. We launched the dinghy into the water without trouble! And were back to the boat and headed out to sea by 2pm, our destination is set for Acapulco. On Sunday December 15th Koelby and woke up for our noon watch to discover we were going into the wind and could not for the life of us get the boat to go towards Acapulco :-( and even though the  wind was averaging 13 knots we were only getting on average 2 to 3 knots and they weren't even towards Acapulco. Ugh we have to figure something out! Not picking up Wendy at the airport is not an option! On Monday December 16th, my beautiful mother in law Kathy's birthday!! Happy birthday mom, hope it was everything you hoped for, love you! The wind wasn't much better but we did motor for a few hours to make water. In the afternoon we weren't moving at all so we all jumped in the ocean to cool off, did I mention it's a million degrees! We took this opportunity to all take ocean baths... It not as bad as it sounds. The water is actually like 80 degrees so it's really like a bath, if you bathe in salt water. But it was nice to have the semblance of being clean and my hair actually feels okay. We only did around 46nm today, which is very discouraging! On Sunday night I woke up very sick and was sick all day Tuesday December 17th, so Koelby had to do our noon to 5pm watch without me and I laid in our sauna of a room all day trying to feel better. Thankfully I found some medication and was feeling okay enough to eat some dinner and watch a movie topside in the cool breeze. We also did about 65nm so far at around 10pm but that means we still have 130nm left to go... Ugh, we had to message Wendy to let her know we weren't going to make it and she would need to book a hotel, we are so sorry Wendy! We hate the wind at this moment! I woke up on Wednesday December 18th sick still, and was not happy about it! The wind was light all day :-( At around 8pm Koelby tried to steer and was unable to so he went into the lazarette to look at the rudder and see what the problem was. . . One side of the rudder had a bolt unthreaded and was not working. Koelby, Tom and Ian fixed it. Koelby and Tom were in the lazarette and Ian assisted, Tom finally got the bolt put back in place and we were off again but 9pm. At 9pm we had 79nm left to go to get to Acapulco and Wendy! But we were going around 4 knots so that is encouraging. I hope all of your fingers are crossed for us that we make it there sooner rather than later! Thanks guys! Well the wind showed up. . . So it's 1:32am on Thursday December 19th and we are just finishing up with a little scare and excitement. . . Koelby and I were about to come up for our 1am to 4am watch when we heard the auto pilot freak out so Koelby jumped out of bed and ran topside. A moment later I heard him yelling we need help, I looked up the stairs and he told me to wake up the boys, meaning Keaton and Ian so I did. We had multiple casualties, not only was the auto pilot not responding but the the main sheet (the rope that holds the boom Downward to the boat) had broken free and was swinging wildly with about 10 lbs of rigging acting like a mace ready to take our heads off. Remember during all this we still had 15 knots of wind both sails up and no way to steer the boat. Luckily (I don't know if luckily is really the word) we have had both these problems before, not at the same time but separately so we all knew what to do and swung into action pretty quickly and efficiently. Tom rushed below to get the power disconnected and reset the solenoid for the auto pilot while Koelby, Jenna and I secured the boom the best we could Keaton fought with the violent rocking of the boat to get the topping lift hooked up to drop the main sail. Koelby rapidly reeled in the head sail and Ian dug out all the tools needed to make the repairs. So with both sails down the engine running and the auto pilot back in action we had some decisions to make. The same piece on the main sheet had failed for a third time and we didn't know if we wanted to risk it again. We discussed it for a while and went with Ian's idea. We had some old travelers (rigging similar to a main sheet) stowed away under Tom and Jenna's bed, so Ian and Tom worked to remove the old rigging and fashion the

Wendy's here!!!

traveler to work as a main sheet while Koelby attempted to make a more permanent fix to

the actual main sheet. By two in the morning we had the make shift main sheet installed and the sails back up making six knots toward Acapulco! After all the drama he rest of the night went smoothly. We made it to Acapulco and anchored by 2pm. We then all jumped into the dinghy and tried to find a place to park it for the day. We went to two different marinas and could not find anyone who spoke English so we finally just paid like $15 for the dinghy to be tied up to a dock for the night while we went find Wendy. We finally got to Wendy's hotel the Copacabana beach resort, and it's nice! At around 5pm and showered and jumped back into a cab to meet back up with the rest if the crew. We found a small restaurant to eat at that turned out to be a German restaurant and just to let you know. . . If

Wendy the awesome photographer, you should do magazine shoots

this restaurant is any indication of Mexico's capability to do German food, Mexico does not do German well. But we powered though and made it to the cliff divers for the 9:30pm show. It was so cool! They climbed up the side of the mountain and dove off from the top! It's was really amazing to see. After the exciting show Koelby, Wendy and I headed back to her hotel while everyone else headed back to the boat for the night. Everyone came to the hotel at 10am to shower and we are planning on heading to a water park! Wish us luck.        

Ninth Entry - posted on Tuesday December 10th from La Cruz, Mexico

Thursday December 5th after I spent all my time posting to the blog... But Jenna mad it much easier by carrying our iMac up to the VIP lounge at the marina :-) it's not that it's to heavy it's just really awkward for my smaller stature to carry so thanks Jenna, she only got

a few funny looks lol. By the time we were done posting to the blog we all decided to head to dinner and see what all the loud music was out in town, Ian decided to stay behind. The rest of us literally followed the music to a place called Ana Banana and there was a live

band playing so we all decided it was a great place to spend the night. They had a deal on buckets of beer and there were 5 in a bucket and 5 of us so we took it as a sign and kept them coming. The band was awesome and played all America covers and took requests. We found out later in the night that one of the guys at the bar was having his birthday party there and had hired his favorite Mexican band to play. We found this out during his funny and drunken speech on stage, lol, I think he was in his 50's or 60's but I can't be sure. All in all the night was one of the best we have had so far! Everyone had fun and enjoyed the night. After the band wrapped up for the night we got pics with some of them and then headed back to the boat. I woke up on Friday December 6th a little under the weather and was

Jenna and I with the lead singer of the band, Adrianna

disappointed and reminded just how old I really am, I mean I only drank like 5 or 6 beers all night! Oh well lesson learned lol. At around noon or 1pm on Friday Keaton, Tom, Jenna and I decided to venture into Puerto Vallarta and walk around town. We took a "bus" into town and got off at the marina. I say "bus" because it was a van that was so packed when we got in that for a few stops Jenna had to sit on Tom's lap and the driver just kept picking more people up, good times. Once in Puerto Vallarta we walked around the marina and then looked for down town, it was further than we had thought so we ended up in a small

Panoramic view of Puerto Vallarta from the plaza we ate dinner at - December 6th 

plaza of stores and restaurants and ate dinner at a sushi place. And let me tell you my

salad was delicious! It was after 7pm at this point and was getting dark so we jumped on a bus back to La Cruz, this time it was a bus! All in all it was a fun day, we probably walked like 4 or 5 miles so it was nice to crash out on the couches of the VIP lounge and read my

My first good Sushi experience - December 6th

kindle while Koelby streamed the blazer game and everyone else surfed the web. On Saturday December 7th we all hung out around town and went to get at what is now our favorite taco shop in La Cruz, Keaton and Ian found it and Koelby and I adopted it because of how good it is and how nice the owners are. I spent about 4 hours at the pool trying to get rid of my horrific back tan! I know, I know, stop complaining right! I can hear all of you from here, lol. But really I guess all of my swim suits have different straps across my back because I ended up with a 4 inch white stripe on my back and it was just not going to do so I laid in the sun and got rid of it the hard way... I got burnt! I'm sorry mom and Gpa Bauer but I promise I'm done with that and will use the zinc sunscreen from now on! After my pool day we headed to dinner at a new restaurant and unfortunately it did not deliver :-( but it's okay we just won't go back! Koelby had been chatting it up with one of the guys who is fixing our boat, his name is

Puerto Vallarta Marina entrence - DEcember 6th

Poncho and his is 27 years old, and he invited us all to go to a fiesta with him that night. He told Koelby to be ready at 9pm, so Koelby, Keaton, Tom, Jenna and I were all ready, Ian choose to stay behind. We had no idea where we were going but we knew it was 20 minutes away my car. They did not speak any English and we do not really speak any Spanish, I speak zero because I took German in school but the other 5 of us all took Spanish so we struggled through. Poncho and his friends Alejandro, who is 20 and Poncho's girlfriends brother, came to pick us up in Alejandro's car. The technically seats 5 and we had 7 so we all crammed in and made it work. We had been told earlier by Blanca, the lady who works in the marina office, that there was a surf festival in a town called Sayulita that was 2 buses away and we consider going there on Sunday.Well it turns out that Sayulita was the exact place that they

Puerto Vallarta Marina statues - December 6th

brought us! Funny coincidence huh!?! It was so much fun!!! All the streets were blocked off and there was a stage and dancers and singers on the stage entertaining everyone! There were booths and food and drinks everywhere. We watched the singers and dancers on stage for a while and then ventured into a bar to hear another band and have a few drinks. It was very crowded and fun. We ended up in  a small club with a French duo singing reggae music to a techno beat. It sounds weird but was extra fun! At the bar I met a guy from Chicago who was here to surf, it turns out the Sayulita is a surf town but the festival was actually for the Virgin Mary, I'm not sure why exactly because it was loud but I caught that much. We got home around 3am and totally crashed! That's a late night for an oldie like me lol. We had planned to go surfing with Alejandro and Poncho the next day at 2pm. Knowing this Koelby and I slept in on Sunday December 8th until noon and had lunch at our favorite taco shop and met

At the club in Sayulita - December 7th

Alejandro at the marina at 2pm. Poncho decided he needed quality time with his girlfriend so Alejandro took all 6 of us to a local beach called Widows beach. Unfortunately there was no waves so we didn't surf but it was really fun to hang out on the beach. The boys played frisbee and soccer and Jenna read while I payed in the water and laid in the sand admiring the view. After the beach we all came back to shower and get ready for dinner and we all went out to a different taco shop in town for dinner with Alejandro. After dinner we just headed back to the boat to sleep. On Monday December 9th Tom and Jenna had booked a horse riding adventure and were gone by 9am, Keaton and Ian had made plans with Alejandro to go back to the same beach and try to catch lobsters for us to feast on... Due to this Koelby and I stayed on the boat all day because the guy fixing the refrigerator was supposed to come today and needed someone there. Needles to say, he isn't coming until tomorrow... But it was nice for Koelby and I to have a lazy day, we ate at our favorite taco shop with Alejandro for lunch at around 2pm when he was back from the lobster hunt. They did not find any lobster, sad, but they did find oysters. Keaton said he

Fun times in Sayulita - December 7th

was not a fan because they were too salty but Alejandro loves them. After lunch Keaton, Ian, Alejandro and Alejandro's friend Julio all went to Puerto Vallarta for the afternoon to walk around downtown. Even with all of the language barriers we had an amazing time hanging out and getting to know Poncho, Alejandro and Julio. Around 5pm the workers were ready to paint but since we are not allowed to paint in the marina Koelby and I motored out to the anchorage spots and just idled there while they used their dinghy to paint. While we were in the anchorage area Tom and Jenna came back to the marina and to an empty slip... They kind of freaked out for a few seconds until Jenna asked someone on another boat if they had seen the Tradewinds, and luckily they had and told them what happened. They only had to wait about a half hour before we were back. It was dinner time so the 4 of us decided to go back to Ana Banana to see the live band we saw there the other night. As we were getting ready Ian and Keaton came back from their adventures in Puerto Vallarta and Keaton came with us to dinner, poor Ian didn't feel good. The band was awesome again and the food was good. At about 10:30pm after the band wrapped up we all headed back to the boat to crash for the night. It's now

Club in Sayulita - December 7th

Tuesday December 10th and the refrigeration guy David is still not here at noon, we are starting to worry since we need to leave today. David finally showed up at 1pm and Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I went to lunch and to get more money to pay everyone for all the work. It's now 5pm and I am sitting in the VIP lounge freshly showered and ready to post to the blog before we leave La Cruz tomorrow morning headed to Yalapa an island known for its hikes and beautiful waterfalls. 

