Orlando

So we’ve been away from the boat for 2 weeks now. Some (Mr. Captain) are missing the boat and others are enjoying being land based for a while again. We spent the last two weeks in a resort called Mystic Dunes in Orlando, visiting famous theme parks, seeing family and on my part, buying records.

We arrived in Orlando to the weather report predicting thunderstorms every afternoon. However, we were in Orlando and had to visit some of the parks. 

The first park we ventured into was Orlando’s Universal Studios. This is where we met famous people like Marilyn Monroe, Scooby Doo and Shaggy, Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick and even Squidward. We went on all the big rides. The Rock n’ Roll rollercoaster was a favourite because as you were being twirled and flipped upside down, you could listen to a song of your choice. As I was being twirled and flipped, I got to do it to the sound of Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” Another famous ride was E.T. We helped E.T. get home as we rode on bicycles through space and to his planet. As promised, it began raining towards the end of the day, so we headed home.

The girls with Betty Boop

The next day, dad and Josh wanted a golf day. They headed off, and after about three hours it began pouring again. My mother and I drove to the restaurant Kenzies by the golf club to see if we could see them and on our way there we saw a golf cart on the 18^th hole with two people sitting inside it, whilst it poured with rain. I laughed and said that I felt sorry for whoever it was. My mom said it would be funny if it were my dad and Josh. As we got closer it turned out it was my dad and Josh! My mom and I hooted until they eventually saw us and then laughed all the way to the golf club. We sat and had a drink waiting for them to arrive and eventually (40 minutes later) once the rain had stopped, they arrived all soaked. We sat and had dinner whilst we heard about how terrible they both were at golf.

Dad and Josh stuck in the rain

Josh and Rebecca on the front of the Hulk ride

Sunday morning = next theme park. We ventured to the Islands of Adventure theme park. We got there early so managed to get to the front of the queue on two of their major rides. The hulk was a rollercoaster that took you right underneath the bridge; my brother and sister loved it so much that the minute they came out they ran back around to go again! The next ride we did was the Spiderman ride. It stopped working half way so they let us to the front of the ride to try again. With American kids still at school the theme parks are reasonably quiet so there weren’t many long waits. We ended up going on all of the major rides. We made our way to the back of the park to the Harry Potter section and it was madness . . .the rest of the park was quiet because everybody was congregated here. There were massive long queues for people buying butterbeer (shortbread syrup with butterscotch sauce) and massive lines for people buying wands! The lines weren’t too long for the dueling dragons roller coasters though so we went on those. The Dueling Dragons rollercoaster’s are two rollercoaster’s that are wrapped around each other. I did one rollercoaster and ended up with a massive headache so my brother and sister went on both dragon rollercoaster’s. Seuss Land was probably my favourite land even though there was only one ride we could do in it. The ride was sitting on a couch and it took you through the world of Dr. Seuss’s ‘Cat In The Hat.” Another ride Joshua and I did, was the Simpsons ride and never again will we do it. It was the trippiest ride and we ended up feeling so sick afterwards. If you get motion sickness, this ride is definitely not for you. Once we had completed all the rides and the rain came again, we left.

Harry Potter world

After much begging on my part, my parents agreed to drive me to the record shop. As I walked in, I was in my own little heaven. My parents, seeing the size of the shop and the thousands of records that resided there, quickly escaped to the nearest coffee shop and left me to do my worst. After searching for a really long time, I emerged with six records. Two of which were Black Keys albums, one Daft Punk, one Cage the Elephant, One Norah Jones, and one Mumford and Sons. After my successful shopping we decided to go back to the car, only to find a women whose tire was flat right in front of our car. My dad helped her change tyres and saw her on her way, and then we went on our way.

We drove to Sarasota to spend the weekend with my moms Uncle John and his wife Carol. Her second cousin, Stephen also came down for the weekend. The weather wasn’t too great due to hurricane ISAAC that was moving past bringing clouds and rain, but it was a great weekend. We went for lunch to a nice spot by the water and we had shrimp and lamb chops on the braai for dinner! On Sunday we went for breakfast and then went through pictures of John and Carols beautiful wedding in Stellenbosch. It was a beautiful weekend catching up with family. Thank you John and Carol for inviting us to come and stay with you and for showing us all your beautiful home.

