Here we are in a beautiful little anchorage between two islands.
Christmas Eve we had all the boats over for a potluck dinner. Right now there are 9 boats enjoying the warm breezes, sandy beaches, and swarms of butterflies. Including the 10 of us there were around 35 people onboard, and still plenty of room.
Christmas Day we had a big volleyball championship. The Brazilians and Swedish people were quite aggressive, and kept us up to date with the international rules. It turns out last year there were some big changes. Now there is a point gained with each serve. It makes the game move much faster.
There were some really impressive volleys, especially with a 10-year-old soccer player by the name of Alex. He and his father were an unstoppable team, setting to each other and making saves that were impossible. And when Alex could not get it with his hands, he would kick it over the net.
This morning we went to the other side of the island to burn our garbage. Since it has not rained in the last week, finding firewood was a dream. In no time Courage had a nice fire going and the garbage on top. With the hot fire even the plastic burns without smoke. Teggy, Tally, and Valiant, gathered the plastic bottles and other debris from the beach. We usually try to burn as much plastic as possible from the beach.
There are a few grasshoppers out, and tons of beautiful butterflies. The butterflies are smart enough to stay away from little hands, but the grasshoppers allow themselves to be caught and seem to enjoy walking around on the little ones.
Courage picked up a power generator you tow behind the boat. It is essentially a propeller attached to 50 feet of rope that is connected to an electric motor. At 4kts no noticeable power is generated, but at 7kts we were making 6 amps. It will be a great asset while crossing the pacific as it will give us some power at night, assuming we are moving over 6kts.
Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year.
Loyal
Merry Christmas from the Perlas Islands in Panama! We had a nice time. There were about 10 boats in the anchorage here at the island. We had about 30 people over for Christmas Eve dinner. It was nice. Then Cassidy and I stayed up and wrapped presents. Christmas morning we opened presents and played, then went to the beach later in the day and had a big volleyball game. We invited another catamaran over for Christmas dinner. They are from Brazil. Cassidy also got to go wakeboarding yesterday with that other catamaran.
We are setting up for another trip to the Darien and indigenous tribes Dec. 30th. There may be about 5 other boats going at this point. Things change rapidly here. Should be interesting though.
I need to get to shore, brought baby out for his nap, but am going to make a treasure hunt for the kids to do (and want to get them doing some more reading anyway.) Also making lunch to bring to them. They are playing with a 4-year-old girl on shore from Sunrise. Very nice family, we've been wearing her out. She’s not used to this much stimulus!
Courage and Loyal, with some help from Bill on Sunrise, built up the cockpit floor so that it is more usable and we have more storage. It's good, still raw wood, but functional. We also have a tarp guy sewing our old canvas to fit our new roof. Really excited for some better shade and rain protection out there. That will make it so much more functional and enjoyable.
Must make the treasure hunt and feed the kids.
Until later,
Shannon
For Christmas this year we are at Espiritu Santo with ten other boats. Christmas Eve we had this huge gathering/potluck with most of the boats in the anchorage. It was great, in total we had almost thirty people over. Our plans for Christmas are, well to open presents of course, and have a volleyball beach party!
Nothing quite like white snow and big Christmas trees. But we have the tropical version of that; Green waters and coconut trees.
Merry Christmas from Cassidy!