The Arch in Cabo San Lucas - November 26th

Snorkeling and playing on the beach - November 26th

A moment in time capture by Jenna, snorkeling and playing - November 26th

Thanksgiving Dinner!!

Eighth Entry - posted on Thursday December 5th from La Cruz about 20nm from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

First of all I am going to give a very very very tentative future schedule of where we have talked about possible going next... From Cabo we are ultimately headed to Puerto Vallarta but may have a few small stops along the way, then to Acapulco and down the coast to El Salvador again with stops along the way, after this we are possibly going to venture into Nicaragua and then down to Costa Rica, from there we have a choice to either head straight over to the Marquises or continue south into South America and possible to the Galapagos Islands and other parts of South America and from there over to Easter Island and continue from there. So you can see why we haven't been posting an itinerary on the blog since it is so easily able to change, but since so many moms have been asking for it, here it is :-) love you all! 


After I finally completed posting the pics and additional updates on the blog I was able to go to bed around midnight, ugh, you gotta love the super speedy internet. We woke up at 8am on Thursday November 28th, Thanksgiving, and headed out to find a grocery store to do some much needed replenishing of supplies. As Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I all ventured into town we came across what looked to be a Mexican equivalent to a Costco and took our chances. The worker at the door told us it was fine for us to shop there with no membership so we went in. We filled a cart totally full and went to check out, it only cost us $2 extra to purchase it all, needless to say we were very happy about that! The less fun part was after we cabbed it back to that marina and had to haul all of the groceries back to the boat and Keaton and Ian who were out in town somewhere, but we weren't mad because we had no way of telling them what time we would be back. After the shopping adventure Koelby and I headed to the showers and then to eat lunch before we had to check out of the marina at 1pm. I had another delicious salad and Koelby had shrimp fajitas, and he

roasted his back in the sun. It was a clear day and probably around 80 degrees, very beautiful. The whole crew meet back at the boat at 12:45pm to move the boat from the marina back to the anchor spot for the night. Koelby and I stayed on the boat just to relax while everyone else headed to town to do various things. We all met up at a roof top restaurant for a Thanksgiving dinner that was amazingly delicious! I'm sorry to all the family we did not get to FaceTime on Thanksgiving. The restaurant did not have wifi and we had to leave the marina. At dinner Koelby, being the ever so friendly guy he is, started chatting with a guy at the neighboring table and it just so happens that Troy works for a solar company!! What are the odds? Koelby told him about our business plans and he gave us his card to keep in touch

for our solar needs in the future. He was such a nice guy and his wife Kusi  and father Brian were a delight so Koelby invited them all to come on the sail boat on Friday to sail and go snorkeling. They said yes and a plan was set in place. Everyone one was so amped it was Thanksgiving and possibly our last night in Cabo they all drank and made a plan to go out to a bar/club over by the marina that we had dinner at a few nights ago called El Squid Roe. Keaton and Ian wanted to go back to boat to change for the night on the town and I took my chance to catch a ride back to the boat, I just didn't  feel like drunken partying, so I read on the boat and was asleep by midnight. I don't know all the details from the drunken night but

from the stories I heard it sounded like fun was had by all. On friday November 29th we were set to pick up Troy, Kusi and Brian from the beach at 10am so we all got up around 8am to clean and Tom made us all pancakes. Well Keaton choose to sleep in but that was okay with us all. Koelby took the dinghy over and picked them up at 10am and we set out for a snorkeling spot at Chileno Bay about 6nm away. Since we had guests we motored straight out and put up the sails to show them a good time. It was a beautiful 80 to 85 degree day with a nice breeze on the water that allowed us to sail at about 4.5 knots. So we got to the snorkeling spot in an hour and a half. Kusie, Troy and Brian brought us beer and wine and sandwich stuff and before we snorkeled Kusi made us all sandwiches that were yummy. After lunch we all got in the water and snorkeled and swam around for hours. Tom and Jenna broke out the sub wing and all the boys, including Troy took it for a spin

behind the dinghy and all said it was really fun. Snorkeling was really fun and we saw a lot of different fish and one huge school of white and yellow fish that kind of freaked me out just due to the sheer number of them, but luckily they knew better and didn't touch me ;-) Koelby tried to swim low and capture an illusive fish on camera and got surrounded by these tiny fish who started to touch him and he decided that was enough and surfaced. After all the fun in the sun we were all a little tired and sun burned and decided to motor back so we could shower and go to dinner. Kusi, Troy and Brian graciously offered us there hotel showers and we immediately accepted! After our showers we headed down to the bar and restaurant in the hotel and drank and watch the Civil War football game between Oregon State and Oregon. It was a really good and intense game but in the end Oregon won by 1 single point, ugh! After dinner we said our good byes and promised to keep in touch. They

were an awesome couple and we are looking forward to working with Troy in the future. It was around 9pm when we all headed back to boat but Keaton and Ian hadn't had enough of the Cabo night life so they took the dinghy back into town for a last hurrah. The party animals were back on the boat by midnight and we all woke to a loud bang at around 6am... We all rushed topside to see what we had hit. And to our surprise we had drifted 1.3nm all the way over to the beach and rocks by the arch we had taken the dinghy to a few day earlier. Our depth said we were in 175 feet of water and we did not have that much anchor chain out. We could not see anything we might have hit?!? We did not see any rocks or anything that it could have been, so we pulled the anchor and motored back to the beach spot we had been the night before and went back to sleep until around 10am when we all woke and got ready to set sail. We were on the move by noon on Saturday November 30th. Unfortunately the wind did not get the memo they we were leaving and we only got about 28nm for the first 24 hours. Late in the day Tom went to check our the hand line and sure enough there was a 15 to 20lb tuna on it but collectively we all decided to set it free. Our main issue was that we have no refrigeration or freezer so we would have had to eat it all right away and we had just finished dinner, so the tuna was set free! The wind finally

figured it out and on Sunday December 1st we went around 130nm and only have around 110nm left to go! Our destination is Isla De Marieta also known as the middle island. Look it up online and see who amazingly beautiful it is, we are very excited!! I still feel sick every time I eat and have to rock and roll around on the boat but right now it's about the destination not the journey for me :-) don't get me wrong I love sailing, it's the best way to travel, I just hate the sickness. On Monday December 2nd, my beautiful friend Jaimi's birthday, happy birthday my love!!! The weather is beautiful and we have around 100nm left to Isla De Marieta at 2pm so that makes our eta around 10am on Tuesday December 3rd, so exciting! The non exciting part of our day is that at noon, Koelby and my watch, we decided to start the generator and the water maker to make water and the generator just shut off on its own... Koelby, Ian and Tom have spent the last 3 hours trying to figure out what's wrong with it. Not a fun sailing day. The boys sort of tinkered around with the generator most of the day to see if they could fix it and did not have much luck. It would turn on and a few minutes later would turn off on its

own. They mostly focused on the cooling water and possible water filter being broken or clogged but didn't have much luck. The general plan is to see if we can have it looked at in Puerto Vallarta and possibly fixed. Since we are meeting Wendy in Acapulco on December 18th and it's 500nm from Puerto Vallarta we don't have weeks to spare so we will have to see how quickly they can fix it. The wind decided to die off a little after sunset and this only allowed us to go around 97nm for the day. When I woke up on Tuesday December 3rd at 10am we still had 16nm to go to the amazing Isla De Marieta. Since the generator was out of commission Tom and Jenna turned on the motor for the last 16nm and Koelby turned on the water maker to make some much needed water. We arrived to the islands by noon and

View from the boat on our way to Isla De Marieta - December 3rd

motored around until we found a sand beach. There were a few tour groups there but not many so we anchored and all got into our snorkel gear and swam over the the beach. It was a beach in a cave sort of, with the roof above the beach open. It was a small beach and not

Koelby and I in the cave on Isla De Marieta - December 3rd

much through the caves to explore. After we left the cave we snorkeled around and swam back to the boat to explore the rest of the islands. There were 2 islands next to each other so we headed to the bigger of the 2 to see what it had to offer. After anchored in the designated anchor spot per our charts we all piled into the dinghy and headed to a beach we saw on the way to the anchor spot. The beach was lined with caves and rocks with tons of black crabs all over the rocks. We walked around the sides of the beach as far as we could and found a make shift trail up to the top of the island. It was all over grown grass and weeds but had what looked like to be a trail at one point. We set out on the trail and ran across 4 or 5 placards telling us

about the island. The last one led us into a cave at as far as we could tell ended the trail. We met 2 biologists camping in the cave, they were from Mexico City and came to the island to study small lizards. I personally didn't see any but that was okay with me. After the hiking adventure was complete we decided to take the dingy back out to see if we could find any other cool places to stop at. The tide was coming in and the waves were getting stronger and on our way out a big wave hit the dinghy from the front and soaked all of our towels and clothing and sent Jenna over the side of the boat, I ducked into the middle of the dinghy and was safe. Along the way we ran into a man kayaking around the island and he told us there were some beaches on the other side but the waves would be too much for our dinghy at that time of night so

we called it a night and headed back to the boat for some dinner. The man on the kayak told us we were not allowed to anchor where we were but that we could tie up the the mooring buoy. He told us that the rules changed around 2 years ago so we pulled anchor and hooked to the mooring bout. Around 12:30am Jenna, Tom and Keaton were woken up by the anchor buoy hitting into the bow of the boat. They came up and re-tied the rope tighter and went back to sleep. We were woken up at 5:30am on Wednesday December 4th by Tom and we had to move the boat. We had drug the anchor buoy over 100 feet and were getting close to shore so Koelby, Tom and Ian made an executive decision to just untie the anchor buoy and motor over to Puerto Vallarta. We were to Puerto Vallarta (la Cruz) and anchored by 7:30am and Koelby came back to bed. We finally woke up at around 10am to Keaton making us breakfast, yum. We all packed into the dinghy to see how much the marina cost and if they had any available slips. There was a slip available for cheaper than we have found so far in

