Well, the past couple of weeks have seemed like the first that we honestly slowed down, with very few jobs to get done (there is always the bottom of the boat to clean, we will save that for our guests) and no place to go. After dropping mom and dad off at the airport in Canouan we did a bit of grocery shopping (I don’t think that the kids will ever complain about having to carry groceries from the van into the kitchen again). We walked to the local food marts and fruit stands to purchase what we could (In the Caribbean it seems that you shopping to see what they have as opposed to having a list to buy). 
We carried it all back to the boat (those black superstore bags are sure coming in handy down here), a nice little hike. The fruits here are amazing. On a daily basis we consume golden apples (which are not at all like apples, more like a juicy peach with a prickly seed that the locals say to use as a toothbrush), mangos, bananas, avocadoes, grapefruits, sugar apples, star fuite and juicy tomato’s, they are fresh, huge and delicious. We are quickly learning to purchase these from the local fruit stands and not from the boat boys, as of course they need to add on their profits for their families and the gas for their boats. On the way home from grocery shopping, with our arms loaded full, a local fisherman 
approached Cole with a spear gun in hand and asked if we had any extra money to help repair his broken gun. In return he would bring us a nice grouper (fish) to have for supper. Cole (like grandpa on the farm) was suspicious and was sure that we would never see the guy or the grouper again…….Kevin gave the guy 20EC($7) and 2 hours later we heard a loud whistle from down the beach and sure enough our fish had arrived, except it was no grouper. Our donation had purchased us 10 Brazilian Lobster, who knew there was such a thing. The “lobster” were about the size of extra large shrimp. Kevin cleaned and barbequed them and sure enough they were delicious and another meal from the ocean.
From Canouan we headed back down south to the Tobago Cays, this would have been Saturday December 1, 2007. I am writing this on about the 12th and it is hard to remember days and dates in the past, well it is hard to remember today’s date also, all of the days kinda mix together. The Tobago Cays are an amazing place, like I said previously, it is a park where you have to pay a nightly fee of 10 EC per adult and half price for kids. There are 5 very small islands that make up the Cays and they are all surrounded by a reef, which means that water remains calm enough to anchor and sleep comfortably (This is very good!). 
We stayed here for four nights and loved every minute of it, we kayaked or dinghyed to every island to check them all out and did a lot of snorkeling, all of the islands were small enough to walk around, but only one had a shoreline that we could actually walk around, half of it rocks (the Atlantic side) and the other half beautiful sand. When we first arrived here some neighbors from Canada (they were actually from Pigeon Lake) told us that some turtles would pop their heads up right around the boat, well we sure kept our eyes peeled for these amazing creatures. Sure enough one morning at about 10:00 am, when I am trying to keep kids attention long enough to do schoolwork, 
we see some little heads popping out of the water to get a quick breath of air. I am sure it only took us 2 minutes to get our snorkeling equipment out of storage and into the water. These creatures are absolutely amazing, they were tame enough for us to observe for quite a long time and the kids and Kevin were even able to dive down and pet them. We were also fortunate enough to swim with many rays here, the kids took some amazing underwater pictures here. The Tobago Cays receives many visitors on a daily basis,
some beautiful, huge sailboats pull up outside the Cays and take their guests ashore, these sailboats are actually like a cruise ship where you stay on them for a week and they sail you around. There are also day cruisers that come out here with people off of the huge cruise ships, they only stay for a few hours and then leave again. We are so thankful that we have the extra time to take to fully enjoy all that these areas have to offer.
We are also very relieved that Kevin figured out our anchoring problems, there were no anchoring skill problems, he simply put the anchor together wrong, slightly upside down. Now that we have things sorted out we have a hard time getting the darn thing out of the ground. I am sure that all of our future guests will be thankful for this. The kids think that maybe had to much beer when he was puting the anchor together the first time. Anything's possible!
Luke – December 3, 2007Today I got to take my dad’s camera into the water, I videoed a stingray and some turtles. The turtles were my favorite; I had to kick really hard to get to the bottom to get close to them. I got to touch the one and it felt hard but kinda soft. I don’t think that he even felt me touch him. I followed him from the bottom where he was eating sea grass to the top where he had to get air. He seems to be able to hold his breath for a long time; I am learning to hold my breath for a long time to. While I was looking at the turtle it was kinda freaky when a stingray came right under me. I thought that he would jab his tail into me (like the crocodile hunter), but he didn’t he just swam away, he was really flat with a really long tail it is like twice as long as him. I am sure excited for my cousins and friends to come visit.
Cole – December 3, 2007
Today was one of the best days since we have been here because while we were doing school work I kept on seeing heads pop out of the water. First I just thought that they were snorkelers but then I noticed that they were turtles. So then I quickly dropped my pencil grabbed my snorkel and goggles and jumped in to swim after them. When I got over top of them they looked small from the top where I was, but when I dived down or they came up they were almost as big as me. They did not seem to care that we were swimming beside them, they just dove down and started eating again. I touched one 
of them three times and another one once, they were hard and covered in algae kind of. They had white on their stomachs, necks and chins. Dad and I also spotted a big spotted eagle ray, they look like stingrays but with a big nose and long thicker tails. After supper Kiana, Luke and Tyler tied me up to the jib with lots of line, at the end it was almost impossible to get out, so they pulled my pants down (thank goodness it was dark) so they had to untie me, we had lots of fun even though I ended up with a rope burn.