John and Carol at Siesta beach

Chatting with Stephen

Seaworld

We had a week until we left Orlando and had tickets to two more theme parks. One of these we went to on Tuesday. Seaworld Orlando was amazing. They had three major rides, all of which were spectacular. The Manta was a rollercoaster where you are basically in the superman position the whole time. The Kraken was another roller coaster; this one just had a lot of loops and ups and downs, also going through a tunnel. The Journey to Atlantis was like a log ride with a little bit of a twist . . .literally! Instead of going straight down, you went down and twisted to the side. They also have these little machines that you put money in and you can squirt people coming around on the ride. We had our coins in and were ready to go, when a cart came and a guy n a white shirt was splashing everyone on the ride, so we timed it perfectly and he got soaked as he was hit with a big spray of water. We could all not stop laughing, as it was so priceless, he was so angry and shocked that he had gotten soaked. My mom, sister and I also got to feed the dolphins, which was amazing! When we left the park, it wasn’t raining but it was time to go home.

Feeding the dolphins

 The last park we went to was Aquatica. We managed to go on every single ride in the park, my mom and I even going on our favourite three times. There was one ride where you went in a tube through the Commerson Dolphins pool. This was hands down the funnest water park, the only negative about the day was that Rebecca lost her waterproof camera on one of the rides. We left the park by 2:30 as we all had to pack to fly to Vancouver the next day. We had a great two weeks in Orlando, even with the weather from the hurricane, it was great. It is time for our next adventure in Vancouver. Stay safe and God bless xx

Commerson dolphin

Jangles on Land

Jangles is now sitting safely on her land perch, enjoying her spa treatments as she gets all cleaned up. The day we arrived, we went to see Catlyn as they were still on board for one day! We spent the evening with Marco, chatting and watching a movie. The next day he came over to say his farewells as he was boarding a plane to Ecuador. 

The next morning I went for a run and on my way back to Peakes, Jesse was standing on the road waiting for me. He had seen me running and stopped to say hello again after 5 months. We went for doubles (a local Trini dish made with two pieces of flat bread filled with chick peas and a spicy chutney, and if you are really brave a dash of pepper sauce). Jesse came over again later to do some work on the boat as we are adding a horn to the mast so when Talisman attempts to do a turn right in front of us in a rain squall, we can hoot at them.

Doubles

We hired a car and took a drive to Movietown. My sister and I watched the new Step Up movie and my parents, along with my brother went to watch the new Bourne movie. We had dinner before going to the movie as it  would be late when the moves finished. As we were driving home, the car started making a strange noise. Eventually, as the noise got worse, we pulled over. It turned out the bolts were missing from the front left wheel and it would have been minutes before the wheel fell off! My dad, the designated mechanic, took a bolt from each of the other wheels and tightened all the bolts. We made it safely back to the boat, thanks to the Lord.

We are fixing a lot of things on the boat. We are doing things like raising the antifouling  line, and scrubbing the boat from head to toe. We want to make sure everything is in order for Jangles before we leave her for 5 weeks. The aircon has also been put in to stop everything from growing mould in our absence.

Rewiring to put the horn in

the mark to raise the line

On Sunday we had planned to go to a local church, but by the time the car keys were eventually found, the service had already started. So instead we went for breakfast and then back to Movietown. We all watched the new Batman, Dark Knight Rises everyone agreed was absolutely brilliant! It has been labeled the favourite out of all three Batman movies.

Along with cleaning the boat, bags are being packed. We depart on Friday to Orlando for 2 weeks. My dad plans to spend most of that time on the golf course and Josh and Rebecca are looking forward to Disneyland; but as for me, I am excited about the record shops! After Orlando, we all go to Vancouver for 3 weeks to stay with Robert for a bit and to explore the beautiful place I have heard so much about. We will then return to Jangles and begin the new sailing season.

Josh cleaning

I will try to make time to write a few posts on the blog, but if I don’t then until we return to Jangles, farewell. 