View from the boat on our way into La Cruz - December 4t

Mexico so we took it and we found a ship yard and set up a time for them to come see the boat and fingers crossed be able to fix the refrigeration and generator and possible the rust that just won't stop. I don't have high hopes for the rust since it's a steel boat and all but the rest should be able to be fixed, again fingers crossed. After the slip was booked we ate at a nice restaurant that had amazing shrimp tacos and salad, the dressing was to die for. After lunch we moved the boat to the slip and ran into a small amount of trouble when our neighbors in the slip next to us had used both sides for their tie up ropes and were not home to ask them to move them. I was already on the dock because I had brought the dinghy over and was

unable to find anyone to help so I told Koelby to pull into a different slip and all he'll broke lose. The marina worker, who didn't really speak English, told us we had to move and untied all of the other boats ropes and when we were in the process of moving the 2 slips over the neighbor came back and was very mad at the marina worker for moving his ropes. The wife of the boat owner spoke to the marina worker in Spanish and after about 5 minutes of arguing she secured us the spot not interfering with their ropes and the one that was 100 times easier for us to maneuver into. I have no clue what was said but in the end both the neighbors and the marina worker were apologizing to us, so I guess we are okay. We checked out the marina and it was extra nice, the best marina thus far! All 6 of us showered and ventured into town for dinner and found a quaint little restaurant in the small town outside the marina and all ate like kings for pennies on the dollar, it was awesome! The marina has a big club house with chairs and sofas and fast internet access that we all came to after dinner. While I played on

the internet Koelby, Keaton and Ian streamed the blazer game. We all played on the internet until around 1am and we headed back to the boat to crash. It's now Thursday December 5th and I am hanging out in the Marina VIP loungers upload to the blog. We started the day out at 9am and went over to the harbor master to check in, apparently you are supposed to do that at every city you stop in... Who knew, well we do now. After that we meet up with the  refrigeration guy and brought him to our boat to see if he could fix it. He could not... So he took it out and ordered a new one, ugh what does boat mean again... It's 1pm here and I'm posting to the blog so no more writing... 



Seventh Entry - posted on Thursday November 21st from Magdalena Bay, Mexico - Updated on Wednesday November 27th from Cabo San Lucas with pictures and more...

After Koelby and I finished our laundry and I posted to the blog the rest of the crew returned from their walk back from the customs office. Koelby and I decided to venture into town before we left Ensenada, Mexico. We were going to walk to a grocery store but it's was to far away and we didn't want to have to carry a bunch of groceries back alone. So as we were walking back to the boat a horse and carriage driver stopped and insisted we take a

ride. I really wanted to see the statues of the presidents heads so  we decided to get in the carriage for a ride to them. It turns out it was only like 5 blocks away so it was kind of a rip off but you live and you learn. After this small adventure we walked back to the boat and decided to take off south. So we left Ensenada, Mexico on Tuesday November 12th at like 3:30pm. We were happy to find that the wind was good as we left Ensenada but unfortunately this also meant we were graced with some small but quite annoying swells. And with the direction of the wind and the direction we needed to head this meant that we got to rock from port to starboard (left to right) all day and night, fun stuff. This was a beautifully clear night and a

gorgeous sunset. The nice thing about actually having wind was that we only had to do one over night watch! We arrived at the Isla De San Martin island on Wednesday November 13th at around 6:30pm and again got to anchor in the dark, we are getting really good at it :-) We woke up on Thursday November 14th to sort of warm blue sky's and Keaton and Ian took the kayak and headed to the island. We let them go first because all night we had been hearing some strange animal growling and had no idea what it was. So Keaton and Ian went over to check it out lol, but they didn't find anything. While they were gone the ominous fog rolled in and Koelby and I decided to wait to go to shore for it to pass, but when it didn't we just jumped in the kayak anyways to see shore. It was a small practically uninhabited island with only a few shacks inhabited by fishermen as far as we could tell. We came back to the boat and motored and sailed over to Cabo San Quinton main land to anchor for the night and be able to go to shore tomorrow since it's almost dark by the time we anchor again. All night our anchor had been sliding and we drifted over 170 feet. When we woke up on Friday November 15th we were over 2 miles from shore and needed to move the boat deeper in the cove and closer to shore. As a group we decided to try and get the single side band working for weather to see if we should just leave to turtle bay instead of going to shore. In the end we could not get weather in English but decided to head south anyways because the closest town/resort

was over 3 miles from shore and the sand dunes we were expecting where not up to par. I

guess we were spoiled in Oregon because the sand dunes here we covered in underbrush and trees. We all took a vote and headed south around noon on Friday November 15th for Turtle Bay, Mexico. It's a 200 mile venture so we wanted to get it over with and get there. Almost immediately we had steady winds between 7 and 15 knots at its highest and were averaging 5 to 6 knots all night. Needless to say we were very excited about this!! On

Koelby and my's watch Saturday November 16th from 1am to 4am we got up to 15knots of wind and were going 6 to 8knots the whole 3 hours so we were pleased to wake up at 11am and have our eta be around 8 to 10am on Sunday November 17th. Keaton and Ian had put

out 2 tuna hand lines early on in the day. While Koelby and I were on our mid day watch from 12 to 5pm Koelby heard the tuna hand line jerk and picked it up to find that the bait was gone and the hand line was broken. Around 2pm Koelby again heard a snap and we yelled for the boys to come out that we think they caught a fish. Ian woke up Tom and Jenna so they could see too. Keaton reeled in the tuna and it was a lot smaller than out first tuna but it was a nice yellow fin. We think it was about 20lbs. Keaton and Ian took over the gutting and filleting duties this time and luckily we had prior experience so we did not let the fish bleed out on deck. Keaton tied a rope to its tail and cut the fish in 3 places and we drug it in the water to die and bleed out. Once it stopped flopping Koelby gaffed the fish in the mouth so Keaton could gut it and Keaton and Ian filleted it. Koelby grilled up some of the meat right

away and everyone (except me because I don't like it, and I know because I tried it, but I'll try again...if I have to :-/ ) had some fresh tuna while Keaton was still filleting. After all the excitement we looked back at the wind and it had died down to 4 to 6knots so our eta keeps changing but we are hopping to be there early afternoon on Sunday. During Koelby and my night or more accurately our morning watch on Sunday November 17th the winds were light and we still needed to go over 40nm so now we are looking at Sunday night, not day :-(  We arrived in Turtle Bay in the early evening on Sunday and were anchored and ready for dinner before dark! I call that a win!! Koelby and I needed to run into "town" and make a phone call to Wendy since we have to change her flight destination again :-( sorry love, but the trip will still be amazing I promise!! No one else wanted to venture into town on this lovely Sunday evening so Koelby and I set out on our own. As we were heading to town on the dingy we saw multiple seals and a few dolphins very close to the dingy and not that I was scared but

just to be safe I got all the way in the dingy and sat very low ;-) A few people came out of their catamaran to talk to us and informed us that in fact the "town" was not open on Sunday at all and that there was not public showers or potable water or really anything at all. We decided to head back to the boat and try again tomorrow, hoping Monday would give us better luck. Since we had caught the tuna the day before Keaton and Ian had already started making sushi and Koelby joined in and made his own sushi roll.

Now when I say sushi I am saying it loosely, all we had to put in it was; rice, tuna and lettuce but I think they turned out really well. On Monday November 18th the whole crew ventured into "town" and before we even hit the dock we already had a tour guide to show us around. Pedro was his name and he was really nice but did not speak very much english. Now the reason I keep putting town in quotes is because town is a lose word for it, there were a few clothing shops and mini marts and a few restaurants that were all closed as for as we could tell. And the rest of the town was shanty shacks for houses. At the very first mini mart we went into the tour guide took off with half of our group and Koelby, Ian and I where left all alone to explore the the town. We finally met back up with everyone on the beach and Pedro takes us to what we thought was wifi, but it was not so Koelby gave him some pesos and we headed back to the boat. On the dingy ride back to the boat we all decided that we needed to just leave and head straight to Cabo San Lucas to hopefully find a marina and some showers. Since we were unable to fill the tanks in Ensenada we are running low on water and battery to run the water maker so no showers for anyone, sad sad days... We got back to the boat and stowed and took off by noon. Dolphins must love Turtle Bay because as we

were leaving we had some swimming along out port (left) side of the boat about 20feet out, so cool! Once we were on the ocean again we all started discussing what to do about the water situation. The problem is that we haven't been able to fill up since San Diego and are not sure if we can in Cabo San Lucas since we haven't had ant luck in Mexico thus far. During our discussion on what to do and how long to turn on the generator for to run the water maker... Our water ran out... No water was coming out of the tanks. So I guess that answered our question and we turned on the generator and water maker. We made about 38 gallons today and turned it off because we were unable to run the auto pilot at the

same time and the winds were getting up to 20 knots and it was becoming to hard to steer. Koelby and I were laying down for a small nap before our 1am watch and around 9:30pm the auto pilot started going crazy in our room and Koelby jumped into action, I stayed in the room to give updates on the sounds the auto pilot was making. I'll let Koelby tell you whet happened:  long story short... We had a solenoid switch stuck in the shut position causing the rudder to hold hard left no matter which way you turned the wheel. I cut off all power from the battery and manually repositioned the switch (I think the spring that returns it to the open position may be old and worn out) only took about a half hour and auto pilot is back online. Okay back to Jes. And that's why I let him explain it :-) sure it was the solenoid, duh lol. We were lucky enough to make about 100 nm of head way (straight line distance) on Tuesday and Wednesday November 19th and 20th and we made it all the way to Magdalena Bay by 10:30pm on Wednesday November 20th and again anchored in the dark to sleep for the night. On Thursday November 21st we pulled anchor and motored the 13nm up the channel to what we really really hope is a town with potable water and showers, fingers crossed for us. As we were heading to a beach that looked like it had a resort on it we realized that the water was only a few inches deep and we all had to get out and walk the boat in the 100 yards, fun stuff in my toms... But I was not walking shoeless with everyone else because it would be my luck to be he only one to step on something stupid so I didn't risk it, daredevil that I am ;-) once on shore we were right and it was a resort, well sort of, it was a hotel on the beach and a restaurant we decided to eat in, and we have good expectations. I have wifi so I'm going to post on he blog but I don't have any of the pictures because they are all on the iMac so hopefully I will be able to update it in Cabo.