Just East of the Tobago Cays is an island called Mayreau and on this island is a beautiful bay called Salt Whistle Bay. A friend from Grenada had said that it was a must stop, so with this info how could we miss it. Salt Whistle Bay is a beautiful sandy beach with a neat little hotel and restraunt tucked back in behind the palm trees. We stayed here for two nights and went to the restraunt for a great lunch in their outdoor little table booths. On Salt Whistle Bay they also had the classic palm tree over the water, how could we miss a great picture of the kids here. Unfortunately the waters were to mixed up for us to do any
snorkeling here, but after being at the Cays it would be hard to beat.
With great hesitation we left the Tobago Cays and headed for the next island North, Bequia. Bequia is still part of St.Vincent and the Grenadines, but is a small island with only one major town and several small villages. When Kevin and I were down here in August we stopped at this island to grab me some more Gravol and Kevin remembers loving this island, sure enough all of the kids followed suit. We did a lot in our short stay here on Bequia. We loved the local ‘Rasta’ fruit market where all of the Rastafarian vendors say “Me remember you from yesterday 
Mon, and remember you promise, you would buy from me…” they all say this to you so or course we have to buy a little something from all of them. Bequia is an old whaling island. Years ago the locals on this island were big into catching and killing whales for their blubber that they then turned into oil. In order to hunt the whales the local fisherman would make their own open bow boats out of wood and spear the whales by hand. When a whale was speared, it would pull their tiny boats through the water at speeds sometimes over 50 km/h! The crew would focus on keeping the boat from being pulled under 
the water or capsizing until the whale tired and they could kill it. To this day Bequia is the only island in the Caribbean to allow whaling. They are able to kill two whales per year, but many years do not kill any as most of the whaling skills have not been past on to the younger generation.
The tradition of boat building however is still alive in Bequia, albeit they are now beautiful model boats of different complexity, sizes, and styles. While walking around town we visited 3 or 4 model boat builder shops and looked at their amazing work. All of the work is done by hand out of wood found on the island or wood that is shipped in from none other than Canada, ‘Canadian White Pine’ they called it. Luke decided to part with some of his spending money and purchase a kid’s coconut sailboat that is actually for putting in the water and sailing, every Easter the local kids build their boats and have races down at the shore, the other boats in the shops are simply for admiring.
When anchored, it is a very regular occurrence to have boat boys (vendors) approach your boat to sell virtually any product or service you can imagine. Sometimes the frequency of the visits and the repetitiveness of the products sold can become quite annoying. Once in a while a breath of fresh air blows in, well this breath of fresh air was Whistling Willy. When Willy first came by the kids were at the beach and Kevin and I thought, oh no, here we go again; but Willy’s products were very unique relative to the other venders. His hand carved pendants and jewelry were beautiful and we thought they would be of great interest to the kids. We convinced Willy to come back the next morning so the kids could have a look. He agreed and off he went whistling away under the power of the wind using a homemade sail/parachute to propel himself from boat to boat. Sure enough the kids parted with more of their spending money and made Willy a happy man.
After Willy left, Kevin and I took the dingy to the beach to get the kids for supper. The waves crashing on the beach were quite large so we pulled the dingy up onto the beach as far as we could before going for a swim with the kids. While swimming I looked back to find our dingy being thrashed around by the large waves crashing in on the beach. The Captain called for all hands on deck and with great effort we gathered our dingy and all of its contents, which were now scattered all over the beach and in the water. After a half hour or so, we had everything put back together and the dingy emptied of the water and buckets of sand. Well that was enough relaxing for us and we headed back to the boat for supper!
Tyler – December 11, 2007Well this week has been a great one. First mom, Dad, Kiana and Cole went Scuba diving, Luke and I could not go because you had to be 10, when Mom and Dad were Scuba diving me and Luke sat on the boat with Laurie and learned all about Bequia. Laurie was one of the instructors but he had a cold so he could not dive so he stayed on the boat with us. The second time that we went there was a ship wreck that we got to snorkel over and see it was a 100 foot tugboat. Bequia was not a busy town and it was small. We got to go to
the Turtle Sanctuary where they catch baby turtles, keep them and feed them and then release them when they are 4 years old. We had an interesting ride there in the back of a truck, it was their taxis. We were anchored beside a really nice beach and when we went there to play we found a hole in the sand that would never get filled in, we could stick our whole head in it and come out all sandy, it was exciting but Cole got water in his ear and it hurt him. On Saturday mom and dad made us walk to the top of this mountain to a village called Mt. Pleasant where they were having a village “Light Up” celebration where they decorated everything with Christmas lights, it was really cool when they turned all the lights on.