Tobago

After news of cyclone Ernesto developing, we decided to take the plunge (against some opinions) and sailed south to Tobago. The wind was not working with us so we motor sailed most of the way. It was a rough sail with 2-3 metre swells. Luckily, when we were a few hours away from Grenada, my brother and I decided to sit on the front of the boat, getting splashed by the waves and singing very off key at the top of our lungs. Suddenly, my brother yelled hard left to my dad and Jangles swerved quickly out of the course of a large wooden plank that was bobbing out of the water. It looked as if it was attached to something below the water as the plank stood up right. And on cue, one of the rods went off. A Dorado had been lurking beneath the plank and had liked our little pink lure. Dorados are usually found under floating objects as they wait there for flying fish to come and lay their eggs. Joshua reeled in a decent sized Dorado that we had for dinner that night. We also hooked something that resembled a small Russian submarine. As my dad fought with the rod we began crossing out the fish it couldn’t be. It wasn’t jumping, only diving, so we crossed off Marlin and Sailfish, as they are usually jumpers. Eventually when we got the line close to the boat, the large Marlin (which must have been about a metre and a half long) surfaced, giving us a glimpse . . . just before the line snapped. We all sat back in disappointment and amazement as the marlin swam away with our lure. However, we still had a great meal of Dorado as we chased the moon to Tobago.

Ice man

We arrived in Tobago, as always, in the very early hours of the morning.  We had to anchor in Scarborough as that is one of Tobago’s ports of entry. We were all woken around nine am and told to change because customs required all of us to be there. As we got to the dock and began climbing off, my mom’s foot got caught between the dinghy and the dock and man overboard she went, into the water (which didn’t look very sanitary). So my mom dripped through the customs and immigration process before we got back to the boat. If there is one thing to know, it is that customs and immigration in Trinidad and Tobago are not very pleasant.  We spent a while waiting for ice that some local was going to bring to us as my dad had already paid him to fetch it.  We eventually decided that the money and ice where missing in action and finally put the dinghy up and were about to leave when the guy came running down the dock. So we stuck the kayak in the water and told my brother to go. He came back with the biggest bag of ice I have ever seen.We lifted anchor to move to another bay. After getting stuck in a few rain squalls, we finally anchored in Store Bay and got picked up by a friend we had made in St. Lucia, Robert. We had a delicious dinner of steak and lobster at his villa with his wife, Agnes and their local friend, Ricky. Ricky prepared the lobsters in the kitchen, even giving Josh a chance to slice one open.

Our chefs: Robert, Agnes and Ricky

Josh cutting up a lobster

We stayed on the boat the next day as there were high winds of 35 knots, lots of rain storms and a pretty rolly anchorage, so we stayed as we were worried about the anchor dragging.

The following day, we all packed our bags as Robert and Agnes had kindly offered for us to stay with them for a few days in the villa they were renting. We all got to pick rooms and spent the afternoon between the couch with the Olympics show casing on the television, and the porch where the great view was as well as where the beers were.

It was an early rise on Sunday morning as we were driving to the Speyside, which is on the northern tip of the island to finally do some diving. I sat out as I had an ear problem, but Rebecca, Josh, mom, dad, and Robert got suited up. They all did two dives, both of which I believe were fantastic. They saw untouched colourful corals as well as many glorious sea creatures, few of which include nurse sharks, spotted eagle rays, and many other fish (way too many names but they were pretty). We had a superb lunch at local restaurant called Jemmas Tree house. Later on it was another afternoon of Olympics and beer, along with a quiet evening.

Dive boat ready to go!

Joshua and Ricky

On Monday, we packed our bags and headed back to our floating home, saying goodbye to the long showers and nonmoving floors. We invited Robert, Agnes and Ricky aboard Jangles for a small taste of our home. We went for a sunset sail, light winds with the Screecher sail just staying filled enough to give us a gentle 3 kts of boat speed. Just as the sun was going down we had a great surprise of some dolphins joining us. They swam with our boat for a long time, following our fishing lures that were trailing in the water. As night overtook, we ran around the boat with the big torch shining it into the water as we watched the dolphins stun flying fish and having them as their meals. A few lucky flying fish managed to take flight just in time to avoid the dolphins belly, others weren’t so lucky. We had a pizza dinner aboard that night. We arrived back to the anchorage just as the lightning began. The dolphins followed us all the way and eventually left as we entered the bay. We sat on the trampolines chatting for a while before we finally said our goodbyes. I just want to say a big thank you to Robert and Agnes for inviting us to stay with them for a few days, we had a great time and you introduced us to the amazing island of Tobago, one to which we will be returning. We wish you all the best with your packing and travels. Hope to catch up with you both real soon.