Update from Cabo... That means we made it, yaya!! All this added on Wednesday November 27th 

So while at he restaurant we decided to FaceTime with some people we knew had iPhones. We called Wendy to update plans for her to come visit and my grandpa and grandma Bauer and called Koelby's dad Rick and step mom Debbie. It was really cool to get to talk to everyone. We are going to try and call more people in Cabo. The food was amazingly delicious, I didn't even need any sauces, and if you know me that's a real feat for the chef ;-) Koelby smooth talked the restaurant owner, who happen to also own the hotel, and got us the use of he showers for a few American dollars each!! It was glorious. However after we showered we then had to carry the dinghy half a mile out to sea just to be in deep enough water to put the motor down to start it... So we were all freshly showered and stomping through the salt water in the dark, we have such good adventures lol. Since it was late when we got back to the boat we all passed out and moved the boat over to a

This panoramic pic is supposed to show you on one side is the Ocean and on the other side is Magdalena Bay - November 22nd 

beach across the way that had sand dunes and no people at all, only birds and rabbits. So on Friday November 22nd Jenna and I jumped in the kayak and headed to he beach while

he boys swam. It was farther than expected and Jenna and I had to tow some to shore. Koelby and I walked to the other side of the island from the bay to the ocean and I was beautiful and fun to get off the boat and see the Mexican beaches and scenery. When

Koelby and I returned we found Ian wondering around and Koelby looked at the boat and suspected it had moved and was getting close to the channel so all 3 of us tried to kayak back to the boat but the kayak only holds 350lbs so it was too hard to paddle so Koelby jumped off and pushed us from behind while we towed him. Turns out the boat had drifted a third of a mile!! So needless to say Ian and I got our workout. We pulled the anchor and motored back close to shore and Ian took the dinghy over to pick up the rest of our crew. We were all a little tired from the sun and decided to just stay the night and head out early Saturday morning. Koelby and I were the last up at 8am on Saturday November 23rd and we all got the boat ready and stowed for sea and took off by 9am. We sailed over 110nm on Saturday November 23rd, a very good day but a not so good night sleep. While Tom and Jenna were on watch a flying fish decided to come and visit us on deck. Funny fish. We had really good wind all day Sunday November 24th and made it all the way to Cabo San Lucas just after sunset and were anchored and longing to go to shore by 6pm. We anchored just off the beach and what we think was about 4 bars, who were partying and playing loud music. We could not

Our view from the boat anchored in Cabo

see a place to pull the dinghy up to, so we resolved to stay on he boat over night and Keaton made us a pasta dinner. While we were playing cards after dinner we saw fire works outside and came topside to see them, they only lasted a few minutes but were pretty.  On Monday November 25th the whole crew took a water taxi into Cabo, the water taxi's brought us right up to the beach and dropped us off right on the sand! We actually had to jump and I did my best to not get wet :-) we set out to see Cabo and had breakfast at a delicious restaurant where I got the best and freshest fruit I was in heaven. We went to the marina to see about prices and availability and decided on Wednesday for our over night marina stay. We just walked around the marina and looked like tourists and were asked by every single vender if we wanted to but anything... Fun stuff. We had dinner at a really cool place called El Squid Roe, and it was really good. After lunch

we went back to the boat to play in the water and the boys jumped off the boat and had a good old time.  Koelby wanted to find Monday night football and the Blazer game so we headed to a bar that was serving 2 for 1 margaritas!! Everyone but me ate some $0.80 each chimichangas off the street out of a cooler, they said they were good but I did not try them. On Tuesday November 26th Koelby and I woke up to everyone else leaving to go get breakfast and we stayed behind to sleep. Around noon we ventured over to shore for lunch and are at The Office a restaurant Jaimi suggested we go to, she was here in Cabo a few weeks ago. And thank you Jaimi it was delicious! I had

2 for 1 margaritas - November 26th 

fresh salad and Koelby had some burritos. After lunch and some walking the beach Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I wanted to

go see the arch and go snorkeling off Lovers beach so we left Keaton and Ian on shore eating soccer and took the dinghy over. We have some cool video of going there but we will all have to wait for Koelby to edit it and add it to the blog. Jenna took some good pics of Koelby and I. Snorkeling was so much fun and unfortunately I found out that fish still kind of freak me out, ugh! (And don't laugh at me it's a legitimate fear) But I did it anyways and with Koelby by my side I was okay :-) thanks babe. We told the boys we would meet them back on shore my 6pm so we hustled back. Tom and Jenna wanted to shower (since we already had the marina shower keys) so they dropped us at the beach and left to shower. Koelby, Keaton, Ian and I all went to dinner at a brewery and feasted!! They boys got oven baked pizza and I

had another amazing salad!! Ian and I shared the 2 for 1 october feast beer and it was really good. After dinner we meet back up with the rest of the crew and headed back to the boat for some sleep since we were pretty beat form all the sun and fun! Per my mother in law Kathy's request (hi mom) the weather has been beautiful sunny 78 degrees ;-) on Wednesday Tom, Jenna, Keaton  and Ian headed over to the marina on the dinghy to insure the slip was open and start doing laundry at 7:30am. The slip was full so Tom talked to the office and got us another slip and came back with Keaton to help Koelby and I move the boat. We were safely in a slip by 10:30am. I went to shower as soon as we were tied to the dock!! Koelby had the honer of staying with our

laundry while I went to eat lunch with everyone else because he had eater some left over pizza from the night before. I again had a really good salad with fresh veggies!! Yes please, since hey are few and far between on the sail boat I have to enjoy them while I can. I then returned to assist Koelby with laundry and haul it all back to the boat to put it away. Now I am lounging on the boat updating the blog, it's 4pm and we have a nice breeze in the marina for the 78 degree day, it is really nice! The internet is really really slow

so at around 6pm i left the boat and Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I went back to the amazing Brewery for dinner and it was extra delicious!! after dinner we got frozen yogurt and headed back to the boat and i am once again attempting to post pics on the blog...

Beautiful view from the boat in Cabo San 

Sixth Entry - posted on Tuesday November 12th from Ensenada, Mexico 

Yes we are still in San Diego, CA. . . We woke up on Wednesday October 30th and got the boat ready to anchor over in Coronado, CA at the anchorage we applied for the day prior. This consisted of adding water and making sure the batteries were charged. A guy pulled up next to us and told us how he was selling his boat and everything on it so while the whole crew went over to see the boat and see if he had anything we needed for cheap I got on the internet and the iMac and posted to the blog. After I was done posting (it takes so long! No more free blogs, they are not user friendly! But we will manage) I joined the crew on our neighbors boat to see what he had to offer. The boat was really cool and all wood. He was a nice guy with A Lot of "advice" and I say "advice" because everyone that gives us advice says it as if it's law. . . But they have good intentions so we listen and then do what we want :-) But that is what the young do, right. . . My parents are used to this by now with me :-) we ended up buying some books of the South Pacific islands we intend to go to and a food saver with some bags. We are happy to have but wish we had it when we caught the tuna. Jenna and Tom left to run errands and move the car over to Coronado while Koelby, Ian and I motored the boat over the the anchorage in Coronado, CA. since we had to wait for Tom and Jenna to come back for errands the 3 of us continued to oil the deck. After the work I showered on the boat and got ready because Bri was on her was to meet us and show us some of San Diego, CA. She took us all to the Hotel Del Coronado

because she said its famous and was in a Marlene Monroe movie (some like it hot). It was beautiful and really cool to see. It's so big there is a mall under the hotel and the view from the back deck was amazing at night. After we did the tourist thing for a while Tom decided he didn't want to drive the borrowed car so he said he was going back to the boat, since Bri only had 4 seats in the car and Jenna really wanted to go out, Koelby offered up his seat for her to be able to go. With Tom and Koelby back on the boat Bri took us to little Italy for dinner and we ate at an amazing Italian restaurant, I had the cheese ravioli and it was amazing! Then we headed to the Gas Lamp district to go have a drink at this dueling piano bar called the Shout House. It was really fun and entertaining so Ian, Jenna and I thought it would be fun to come back the next day for Halloween. Bri had to work on Thursday October 31st so we ended the night before 11pm and called the boys to pick us up on the dingy. We spent some time that night trying to convince Koelby that dressing up for Halloween, although it was the next day and we didn't have much to choose from, would be fun and that the piano bar was the best place to go, because it wouldn't be to many young people bothering him and was not a dance club. We called it a night after a few costume suggestions. On Thursday October

31st we woke up and headed to the shore which was a park and a small beach and laid out the back up genoa sail we have to see what it looked like and what condition it was in. The boys played football and soccer and frisbee in the park and I watched a family playing in the sand, they had a little girl no bigger than 1 waddling around the sand and water, too cute! Once we were back on the boat we continued to try and convince Koelby going out that night was a good idea. He was being a party pooper but we finally thought of some good costumes and Koelby started to get on board. Jenna had decided to wear the shark hat I had bought for JT (because he said he was afraid of them and I wanted to ease his mind with a nice one lol) and grey clothing and be a shark. I had already searched through Koelby's stuff to find a white button up and white boxer briefs to be Tom Cruz in Risky Business. Ian was debating about being a soccer player or where's Waldo but he didn't have the shirt so we were looking online for a store. And Tom was deciding between a sailor or pirate. At this

point we all seemed prepared for good costumes except for the party pooper Koelby, until Jenna suggested that he be cast away. We already had a volley ball Jenna's parents gave us with the Wilson face on it and Koelby has a ridiculous beard so we decided to get on board completely. We dirtied a white shirt of Koelby's and he wore his work kaki shorts and grabbed Wilson. Ian let me use his black ray ban sunglasses and I put on my toms (they are a type of shoe) under some white high socks and I was set. Tom decided on the pirate and Jenna and I cut up some of his old navy slacks and he was an eye patch (Jenna's patents gave us those too) and one of Koelby's striped shirts to complete the costume. Since we could not find a store in Coronado for Ian to get a where's Waldo shirt he wore one of Koelby's rugby uniforms and took the rugby ball. We headed to the Gas Lamp district and it took us like 30 minutes to find parking but we finally did and headed in to find a place to eat dinner. Koelby and Ian, of course, wanted a bar with sports playing so they went into the first one they found and we ate dinner. After dinner we headed

Halloween in San Diego here we come - October 31st 

to the dueling piano bar The Shout House and searched for a table, they were packed so Jenna found one upfront and went for it. Koelby, Ian and I made a beeline for the bar and ordered some drinks. By the time we made it the table Jenna had saved she had already been on stage once with the Jaws theme song being played by the piano players, lol. This continued through the night at random times but she was a good sport, even when a samurai or something came up on stage to slay the shark she played along and tried to eat him with her hands. We all had fun at the piano bar and gave some song requests. All in all

a very fun night. On Friday November 1st after waking up at noon Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I decided to go get the Mexican fishing licenses for everyone since they were required for us to enter Mexico with fishing equipment on the boat. After we came back to the boat and asked Ian if he wanted to explore Coronado with us by walking through the town, he did and we did. We ate lunch at a sandwich shop, yummy and Koelby and I bought a boogie board and a ridiculous looking speedo for Koelby, he insisted on it. Not sure if he will wear it, sober, but we have it just in case. Come Saturday November 2nd we needed to move from the anchorage because the permit was only for a 3 day stay. So we all debated what to do but finally decided to just move back to the weekend only anchorage at the police dock moorage area we had gotten in trouble for staying at too long the week before. Michael Aguilar a friend from the navy drove down from Upland, CA to see us and he took us to dinner at a restaurant near the marina. Koelby, Ian and I had thought the beaver and duck games were on but Mike informed us that the beavers played on Friday and lost and that the ducks had a bye week. We really need to get better at looking at dates! So we are dinner and watched soccer and the Blazer game so it wasn't a complete loss. Mike stayed with us over night and on Sunday November 3rd we all moved the boat to the police moorage to stay over night and fill the water and charge the batteries since Keaton was flying in Monday morning and we were planning on leaving Monday afternoon. Mike took Koelby and I to pick up Keaton on Monday November 4th at 8:30am and we quickly realized we have to much to do before we could leave. The oiling of the deck took us days because we had to move everything from one side of the deck to the other and wait for it to dry and do a second coat and wait again before we could do the other side of the front deck, so we still had the front half of the boat to oil. We finally broke down and paid for another night at the dock and started to finish the oiling of the deck and the boys started to change the oil filters on the engine. There was a problem with one of the filters and a bolt broke off and fell into the engine so Tom and Koelby went to get a new part, but didn't have any luck so they called a handy man to come look at it but it was past the check out time so we had no choice but to pay for another night since now the engine wouldn't even start. Now it's Tuesday November 5th and the handyman came to look at the engine and told us that the filter we broke was not even needed and to just bypass it, Koelby knew how to do this so he said thank you and the handyman left. After Koelby, Tom, Ian and Keaton