Kiana – December 11, 2007Bequia (bek-whey) is definitely going to be one of my most favorite islands. 1st it’s where I have started learning to scuba dive. Cole and I did the first dive out of four with our parents it was sooooo amazing. First we had to watch an “educational video” which was actually very helpful because sometimes understanding a Caribbean accent is difficult. There were 11 hand signals to memorize…ok?(irie?)/ok!(irie!), Stop, Go up, go down, Something is wrong, Don’t touch!, Ear problem, Exhale, Slow down mon, Out of air, and Share air. None of them were hard to remember they were all really common
sense. The main thing to remember is to relax and don’t stop breathing! Besides that the instructors (Ron, Laurie and Rolando) take care of the rest. Another reason I love Bequia is because of the turtle sanctuary. They have a couple older turtles and hundreds of little baby turtles. They were sooooo cute and little about the size of an egg but the guy there wasn’t very talkative the turtles were friendlier than he was. The tastiest thing about the Caribbean islands is the fresh fruits and veggies that includeDecember 12, 2007
I wish that the kids would spend more time writing on this blog and less time msn’ing and emailing their friends. I had hoped that on this trip we would get away from the tv and the computers a bit but unfortunately they have taken over the world. The kids now fight over the computer daily and I am always thankful when we pull into an anchorage that has no internet access (although I do like reading my own emails). As was already mentioned Kevin and I took our SCUBA open water dive testing in Bequia and loved every minute of it. Kiana and Cole took a junior certification course and were able to come on our first dive with us. It was a little nerve racking as I was stressed about everything I had to do properly and also worried about the kids at the same time. Luke and Tyler are planning to take the same course on February 26, 2008 (their birthday) as you have to be 10 years old to take it. The diving in Bequia was great, we did 2 dives at 40 feet and 2 dives at 60 feet. It is amazing what lives down at those depths (I saw a lobster almost a big as I am), we hope to do more diving in the near future as we are in such beautiful diving areas. Once again we forgot out cameras and did not even get a picture of our dive instructors whom the kids became great friends with.
A great tradition here on Bequia is for villages to hang Christmas lights together, they do not place the lights on their own individual houses but down the streets of the village. Each village then has one evening in December when they ‘unveil’ their lights. On Saturday night we walked up to one such village to join in on their festivities. It is kinda like Bright Nights, there were local ladies who had cooked some local foods and were selling them and another couple who had set up a bar on the side of the road, it was one big village party. We arrived at around 6:30pm, the lights were turned on at around 8:30 and when we were heading 
back down the hill at around 10:00 the party was just getting started, there were many more people just heading up the hill in the pitch black night to enjoy the festivities. We did take some pictures but they are kinda dark as it was night time. Just before Christmas there is then a competition and one of the villages wins the ‘title’ of ‘Best Christmas Lights’ for the year. We were fortunate to be able to join in on this celebration. Kevin even met a friend that wanted to sell him some Ganja???
On Tuesday, with much reluctance, we pulled up anchor and sailed away from Bequia. If we were to do this trip again we would spend much more time in the Grenadines as it is truly a very special and unspoiled place. On the 8 mile passage from Bequia to St. Vincent we witnessed the roughest waters so far. We made the crossing in record time but it was a bit stressful and we were very glad to reach St. Vincent. We have no pictures of this but for anyone interested, rent the movie 'White Squal' and you will get the idea.
St. Vincent is a much larger island (20x12 miles) with a 3000 foot volcano (last active in 1979) on the north side of the island, it is called Soufriere. St. Vincent has a larger town, called Kingstown, where we will be able to stock up on groceries and all other supplies that are needed. With four kids to feed this is becoming more work than we thought on these small islands. I bet that you are all wondering how we get from our boat to the grocery store...well we decided back when we first began this trip that we would use local transportation when available and save our taxi money for special tours. In St. Vincent, as it was in Grenada, they have a local bus system, which don't be fooled is nothing like the bus systems in Canada. 
Here they use vans, just as we use at home, except these vans are privately owned, have names, have four or five rows of seats, a driver and a conductor, no route or numbers of where they are going, no speed limit that we can figure and finally no limit as to how many people they can put on at a time. Just imagine 21 people shoved into your family van which is then going incredibly fast around the mountain corners with music blarring in your ears, it is an adventure in itself everytime we flag one down, the benefit of this adventure is only 1 EC per person per trip (Disney would charge much more).
While here we hope to do lots of touring and sightseeing and hopefully catch up on some school work that seems to be forgotten when anchored close to the beautiful sandy beaches. I am so thankful that we only decided to do Math and Language Arts for homeschooling as we do not seem to have the time to dedicate to the books. The kids find it quite hard to concentrate, well just a second we found it hard to concentrate sitting at our kitchen table at home to. There is so much to learn and experience down here that I don't think that we are falling behind at all. (Dont't tell the kids that I said this.)
A huge congratulations to my brother, sister-in-law and nieces (Darin, Theresa, Payton, Madison and Jordan) who welcomed into their family today a brand new baby boy. Bryar Joseph Willy was born on December 12, 2007 at 5:40pm weighing 7lbs 12oz. I can’t wait to see and hold him. Congrats guys and all our love.Swimming with the turtles #1
Swimming with the turtles #2
Swimming with the Sting Rays
Turtle Sanctuary