Ricky, Agnes, mom, and Robert

Drinks up front

We checked out the next morning and headed towards Trinidad. As night took over, everybody was summoned on deck to look out for fishing nets. We have had previous experiences of running into fishing nets in the middle of nowhere just outside Trinidad. We managed to avoid an area of nets that was marked by one small flashing beacon. When we got to the anchorage, we were shocked by how dirty the water was. All of the recent rain had washed all the debris from the rivers into the ocean. We motored through bits of trees and litter until we finally anchored safely.

We had only booked for Jangles to be taken out of the water next week Monday, but with the condition of the water we phoned and asked to make it earlier. So lucky for us, at that very moment, early in the morning, they had an opening. Within ten minutes we were lifting our anchor and heading to Peaks. They hauled Jangles out of the water, and we all held our breath as she took flight and left her home to experience land for a while. She will rest quietly for the next 8 weeks until we return to her once again.

Jangles on her way to her land perch

Union Island - Grenada

After our time spent in the beautiful Tobago Cays, we decided to head back to Union Island after the weather started to pick up. With winds reaching 30 knots and rain squalls moving in, the little bay was packed with boats. We had a few near misses as other boats put their anchors down next to ours.

We were delayed in Union for a few days as we waited for the weather to clear up. Finally, on Thursday, we picked up our anchor and sailed to Petite St. Vincent. This beautiful little island is a private resort that allows boats to anchor off of its main beach and allows 'yachties' to go to their restaurants and use part of their beach. That afternoon we got there, my parents went for a drink at the Goatie's beach bar whilst I went for a run along the beach. It was a stunning run with not a single person in sight! As the sun began to lower, I arrived back at the beach bar and we headed back to our sweet Jangles to get ready for dinner. As it was my birthday the next day, we decided to celebrate it whilst we were on this quaint little island. We had delicious starters of crab, spring rolls and banana chips whilst we had drinks at the bar before moving to our wooden table for the main course. Once our bellies were at the brink of bursting, we called it a night.

Birthday dinner

I woke up to 4 family members bursting into my small cabin singing happy birthday. The year of being 17 has officially begun. After eating breakfast, opening presents and having a slice of chocolate cake (my mother had attempted to make red velvet cupcakes but got distracted whilst she was mixing ingredients and forgot to add the vital egg, so these rock hard, sunken in things came out of the oven. . .hence the chocolate cake) the day began. It was a relaxed day that consisted of snorkelling around the island and then sailing, screecher and all, down to Sandy Island. Wine and butternut salad was how the glorious day ended, making it a birthday to remember.

Good morning

We left Sandy Island early Saturday morning and docked midday in Port Louis, Grenada. We went into   the marina to give Jangles a scrub, to check into customs and immigration, and to do some grocery shopping. We spent the night in the marina and had dinner at the marina restaurant. We left to anchor in the bay the following day.

Dinner

On Tuesday, we picked up anchor and motored to the spot where the underwater sculpture park was just off Moliniere Point in Dragon Bay. We attached to a buoy and got all the snorkelling gear ready, then took the dinghy around the corner. We got in the water and were greeted by magnificent sculptures, 2-6 metres below us. There were sculptures of ladies lying on the floor, a women on her knees praying, a man at his desk, a circle of people holding hands and Christ of the deep. Joshua even had enough cheek to feel up one of the lady statues lying down! We also saw many fish, including some large scorpion fish and an eel.

Bench

Christ of the deep.

We had originally planned to head down to Tobago on Wednesday to spend a few days with a friend we recently made in St. Lucia, Robert. Unfortunately, we've had to keep our eye on the weather had yesterday there was a 20% chance of a cyclone developing and today, that has increased to 30%. These are only predictions but they are in the direction we are meant to be sailing in. We are sitting tight for the moment and constantly checking to see if anything changes. . .but until then we have an island to explore!

Barbados - Tobago Cays

Barbados has one of the most beautiful long white sandy beaches, which I took advantage of for my runs. I got Joshua to join me for a run . . . needless to say he hasn’t run since!