Beautiful water front at the m

bypassed the filter they realized that there was air in the fuel lines and it was taking so long to fix this that we had to pay for another night, ugh, so we did and we called the handyman back to come help us. While we waited for the handyman to finish with his other jobs, Koelby, Ian, Keaton and Mike went to play volleyball and have some fun. On Monday night Bri came to the boat to see Keaton and say good bye to us all. On Tuesday November 5th Jim the boat handyman came again and left again with nothing fixed. Jim did this on Wednesday November 6th as well and left saying he would be back in the morning on Thursday November 7th and we all felt defeated. Koelby and I couldn't take another disappointing day so we left when we woke up and took a walk away from the marina and had a nice lunch and were pleasantly surprised when we returned to find out that the problem with the engine was a wire that had slipped out when he boys changed the filters and we were whole again  and could finally leave to Mexico on Friday!! And to our delight and surprise Jim only charged us $1, unbelievable right!?! Well Tom decided to give him a $20 and we were just so happy that we could leave that we we all more than good with that. The Oregon duck game was on Thursday night and we all walked to a bar down the street from the marina to watch it. Unfortunately Oregon decided not to show up for the game and they lost by a few points, sad for Keaton and Ian both University of Oregon boys. We Left San Diego on Friday November 8th at 10am. We fueled up and hit the seas. . . It is only 70nm to Ensenada, Mexico so we ventured a guess at being there on Saturday November 9th in the morning. We were wrong, we started with some wind and it quickly died for the next 2 days and we basically floated around but have pretty much stayed in the right direction and have been catching the wind whenever it graces us with its presence. The one highlight of floating aimlessly along the Mexican coat is that on Sunday November 10th at 1:30pm we Saw the biggest pod of dolphins any of us have ever seen. There had to be over a thousand of them and they all swam past us towards the shore and back past us out to sea jumping out of the water the whole time. The highest jumps I have ever seen with some jumping straight up out of the water and just falling back down tail fin first, it was so cool. Jenna and Ian took all of the pictures because they have the best cameras and no matter how much we tried

Koelby and I only seemed to get pics of the water. Keaton took video with his go pro so we are excited to see how that turns out. Jenna thinks they are bottle nosed dolphins even though they were smaller than ones we have seen in the past. Jenna and Koelby told us that the closer you get to the equated the smaller the animals will be. During Koelby and my's watch on Monday November 11th from 1am to 4am the eta came back up on the iNavX on the iPad and said 2:40pm arrival but this was only if we kept moving 3 knots, only time will tell on that one especially since the only way we could keep going 3 knots was to aim more out to sea.

Here is a quick reminder on the watch schedule and who stands what watches; Koelby and I are from 1am to 4am, Keaton and Ian are from 4am to 7am, Tom and Jenna are from 7am to 12pm, Koelby and I are from 12pm to 5pm, keaton  and Ian are from 5pm to 10pm and Tom and Jenna complete the circle with 10pm to 1am. We find it easier to only do 3 hour watches at night and 5 during the day since night is so hard to stay awake, seems to be working for us so far :-) it's a miracle!!! It's 2:26pm on Monday November 11th and we are in Ensenada,

Mexico and in a slip with power and internet!!!! We have an appointment for tomorrow Tuesday November 12th at 9am with customs and will go and explore Ensenada today. Ensenada is by far the nicest marina we have been in so far, the showers and bathrooms are very clean and nice and the marina staff have been so easy and gracious to work with. After we squared everything away with the marina we all went into town and ate at an authentic Mexican food restaurant, I had the fish tacos and they were delicious! Koelby got a carne asada burrito and loved it. We didn't know what to do next since it was getting dark so we grabbed ice

That's a huge flag...

cream on the way back to the boat to attempt to post to the blog and do laundry. On Tuesday November 12th we got our visitor visas and finished the laundry and now it's noon and I'm going to attempt to post to the blog again, wish me luck. and i did it!!! we are thinking of heading straight to turtle bay to get to the warmer water but we will see, stay tuned and keep checking the blog to see where we end up next and what adventure we come across. 




Fifth Entry - posted on Wednesday October 30th from San Diego, CA

We arrived in Marina Del Ray, CA on Thursday October 17th in the afternoon. The marina was really nice! The

guest dock is at the Burton Chace park, so we had an awesome view and park to play in. The marina was also located within walking distance of a grocery store and many restaurants and a strip mall. After we checked in and cleaned the boat a little, all 6 of us headed over to the strip mall find some lunch/dinner and decided to eat at The Counter, it's a really delicious burger place that you get to build your own burger. You can have any bread, any meat and any toppings you want! Koelby of course ordered the 2/3lb burger 

and like 10 toppings and was not even able to pick it up so he ate it with a fork and knife and was uncomfortably full afterwards, the rest of us didn't go as crazy and were very satisfied. On Friday October 18th Matt's mom and grandma came to visit and go to lunch. Jenna and Tom had left to visit a friend in Redlands, CA. So it was Koelby,Ian, Matt and I for lunch with the Schoenwetter family. Just before we meet the family Matt had let us know that he was going to be leaving with his mom and Gma and would not be continuing the trip with us but might meet us somewhere like New Zealand along he way. (Unfortunately theses are the only pics I have of Matt but he needed to be in the blog! Look at that dare devil) We were all upset but understood that sailing and seasickness isn't for everyone :-( Matt we miss you already! You are funny and nice and always have some smart ass comment we love, you are missed. After lunch and Matt's departure Koelby, Ian and I spent some time trying to get internet from the restaurant and post on the blog with

no success. Since Matt was officially gone :-( Koelby called in the back up we have had on reserve since before we even started this adventure. Yes that's right Koelby called Keaton and Finally got him to agree to come early!! Keaton is going to sell all his stuff, put in his 2 weeks and has a ticket to fly to San Diego on Monday November 4th at like 8:30am he will be here :-) we are all very happy and excited, especially Ian since they were already roommates in college they should share a room very nicely. Our plan was to see my cousin Todd and his wife Taren that night for dinner but when Koelby saw that the Blazers were playing that night at the Staple center against the Clippers he just had to go!! We finally found 5 seats together in the 300 level for only $20 and when Todd gave us the green light we bought the tickets and made our way back to the boat to get ready. Todd and Taren picked us up and we made it to the game just before half time, darn LA traffic! The game

was really fun but seeing Todd and meeting Taren was the highlight of my night! After the game we came back to he boat and slept to prepare for our Saturday with Jaimi. Ian had made plans to go down to San Diego early and spend some time with his mom since she was there for a horse show that will begin on October 28th, so Ian left early Saturday morning October 19th and Jaimi came to pick up Koelby and I to hang out. Jaimi had planned a hike to the Hollywood sign for us because I had said I wanted to see the stars and the sign. But I needed to post to the blog before I went crazy and the marina has no wifi. So we went to her house and it only took me like 3 hours to get the blog site to work sort of how I wanted. The pictures wouldn't cooperate at all so I had to just try and try again until it finally at least let me add the pictures even if they are not in the most ideal placements. By this time, about 2:30pm, Koelby and Jaimi were complaining about being hungry so Jaimi took us into Westwood to eat lunch. After lunch Koelby just wanted to go back to Jaimi's and watch football so we dropped him off and Jaimi took me through Beverly Hills and to Hollywood and we drove past the stars on the sidewalk and drove up to the observatory to see the Hollywood sign. We didn't end up walking up to the sign because there was an event going on at the green theater and it was packed for parking, but seeing the sign was touristy enough for me. After the touristy stuff was done it was time for the Oregon State and Oregon football games to be on so Jaimi

and I stopped by BevMo and picked up some wine and cheese and crackers and headed to her place for the games. Although both teams won, by a lot, only Oregon State was televised so we had to watch the Oregon game on the computer. We had a low key night with just the 3 of us but we all had a great time with amazing company!! After the games Jaimi took us to the grocery store for supplies and dropped us at the boat! But not before we had her convinced to join us in New Zealand sometime next year!! So excited for Jaimi to join us in New Zealand and to be apart of our next endeavor and life in a new country!! Sunday October 20th came quickly and Koelby's childhood friend Elijah and his wife Stephanie came to pick us up, see the boat and take us to brunch. It turns out that they live in Marina Del Ray about a half mile from where we were moored. The brunch was really good but the company was better. After brunch and stowing the boat for sea we set sail for Catalina Island, CA and made it there and anchored my midnight. We anchored at Two Harbors and took a water taxi into the tiny town on Monday October 21st. By town I mean one restaurant, a small grocery store, camp grounds and a small resort (very small). We hiked up to the top of the mountain and could see both harbors. They are split by a small piece of land, an isthmus. It was a hard hike for me, mainly being I'm so out of shape, but I'm

View from our hike up to the top of Two Harbors Catalina - October 21st

Pic of our boat from the top of the hike - October 21s

working on it. I made it to he top and back down without quitting so I'm proud. Don't get me wrong the hike wasn't long we were only out there for like 2 or 2 and a half hours but it was a lot of up hill. The views were beautiful and we got some good pictures, I can see why people visit here. After another water taxi back to the boat, Koelby and I cooked home made chicken cordon bleu with a twist, it had mozzarella cheese, pineapple and prosciutto  and it was delicious! We stayed anchored for the night and woke up leisurely on Tuesday October 22nd, made eggs Benedict and sailed over to whites cove for the day. Whites cove was a little cove with one small yacht club and private beach on it. By beach I mean rocks! And the yacht club care taker said we were not allowed to be on their property even if we were a part of a reciprocal yacht club, he told us that this beach was for members only. Since we had kayaked in we tied up the kayak to a tree down the "beach" aka rocks from the yacht club beach and explored. We walked around the shore to

The view from the second harbor of Two Harbors - October 21st

 some small caves and did a small 20 minute hike to he top of a ridge and took some pictures of Trade Winds. The hike wasn't hard but it was pretty much all straight up hill. I was totally fine with the up hill part, it was coming back down that was taken a little slower and more delicately, but I did not fall so I call that a win! After the small hike we headed back to the boat before it got dark. Tom and I had made some sour dough bread the night before and I cut it into thin slices and made some pizzas on them. Catalina is a beautiful island and is rich with porpoises, seals and sea lions. I say seals and sea lions because I don't know or can't tell the difference when they are just playing in the water. We were graced with tons of porpoises playing all around he boat and around the island of Catalina. On our way from whites cove to Avalon, the biggest city on Catalina, on Wednesday 
October 23rd we were treated to 2 porpoises riding our bow for about 10 minutes. These ones were huge compared to the others we have seen before and Jenna looked them up and thinks they were Risso's dolphins and they seemed to like to stay in pairs of 2. One time Koelby and I thought they were sharks because when they would arc out of the water we would see one fin and then a second later another fin and from out distance it looked like it was a dorsal fin and a tail fin but once we saw them up closer we realized that it was just a set of 2 dolphin buddies arcing out of he water together playing. Still cool but not as cool as seeing a huge shark that close to the boat. I know I know I shouldn't wish for that but you have to admit it would be pretty cool!! Sorry mom.  We arrived in Avalon around noon and anchored just past the casino building.Koelby and I opted for another water taxi while

