So back we came to our darling boat, with the luggage and a food shop you wouldn’t belivie. We restocked everything and the job to find a home to all the food and stuff from UK was a marathon job that took 24h. I hate bags lying around a small, cramped place so it has to get done now, preferably yesterday. Knackered from Heath and jet lag, washed out so it was only a matter of time before somebody got ill. The first one was of course Chris. Upset tummy, like really bad, he had his own toilet to use…..to be then followed by Charlie who was puking his brains up, to then me with upset tummy, to Alice puking and finally James with upset tummy. What a palaver…..
Got the boat ship shaped again after all that and rewarded us with a pizza night in the rainforest. Fab, Heather, the lady have a house in the middle of the rainforest with a proper wood burning oven and as we drove through we saw howler monkeys. Beautiful. The pizzas were thin and crispy, just the way I like it and the kids had a go at it as well.
I then did a last stock up trip to sabanitas, a bus journey of 1 1/2h. Me and kids. What could go wrong? Everything! It started to rain so all windows closed and it got very hot….followed by all three children puking, baby wipes, nappy sacks, water….it was awful. Can’t take them anywhere, sick in buses, sick on the boat….luckily they are all pro pukers so no mess! Phew!
So ready to go to San blas again, should have known something great was in store for us again as the now fixed generator was a bit slow, engine smoked a bit much and batteries not holding charge as good as they should…..but off we went back to Chichime. Our little outboard that had given us a little trouble decided to die, oh well, take the big one. No….didn’t want to live either….so here we are, between a lot of little beautiful islands and no working engine for the dinghy. So we had to row everywhere. At least the boys learnt to do it. But from there onwards we had to choose carefully where to anchor so we were close enough to land. So we visited many places, snorkelled, picked sea urchins and sand dollars and eventually we were back at green island. Our days there were spent barbecuing, burning our sorted rubbish, walking around and finding treasure, watching the hummingbirds and hermit crabs. Funny things, hermit crabs. They change shell as they need a bigger one but we saw the super modern one who was strutting his stuff very proudly….his shell was a plastic coke bottle cap. So funny!
After 4 weeks back to Isla Linton. Stock up on food and catching up with friend.
We also had a very nasty incident with a dog. On our way with a lot of other people for another pizza night and Alice and her friend Chloe run ahead. The next thing James is running and screaming that a dog bit Alice……ok, ok, let’s not panic. Holy shit, the dog had grabbed her around her neck where the marks were visibly showing, no blood drawn but Alice was hysterical, of course. The dog is Chloe’s family but is being looked after on the yard by the yard manager. He doesn’t like cuddles so we think she went over to give a cuddle, she knows the dog, we know the dog so why did she do it? Followed her friend? Anyway we were lucky beyond belief, we informed what happened but the dog still goes around free…..just thinking of it gives me absolute fright!
We then sailed to portobello again to see the black Christ festival. Interesting as it’s the patron saint for criminals…..
moodyfinn 