Orchard garden

We hired a car and took a day to explore the island. We drove to a café that was supposed to be there (it said it was on the map), turns out nobody had ever heard of it and we never found it. So we found another place to eat breakfast. We then drove to the airport to go and see the Concord experience (turns out its closed on Mondays). So after an unsuccessful morning, we went to the Orchard Garden in the middle of the island and went through all of the orchard houses. The flowers were absolutely amazing, it wasn’t in season so not all the orchards were in bloom, but the few we did se were so worth it. We drove to the other side of the island to see the wild surfing beaches that nobody was meant to swim in. After sunset drinks, we drove back to where our boat was anchored and had the most amazing dinner at a restaurant called Fusion.

Sitting in the garden

We decided to tackle the island again the next day. We drove to the airport to fetch our passports with our newly issued 10-year American visas. After that we went to the Concord experience. My dad was like a little kid in a candy shop. The Concord was an amazing aeroplane, which could reach London in half the time a regular commercial aeroplane would take. We were given the history and were even allowed onto the plane. It was a great experience for all and highly recommended! After that, we decided to go see a movie as my mom wanted to do some shopping at the deli.

Concord experience

We left on Wednesday to sail to Union Island. We spent hours changing sails as the wind changed with us. Finally, we sailed a while with the Spinnaker up. The beautiful green and yellow sail was almost grateful to be released again. We arrived, once again, at some ungodly hour of the morning, anchoring safely in the bay.

Flying the spinnaker

We did inventory of the alcohol on the boat and figured out we are a booze cruise for sure! Thursday afternoon, my brother and I went to Happy Island. We had sundowners on the little bar in the middle of the water. It was a great end to a beautiful day.

Booze cruise

Happy Island

We left on Friday for Tobago Cays and had a fantastic weekend swimming with turtles, rays, nurse sharks and lots of fish. Below is a video to share our time in this beautiful place:

Tobago Cays

Barbados

Playing roller coaster

The sail to Barbados was not the most comfortable of sails. For Joshua’s first sail, it felt as if we were in a washing machine. The two metre swells wouldn’t make up their minds about which direction they were going. The wind was not on our side either, so we ended up motor sailing the whole way. Despite the conditions, Joshua got his sea legs pretty quickly and never even fed the fishes once . . .we were all very impressed. Josh and I went to lie on the trampolines at the front and as a wave hit, water shot through the trampolines, drenching us both. We also sat on the front seats and our stomachs went up and down as the boat moved with the waves . . .it was as if we were on a rollercoaster. We spent an hour laughing and getting soaked by seawater. My dad bought a new rod and reel whilst he was in Australia and this thing is for a serious fisherman. The reel is so big you would think we were going to get caught by fish instead of the other way around. We did catch one fish on the sail, a small Dorado, which we decided to let go (even against my protests that we could get at least two decent sized fillets out of it). We arrived in Barbados in the early hours of the following morning. We were told that we had to go into the deep water marina to check in, in the morning. The marina was made for cruise ships and oil tankers, so we attempted to attach Jangles to a dock that was higher than the boat at some ungodly hour of the morning. We eventually got attached (with the help of one very tall brother) and settled in for the night.

the dock taller than Jangles

dorado

Once we checked in, we gave Jangles a very good scrub as she was crusted with salt from the previous days sail. We then motored around the corner to Carlisle Bay, where we anchored.

The next morning, my brother and I went for a run on the long white sandy beach we were anchored before. After that we went to the island to look around town. A cruise ship had just docked so the place was crawling with people from all over the world. My brother, sister and I walked to a small park where we picked up a geocache. It was my brothers first geocache, which was very exciting.

Art village

On Thursday we had to go to the American embassy to get our American visas. We spent three hours sitting and waiting in queues, eventually finding out that our applications had been approved and that we were looking at about a weeks wait before we could reclaim our passports. After a very taxing morning, we were grateful to step back onto the boat. That night was a dinner at the Boatyard, a restaurant on the beach, and then early to bed.