Tom's awesome pic of our first palm tree shadows - October 21st

Tom's panoramic pic with Koelby and I headed back down the trail on Whites Co- October 22nd 

Jenna and Tom decided to kayak into town. Koelby and I decided we didn't want to get wet and have to spend so much extra time shuttling everyone to and from shore. The kayak only holds 2 and has a 350lb limit so we would have to take 2 over and drop one and come back and pick up one more and drop off on shore and do this one more time. The kayak is not the most ideal mode of transportation but it is free so that's awesome. I know you are all wondering why we aren't using our big 6 to 8 person dingy? Well it's because it's a huge huge hassle to blow up and takes a few hours to do so. Now your wondering why we don't just keep it blown up? Well it's so big it doesn't stow on the deck anywhere and we don't have dingy davits. Dingy davits are hooks that hang over the back of your boat and hold your dingy up completely out of the water. We are looking into installing these in San Diego but are wary about it because of the large price tag that comes along with doing it correctly, and since we have had so so so many unexpected little hiccups, i.e. the boom breaking, that we didn't necessarily plan for budget wise we are thinking of keeping a surplus of disaster money set aside, just for good

Whites Cove hike - October 22nd

Whites Cove - October 22nd

 measure. See the next post for the dingy davit decision :-) we made it to Avalon around 2:30pm on Wednesday October 23rd and walked around the town for a few hours. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for a few $4 margaritas and decided we just had to gamble a little. Koelby and I had talked to the water taxi driver who told us we had to see he casino building. He told us that there was a movie theater in it that was so beautiful we shouldn't miss it. Koelby saw that the movie, yes. . . only one plays for months at a time and starts each night at 7:30pm. We decided to plan our day around seeing the movie, Prisoners, so after we are dinner at an Italian restaurant we walked over to the casino to gamble for an hour or so until the movie started. To our surprise the word "casino" in Italian means "place of gathering" or entertaining not the traditional American meaning of casino. Needless to say we couldn't even get in to see it and since the movie was not for another hour and a half we walked back to town and had another drink. With Koelby being his charismatic self he chatted up the waiter and when we went to pay for Koelby's 2 gin and tonics the waiter told him to not worry about it and to just enjoy the island. So we thanked him and tipped him well and headed to the movie. The water taxi driver was correct about the beauty of the theater, and the movie was okay too. After the movie was over and it was sufficiently dark out we Koelby, Tom and I thought it would be a great idea for all 4 of us to pile in the kayak and paddle back to the boat for free. We got about 5 feet from the dock

and realized this wasn't going to work so Koelby and I got out and walked back to town and paid for a water taxi back to the boat. All in all Catalina was a fun 3 days and I would recommend it. Around 10am on Thursday October 24th (Koelby's dad Rick's birthday- happy birthday!!) we waived good bye to Catalina Island and headed for San Diego, CA. On our way out we saw 4 or 5 pods of what we think were Risso's dolphins and even had 2 ridding our bow for a few minutes. As we set out for San Diego, CA we had to discuss who was going to stand watch and when since we only had 4 people, 2 couples to be exact, which means 12 hours of watch for each couple. This sounded terrible to me so I suggested we stop and anchor at the San Clemente Island, which was 35 miles from Catalina and we could sleep and set out again for San Diego and do the remaining 59 miles the following day. The argument was that if we headed straight to San Diego we only had 76 miles to go and not the 94 miles if we stopped. So of course we opted to head straight there.... So up all night seemed to be what Koelby and I had in store. Tom and Koelby came up with a plan so the up all night would be fair for everyone... They decided we were all going to pull an all nighter, for no apparent reason we all agreed. The all nighter consisted of, dinner, like 3 or 4 movies and all of us falling asleep in the cock pit at one point or another throughout the night. To my knowledge Tom lasted the longest and finally went to bed at like 7am for a few hour nap. With the all nighter and practically no wind all day and night we finally arrived in San Diego, CA on Friday October 25th and anchored for the night at around 3pm. We decided to anchor for a few reasons, first to save money and second because the Baja Ha-Ha and all it's boats had taken all the open slips in the affordable marinas. The Baja Ha-Ha is a group of people with sail boats that all sail together from San Diego down the Baja peninsula every year from October 31st for about two weeks. They all sail together and stop in ports together and party together. It sounds really fun and amazing but we didn't want to have to work with someone else's schedule and wanted to be able to come and go where we pleased. But if we are in the same port at the same time we will try to party down with them to get some of the experience. Come Saturday October 26th we moved the boat to a guest dock slip for the day and night. We really needed to charge the batteries and fill the water tanks. Ian meet us on the dock and helped moor and since he had his mom's huge truck we all 5 pulled in and went to lunch and ran some boat errands. At the yacht club we joined in Brisbane, CA we had received some really good advise to carry with us some extra parts just in case. We all agreed this was a good idea, with our recent unexpected woes  we were all on board without any discussion. Koelby and I found a cool and relatively inexpensive solar charger so we are not using up the batteries when we need to charge our iPad, iPod and iPhones, we like it so far. After the errands were mostly done we dropped Jenna and Tom back at the boat and changed for the Duck and Beaver games that were airing consecutively at 4pm and 7:30pm. Ian's friend Bri meet us where Ian dropped the truck off for his mom and took us to Pacific Beach to watch the games at the Duck bar she thought we would love. Although Koelby and I were decked out in Orange and Black no one seemed to mind, what a change from the Oregonian Oregon fans who are so mean. So needless to say we had fun, I drank beer - sorry Koelby - and the Ducks won! But we were sad to end the night with a Beaver loss to the 6th ranked Stanford :-( After the Beaver game ended sadly we left the bar quickly because it was turning into what seemed like a 21 and under club of college students dressed up for Halloween and we were not in costume. Sunday October 27th was a chill day for Koelby and I, Tom and Jenna went to a bridal show and Ian went with Bri to play kickball, we stayed on the boat and just hung out until dinner and went to a Mexican food place Bri suggested in Old Town because Koelby just had to have a California burrito in California, he said it was okay. After dinner we moved back to

San Diego Marina park

the anchor spot since we could not book another night at the guest dock, the website said they were all full and the office is closed on the weekends. Koelby, Ian and Tom decided to stay up late drinking and making sure the boat didn't hit any other boats or the buoy that outlines the anchorage space. Due to this late night drinking fun we got a late start on Monday October 28th and didn't leave the boat until after 2pm. Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I went into town to do laundry and run some boat errands and Koelby and I got chick-fil-a for dinner (I love the chicken but hate the owners disgusting views and I do not support that by any means, but I just had to have it one more time). After dinner we headed back to the boat and watch a video on the best places to anchor and see in Mexico from a couple Tom and Jenna met that have sailed in Mexico for over 3.5 years. Come Tuesday October 29th we were anchored out in the same place we had been over the weekend and although we found it funny that we were the only boat we also liked it because there was no chance of a collision. We found out the real reason why we were the only boat in the anchorage when Koelby and I were awakened by Ian saying that the police were coming to the boat!!! What??? Our boat??? Well yes they did come to our boat and ask why we were anchored in a weekend only anchorage in a Tuesday morning? Good question coppers, well the answer was that we had No idea it was a weekend only anchorage so the cops told us to come over to the "long dock" (whatever the hell that was) and they would set us up with an inspection so we could get a permit to anchor at another anchorage but we had to do it fast because it only had 2 slips left. So we woke everyone up and moved over the the public dock and the longest one we could see, it seemed weird to me because we just pulled up into a mooring spot? Tom went over to he office to set up the inspection and they said they would right down. We'll come to find out when Tom and Jenna were over talking to another boat and the same cop approached them and was very rude and angry that we

View of San Diego from our anchor spot in the marina

were in fact Not in he correct place and he proceeded to order us to move over. So Koelby Ian and I untied the boat and proceeded to move it to a "long dock" about 20 feet away when Jenna and Tom began yelling at us that we needed to move back to the slip we were just at, well actually the one next to it, we didn't really know what was going on but we moved it to the correct place anyways. Once moored we were told that the anchorage was all full (apparently some jerks just pulled in and stayed and now the anchorage was full) so we didn't need an inspection after all. We ended up paying for the night to stay at this moorage and applied for a permit to stay at a different anchorage because the police told us the permit took 24 hours, so really we didn't have a choice. After the excitement we all hung out and were lazy until Ian motivated us to work by just going out to do it alone and made us all feel bad :-) so we went out and helped him and cleaned the back deck teak. This is the first step in the teak oiling process, but since it was like 5pm when we were finished, don't worry we only stayed at like 3:45pm so not to bad :-), and we had to let the teak dry we decided to be done working for the day and Ian and Tom made sour dough pizza dough and we all had pizza for dinner. Since we have had such an easy time in San Diego so far with anchorages stay tuned for the fun to be had until we leave sometime next week after our 6th crew member, Keaton arrives on Monday November 4th...

Fourth Entry - posted on Saturday October 19th from Marina Del Ray, CA

After breakfast at a local cafe and another failed attempt at updating my journal page with pictures (the iPad just doesn't want to cooperate) I gave up and we headed back to the boat to stow everything for sea and put up the boom.  We were pretty sure that the main sail slides would be to big for this boom from what Buzz quoted us but we thought we could just sand them down to fit. We soon found out this would not work and that we would have to get new slides in LA. So the boys put up the boom and I did the dishes and stowed everything for sea. We set sail around 2 on Saturday October 12th. After we had motored out of Monterey Bay and into the ocean and put up the genoa and the staysl the boys decided they wanted to put up the main sail... The plan was to put it up with a reef in the main, so basically the main sail is tied to the boom and held in place with a rope around the end ring at the boom stay. And actually this worked very well. On Sunday October 13th we made great head way and went 96 nautical miles! Matt and Ian are doing great and have been standing their watches on their own. Although Matt has been sea sick he is hanging in there dreaming of the amazing islands we will see once we get south. At around 12:15am on Monday October 14th Jenna came yelling into our room again telling us that the pulley on the boom has broken. We were both very confused and to be honest I didn't even know if Koelby was going to get up,he was just laying there saying what pulley?? But finally he got up and told me to stay asleep. I'll let Koelby tell you what had happened:  we had a pin shear and a piece from the main sheet came unthreaded. Nothing a little creativity can't fix, we were back to tip top shape in no time. . . 
 Back to Jessica. (Just to clarify since I talk about watches and different people being on watch at different times, here is the watch schedule; Tom and Jenna are from 8am to 1pm, Koelby and I are from 1pm to 6pm, Matt and Ian are from 6pm to 10pm, Tom and Jenna are from 10pm to 1am, Koelby and I are from 1am to 4am and Matt and Ian complete the circle with 4am to 8am.) Well that was exciting... While the pin was being repaired we did not use the main at all. But by late afternoon all was fixed and we put the main back up and we were sailing pretty well with an average speed on 5 knots. We made it a record (for us at least) 130 nautical miles on Monday October 14th. Jenna and Ian had put out our tuna hand line early in the day and around 3 or 4 Tom suggested we bring it in but Jenna had read somewhere that having it out later in the day is usually the best time for catching tuna, so we left it out. Koelby, Ian, Tom and I were playing a card game top side when Jenna jumped up and said she heard something and ran over to the tuna hand line and sure enough there was a fish on the line. Everyone started yelling and freaking out. Jenna ran to get her gloves and Koelby got a piece of wood to haul in the hand line. So as Jenna was hand over hand pulling in the line Koelby was reeling it in with the piece of wood. 

Finally Koelby took over with just the wood and Ian gaff hooked the huge tuna, we are thinking 30lbs since we don't have a scale, and held it over the side of the boat so we could cut it and let it bleed out. Jenna used the fillet knife to cut the tuna' belly open. We had originally thought this would kill it and it would bleed out, we were wrong. This only seem to make it mad and it began to buck against the side of the boat and we lost grasp of it and it fell to the ocean but we still had it hooked and Koelby gaffed it this time and pulled it onto the boat. I personally did not want to touch it so I stood back and took pictures of the event. There was more blood than I thought could be in a fish. Koelby took the reigns as usual but before I let him I made him take off his sweat pants and sweat shirt, he only has one pair of sweat paints so I felt I was justified to make him! So funny enough he was in a t-shirt and boxer briefs. As I said before we thought the belly being cut open would have killed the tuna... But when it first tail smacked Koelby in the leg and then began to thrash uncontrollably all over the deck and spray it's massive amount of blood all over the deck and the boat and everyone anywhere near it, I ran so I was safe but Koelby was cover in blood, needless to say he thanked me for forcing him to take off his clothing, he looked like a murder victim from the thighs down. Finally with Ian manning the gaffer and the tuna losing enough blood it stopped moving and Ian held up the tuna and Koelby cut its head off. Now we were sure it was dead. So Koelby began filleting it and everyone tried the raw tuna except Matt and I. After the tuna was sufficiently filleted to the best of our ability we fired up the grill and Ian and Matt cooked the tuna. While the tuna was cooking Tom and I cleaned the deck and cock pit free of all the blood. We ate the tuna over a bed of rice and had a lot left over. As Monday wound down and Koelby and I took our second watch at 1am the wind decided to take a break and did not pick back up until 11am on Tom and Jenna's watch. At this point we were right next to the Channel Islands; which are a great white shark reserve and the wind once again decided to stop...

 So Koelby, Tom and Ian decided to take an ocean bath. They had fun in the water and I had fun laying out in the sun in a bathing suit for the first time since we started this adventure, you gotta love California! Around 4pm the boys put up the spinnaker pole on the genoa to the port side and the main to the starboard and we sailed wing and wing down wind at a whopping 1.7 knots, but at least it was something. Finally at around 8pm the wind picked up and we started to move at about 6 knots.  This seemed to only last a few hours because all Tuesday October 15th we only managed to go 33 miles. Koelby and I woke up at around 10:30am on Wednesday October 16th and again we were not moving at all! So Koelby and Ian rigged up the spinnaker pole from the mast out over the starboard side of the boat with a rope attached and made our first Trade Winds rope swing.

All of the boys took turns playing on the rope swing and Tom even walked out along the top of the spinnaker pole and jumped in. I also joined in on the fun and played in the water! It was a fun day except for the fact that we didn't move hardly at all but the sun was hot and and small breeze was welcomed. As I was climbing the ladder back onto the boat I smashed me index finger :-( it hurts a lot but I'll live. Finally at around 2am on Thursday October 17th we anchored the boat just off the Malibu CA coast line and all slept. At 10:30am on Thursday October 17th we secured a spot at the Marina Del Ray Marina and motored over. We moored in a guest moorage spot at the Marina Del Ray Marina, it's next to a park and a beautiful view, but the showers are ice... Actually ice cold, so boat showers while in LA, but it is located in walking distance to a grocery store and restaurants and west marine so we are happy. 

I had said earlier that I was going to be adding a complaint section to the journal, so... The sleeping complaints are the same, it's too damn loud to sleep!! But I'm getting used to it. Using ear plugs and playing music on my phone loud enough to hear over the many noises of the auto pilot and screw and bilge pumps and people up on watch talking and whatever else happens to be happening at the time of our sleep. My main complaint on the voyage from Brisbane, CA to Marina Del Ray, CA is that I had a terrible cough and felt seasick for the first few days :-( The cough is still here unfortunately but the seasickness is gone so I'd say I'm winning! Then I decided to smash my finger in the ladder getting back on the boat from swimming and that's really annoying but over all this short 5 day journey wasn't that bad and now I get to see my cousin Todd and his beautiful new bride and one of my bestest girl friends Jaimi so I'm in a great mood!!!  

Third Entry - posted on Friday October 11th from Moss Landing, CA - Reposted/Updated on Friday October 18th from Marina Del Ray, CA

On Friday September 20th we made plans to watch the America's Cup again at a pier 39 bar and met Grandma and Gpa Bauer, Aunt Pam and Uncle Jim there. They have graciously driven down to pick up Gpa. The first cup race went too long and New Zealand was over the 40 minute completion time by a few seconds so it didn't count as a win. We stayed and watched the next race and USA pulled out a win again! Only 5 or 6 more to go... We will see how they do today. Koelby's cousin Benjamin Enos came and hung out on the boat Friday night and watched the race with us on sept 21st. Friday night was a fun time, we had 2 other new friends come hangout for a while. One named Jeff, who was hilarious, and Sally, who Koelby has already commented about so no further story is necessary. Ben's roommate Ross and friend Anna also came to hang out and were a lot of fun. We had half the bar filled with family; Gma and Gpa, Aunt Pam and Uncle Jim and Koelby's Gma Gail and cousin Ben for the America's Cup race on the 21st. 

 We moved the boat to the Berkeley Marina on Sunday sept 22nd because it was much cheaper and closer to Ben Enos and Matt Schoenwetter who both live in Berkeley. We walked the broken boom over a machine shop behind the marina to see if they could fix it. But they told us the same thing a few others we called and showed the boom to; that it wasn't worth fixing and we should get a new one made. Tom had called many different people to get quotes for new and used booms and we had quotes from $7500 to $3500 and funny enough this particular machine shop told us that they would have a guy named Buzz down in Santa Cruz do it if we brought it to them, but we said no thank you because Tom had already talked to Buzz. So we all talked about it and decided Buzz was the way to go. He is modifying a boom he currently has in the shop to fit out boat for under $1600. Needless to say we are happy! We stayed at the Berkeley Marina until Thursday October 3rd. While in Berkeley we ventured into town a few times for the America's Cup race (USA for the win!!!) and to pick up groceries and other supplies. Koelby, Ian, Ben and I went to Gma Gail's for dinner and laundry one night, a very fun time. On Monday sept 30th the whole crew banded together to help move Matt into a storage unit and move him officially onto the boat. Koelby has also already told the story of Matt's decision to come along, this can be seen on the front page of the blog. But I will say that we are ALL very happy he has joined the team.

Our dinghy adventure into Santa Cruz - October 8th

 Koelby, Tom, Jenna and I ventured back into San Fran on Tuesday October 1st to go to Alcatraz and when we arrived at pier 33 we were welcomed with the staff refunding tickets because Alcatraz had been closed because the government couldn't get there s*** together. I was really looking forward to seeing and experiencing Alcatraz so I think I was the most upset. So we walked around the model and read about the history. On Thursday October 3rd we moved the boat from Berkeley to the Brisbane Marina because we decided to join the Sierra Point Yacht Club and Brisbane is there home marina. Al, Koelby's dad's long time friend and basically an uncle to Koelby just happened to be on a job down in San Fran and he came to the boat 2 different nights to hang out with us. He brought us lots of presents like wrist rockets and soap and tools and took us to an amazing Italian dinner in South San Fran. After a yacht club brunch on Sunday October 6th we cleaned up the boat and stowed everything for sea and set sail for Santa Cruz with only a head sail and a staysl. Before we left Brisbane we looked at the weather and it said starting Monday night October 7th that the winds would be at around 20 to 30 knots and get up to around 50 by Tuesday. Needless to say we wanted to get to Santa Cruz before the huge winds. We left Brisbane on Sunday at noon and said a final good bye to San Francisco, put up our only 2 sails we could and made it to Santa Cruz at around 9pm on Monday October 7th and anchored out in Monterey bay.

Our view of Santa Cruz from 

 On Tuesday we moved closer the the Santa Cruz pier and anchored for 2 more nights. On Tuesday afternoon we blew up the dingy and 5 of us (Koelby stayed behind because he was feeling "sick" from a night of fun and Gin) set out to go to shore. Unfortunately none of us could figure out how to start the motor and Koelby was sleeping so we just paddled to shore. It wasn't too bad only like 10 minutes of us paddling but when we got to the first dock to tie up the dingy there was a huge sea-lion at the top of the stairs where we needed to go into, scary, and there wasn't any real place to tie the dingy up so we paddled to the next dock down and were able to avoid the 2 huge sea-lions on the dock because it was bigger, less scary. It was like 4:30 so we ate dinner and paddled back to the boat before it got dark. On Wednesday October 8th we all 6 got into the dingy again but this time we had a secret weapon... Koelby! And he started the motor for us and we were on our way. We spent the afternoon in the city walking around and had lunch. Some of us wanted to play on the beach so we went back to the boat to change and motored the dingy right up onto the beach. Going in was smooth and kinda fun. We played soccer and explored the beach and even helped a high school kid ask his girlfriend to homecoming by spelling it out on the beach. After all this fun we headed back to the boat but had to get past the breaking waves. We all waited out into the surf and got soaked to our bottoms, Jenna and I got in the boat and a big wave came and I for some reason decided to stand up..Thankfully Koelby yelled at me to sit down and Ian grabbed the back of my sweatshirt so I wouldn't fall in and I sat down, crisis averted! But the boys were still not in the boat and where now soaked up the their mid backs. But finally they all jumped in and it was smooth motoring back to the boat. While on shore I had bought 2 huge gallon waters for us to drink because we are having problems with our water and having too many minerals or something resembling dirt or rust in it. Due to this and us just wanting a marina for laundry and bathroom facilities on Thursday October 10th we brought up the anchor and mortared the few miles to the Moss Landing Harbor Marina to stay a night and be able to get the boom delivered. The crew decided to venture out into Moss Landing and see what dinner it had to offer. We took the advice of the marina worker and went to Phil's Fish Market, and it was delicious. Today is Friday October 11th and we are at a cute little cafe for breakfast that has free wifi so we can post to the blog and wait for the boom. Tom has been in email contact with Buzz and he says he will let us know at noon today what the status of the boom is and hopefully when it will be done, especially since it was quoted to be done today at noon. And we wait....