dinner

Saturday we took a taxi to the mall to go and see a movie. We watched the movie Brave, which ended up being pretty decent. My dad wasn’t too keen to watch it as it was an animated film, but in the end I think he enjoyed it. We went for a quick bite at the Boatyard again and my brother and I decided we wanted to jump on the water trampoline. As we didn’t have swimming costumes, we stripped to our undies (no one could see us as it was dark) and jumped off the pier into the pitch black water. Now, I wasn’t sure what came over me as I have always refused to swim at night time because I get freaked out by the black water but here I was . . . and I was swimming as fast as humanly possible to get to that trampoline! My brother and I had a great time jumping and climbing over inflatable mini mountains. We swam back to the pier as we saw my parents and my sister making their way back to the dinghy. It was back to the boat and straight into a warm shower.

taxi to the mall

traffic

Sunday morning, my mother, my father and I went to church. We found a New Testament church and we really enjoyed it. It was loud and kind of like the churches you hear about in the old days, the “Hallelujah, Praise Jesus!” church. When praise and worship began, the room filled with voices singing their hearts out, we didn’t even need any music. It was such an amazing feeling being there. After church it was back to the boat for some more schoolwork.

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Spheres of Thought

New Arrival

We were all very excited as we found out we were going to have a new arrival on board. A new person to scrub the decks and cook in the galley. A new crew member to wake at 3 am to be on coffee and tea duty. A new crew member to carry the bags and scrub the heads. We waited patiently for my brother to arrive, the week went ever so slowly as we bobbed up and down outside Rodney Bay. To pass the time, schoolwork was done and we even took Jangles into the marina to give her a quick scrub before the new arrival.

Scrubbing Jangles

Beautiful sunset

The day had finally arrived for us to see my brother! We hired a car and took a drive to the airport on the south of the island. After an hour and a half of driving through the beautiful St. Lucian countryside, we arrived at the little airport. My heart was racing as I stood excitedly, waiting for my brother to come out of those double doors. Eventually, there he emerged. . .with no bags. My sister and I ran to embrace him. Five months was too long to go without seeing my brother. He needed to get some information about what port we were anchored in and he then went back inside and emerged once again, luggage in hand. On the drive back to the boat, we stopped at a small pub and gave Josh his first rum and coke on St. Lucia. He was also pleasantly surprised when he tried banana chips and actually liked them! As we drove back to the marina, we played music and sang very off key at the top of our lungs the whole way. People in cars were smiling and giving us thumbs up as we danced and sang. We went for dinner at the marina before heading back to the boat. We sat and ate pizza and laughed as the sun was setting. We continued to laugh as five of us squished into the dinghy and headed back to the boat. Once we all got on the boat, the day started to hit us and it was off to bed pretty early.

On our way to the airport

                                          

He arrived!

Pub

On the party boat

We awoke early on Sunday morning, just after 6 am as we had planned a tour for the day for Josh to see the island. We got on a bus just after 8 am and drove to fetch a few more people. It seemed to be a popular honeymoon destination as every couple we picked up were in St. Lucia for their honeymoon. After a short 15 minute drive to Castries, we departed the bus and got onto Carnival 2, the party catamaran. We sailed down to Soufriere and then took another bus to the botanical gardens. We went on a tour around the garden, finding out information about every flower and plant that inhabited that tranquil place. We also got to see the Diamond Waterfall before getting back in the bus to go to the restaurant for lunch. Lunch was all local foods: mac and cheese, dasheen balls, chicken, fish, rice etc. We then went to the sulphur springs and enjoyed the delicious smell of sulphur in the air as we learnt all about the history of the volcano. It was almost 2 by the time we were done, so our bus went back to the party boat. We motored to a black sand beach, where we anchored for people to snorkel and swim if they so desired. We all jumped in the water to swim, to cool off from the hot sun. Joshua bought a very pretty shell which he spent the rest of the afternoon blowing like a horn just to annoy me. . .sigh, we definitely know he has arrived. After we swam, the booze cruise began. Rum was being served with anything and everything they could find, coke and fruit juice seemed to be the two favoured additives. The music got louder as we sailed back to Castries, all the honeymoon couples wouldn't dance, so the Jangles family, all five of us, we danced with the crew until we eventually reached our final destination. It was then back on the bus and back to the marina for us. We got take away noodles from Starfish and had dinner on the boat whilst the sun set. Joshua was fast asleep by 6pm as is jetlag had finally had the best of him. We all decided on an early night as our sails would be raised at 3am the next morning to head to Barbados.

                                         

sulphur springs

Dancing on the boat