This post was updated on Saturday October 12th my fantastic cousin Todd's wedding day, we are so happy for you and will see you soon in LA. The boom was delivered on Friday the 11h later in the day.It seemed to look good but then Ian noticed that there was not a notch in the boom to put in the main sail and when we asked Buzz about it he instantly got upset and said he would be back tomorrow aka Saturday at 10 with the tool to fix it. He seemed really mad at whoever worked on the boom but he showed back up at 10am and fixed it. Although we are happy with the boom we are not happy that when Buzz gave us the final bill it was $1000 over what he quoted us... But we need a boom so we paid. We are all at breakfast now and will be setting sail to LA as soon as the boom is up and ready to go. 

Second Entry - posted on Thursday September 19th from San Diego, CA

So we got to the boat a little after 8:30am on Tuesday September 17th, later than we had planned but we were okay with it. Mary Dawn had made us a good breakfast :-)  We had a few minor repairs to complete on the boat and since Mary Dawn had graciously taken us to the store the night before we had some rearranging to do to make it all fit. So when we were back on e boat and had said our final good byes to Mary Dawn, Koelby immediately started the work on the aft bathroom. I put away most of the groceries with so rearranging assistance from Tom, put away all of Koelby and my clothing we had just washed, assisted Koelby in fixing the bathroom and did the dishes. Once all the small projects were done we finally set sail for the 5th time from Eureka at around 11am. Motored through the mouth of the straights to the ocean and were greeted 10 to 20 knot winds. This prompted us to put up the sails and flow with the wind. It was rocky and I started to feel sick so up top I went and was just fine! We continued with our usual watches but since Tom was really really sick and puking Gpa offered to take some of his watch and Koelby stayed up to assist him for most of it. At around 1am Tom was up and ready to start his watch. Gpa and Tom were trying to tack when Tom looked up and thought he saw the boom bent in a V shape and thought to himself "I must really be tired" but with a second look he realized that yes the boom was in fact broken in half at the vang and he began to panic slightly. At the moment Jenna was headed up the stairs to release Gpa and assist Tom when Tom yelled to her to go wake Koelby and I up and tell us "the boom is broken."

Koelby and I just looked at her like she was crazy and Koelby asked What? Jenna- the boom is broken! Once Jenna finally left so we could get dressed Koelby looked at me and was like, the boom can't be broken, I think there would be more panic. I told him it was probably just the boom off its track again. And at that moment we hear a loud banging on out port hole and Tom yelling Koelby's name. This alarmed us and we went into double time and ran out to go up top.

 On our way I looked over at the sink area and it was completely flooded with water and was like Koelby, look at the kitchen it's flooded!!! He just looks at me from the latter up top and says "is the valve open?" Ad here we go again... The valve to the kitchen sink was left open and all of the 4 cabinets where flooded and a few inches of water on the counters and in the storage area next to the sink. While the boys dropped the main sail and tried to remove the boom from the mast Jenna and I tried to stop the flood damage from getting any further. We had to use multiple towels to sop it all p and move all contents from the 4 cabinets and place all kinds of food around the boat hopping it wouldn't just fly all over the boat with the big rolls we were taking. Once we did as much as we could in the kitchen we moved to topside to see what else we could do. But with only 2 jack line extensions and 3 life vests there wasn't much we could do but sit and watch. Once they got the boom off the mast after what seemed like hours; which was only like 45 minutes, we all sat there for a few minutes in shock. We all decided that motoring the 180nm to San Francisco was a better choice than turning around and heading back to Eureka.

We were set to meet our 5th and final crew member Ian Steel on Wednesday September 18th and it was already 1 am on the 18th so we started motoring to San Francisco and we made it

here at around 8 am on Thursday September 19th and hung out in the bay near Alcatraz until we could find a good marina. We settled on Pier 39 Marina for 2 nights because its in the city and we could easily access all we needed. And boom repair is on the top of the list! It turns out we choose the best possible marina, not price wise but excitement wise it was the best. We looked up when and where the America's Cup was and it was taking place at 1:30pm right in front of Pier 39. So we sat down to eat at a restaurant overlooking the pier and watched the America's Cup race! Go USA!!

After we found out that the second race of the day was being postponed until tomorrow due to wind conditions we headed back to the boat. We said good bye to Ian's mom and the boys started working on the outside of the boat and I asked Ian if he wanted to get settled. So I cleaned out his room and got him all the space he needed. We are now comfortably moored in San Fran getting the repairs we need, anxiously waiting to continue our trip south.

This is a new section of my journaling. I was told by multiple people that I should document everything we do and feel and that includes complaints. So a complaint section will be added to each journal entry from now on. Now I realize I/we should have nothing to complain about since we are on this amazing adventure and are young and able to not work and still be able to do this, but...

America's Cup - Go USA

Don't get me wrong Koelby and I love our room and are happy with it, most of the time... So we are in the aft cabin. This is located right behind the engine witch is extra loud when we are motoring. So we can't really sleep when it's on. This shouldn't be so bad since we don't plan on motoring, but we didn't "plan" on motoring as much as we have thus far, so we will see... Okay so take out the motoring factor all together and add the auto pilot, ugh. Auto pilot is the best invention ever invented!!! Unless the motor for it is underneath your bed, literally underneath it! It sounds like a loud screaming that reoccurs anywhere from every few seconds to every 10 to 20 seconds. Forget sleeping when that's on too. So basically Koelby and I don't sleep, which makes for very happy not at all grumpy attitudes. Okay no more complaint for this entry :-) 

First Entry - posted on Monday September 16th from Eureka, CA

It was a Friday, August 30th to be exact. Our first set sail... Well sort of, we left the Bremerton Marina and motored to the Bell Harbor Marina in Seattle. It took us about 4 hours. We then spent the weekend in Seattle hanging out with Tom and Jenna's parents and other family members. We took them for a few hour sail ride in the Puget Sound. Koelby and I mainly hung out at the Anthony's restaurant bar watching football and having some last drinks before we set sail once again. On Sunday September 1st also known as Tom's Birthday we set sail from Seattle headed to the ocean and Oregon. My brother Jason came with us for this first leg of our journey. We headed up to the San Juan's and out the Juan da Fuka straights to the ocean. We had almost made it to the Juan de Fuka straights when the wind died and unfortunately we were smack dab in the middle of the shipping lanes and going nowhere fast. Finally the decision was made to motor around the Port Townsend bend and out of the shipping lanes with merchant ships all around us. Once we rounded the corner the wind picked up and we had to decide to either find a place to anchor or sail through the night. Since the wind picked back up we chose Sail! Unfortunately that meant we had to tack back and forth straight through the shipping lanes. Night one of sailing and Koelby and I were on our toes with excitement :-) 

We found our groove and the rest of our watch was smooth sailing. The following day would prove a first for all of us as we slowly made our way towards the ocean and were joined by a small pod of 
humpback whales.                                                       

We counted about 8 and got some pretty good pictures. Even though they never came to close it was very exciting and made the trip feel like it had finally begun. It took another day and a half to finally get to the long awaited ocean and we were all very anxious and excited... And the climax was 0.0 knots of wind. This wouldn't have been so bad but on Koelby and my watch we looked up and saw that one of the batons in our main sail had broken. We dropped the sail and removed the baton and tried to keep going. Then we saw that our head sail had a huge tear in its UV cover and we all decided that with both sails down we had to figure something out. We had planned on meeting Koelby and my family and friends in Newport OR on Friday September 6, 7 and 8 to have a going away party. But with 2 sails down we called our savior Grandpa Bauer and he set us up with a moorage and sail repair man in Astoria OR where he has a condo that he let us stay in while we figured it all out. With the panic gone we decided we should motor to Astoria OR since we didn't want the sails to break anymore. On our second day of sailing we were excited and glad to see a pod of orca whales, we got some really cool videos of the orcas and even saw a baby orca on its mothers back come in and out of the water. I was glad Jay got to see two different sets of whales since he was only going to be with us for a short period of time. We got into Astoria on Thursday september 5th and met the sail repair man and he said he would go as fast as he could but probably wouldn't have them done 

 Monday. So we regretfully had to contact all of our family and friends and let them know we wouldn't be making it to Newport but we were still going to do the bbq's on Saturday and Sunday in Astoria and thankfully a lot of friends and family were still able to make it. We apologize again to those that could not get out of their Newport campsites. We had an amazing weekends celebrating with family and friends. Tragically Koelby's grandmother Audrey Adcock (Edlund) passed away over the weekend, she was an amazing women and will be dearly missed. My brother Jay had to jump ship and go back to Portland for a new job he was starting. We really wanted him to come to San Francisco with us but he decided to be "responsible" what's that about??? ;-) So now we were left without our needed 5th man. 12 hour watches were just not going to do!!! Since we had asked our savior Gpa Bauer to come with us a year prior and were turned down we were racking our brains on who to invite and he was the only one we kept coming back to. So I sent the charismatic Koelby to him to see what he could do and what do you know? Gpa said yes and we gave him the weekend to get prepared and on Monday September 9th also known as My Birthday we again set sail, this time from Astoria. This time of setting sail wasn't as smooth as the last 2. We left early Monday morning with a thoughtful gift from Koelby for my birthday that had somehow fallen off of Gpa's truck and was ran over by a car. Once we left the marina it was almost instantly dicey. By the time we reached the dreaded Columbia bar everyone was sick but grandpa and koelby. With the huge seas and heavy wind we quickly figured out what was not stowed we'll enough on the boat (this included the I Mac). The good news about stormy weather is that we made great time down the coast! Since Jenna's parents were not able to make it to Astoria we stopped in Newport on Tuesday and they came to see us and bring us a much needed vacuum since Koelby and I's I Mac came tumbling down the night before and there was broken glass everywhere. The I Mac still turns on so we have hope that a new screen will make it as good as new. So again on Wednesday September 11th, we set sail for the 4th time and are now headed for Eureka CA to see Koelby's step Dad John's family. All was looking good as we left Newport with okay winds... As it goes with the sea, the winds left us. After 5 days of spurts of wind and days with none at all we had to finally break down and motor :-( but we are confident that once we don't have a schedule or people to meet on certain days that we will welcome the days of no wind where we can hang out in the sun and swim around the boat and I can beat everyone in pinochle :-)
Speaking of, Koelby and Tom decided that they needed a bath, in the ocean yesterday (Sunday sept 15th) and just jumped off the boat and used a rope to not get to far away. Now in theory this sounds great, refreshing water (aka freezing), a bar of soap (goat milk soap to be exact) and the girls to hand them towels when done, little did they realize they would be coved in salt :-) haha but they smell better now so ill take it as a win ;-)

On Monday September 16th after sailing from 6am to after 1 pm we finally made it to Eureka! And we got a special present on our way in at about noon we have 4 or 5 Doll porpoises ( judging from our book of mammals that Jenna brought and she is the one that told us what kind she think they are) playing in the wake of the boat and at the bow of the boat. It was so cool to see, they hung out for about 15 minutes and we tried to get pics and videos but they are fast little guys.
We arrived in Eureka at 2pm and ate a great lunch at the marina diner. Koelby's Uncle Dave and Aunt Mary Dawn came and picked us up and brought us to there house for an amazing dinner and let us shower and do laundry so we are very happy campers! We are set to leave tomorrow morning early in the a.m. We will see how that goes...