Monday, May 19, 2014

A few thousand words

Haven't blogged in a while. 
We are finally back in the Virgin Islands, this time from the comfort of our own boat. 
Words can't describe the beauty we're surrounded with, and so this time I've decided to simply let the pictures tell the story....

On the passage from Culebra to St. Thomas we've had the best sailing conditions and were greeted by a pod of Dolphines who escorted our boat for a while. 
We celebrated the Israeli Independence Day. Flew the flag, sang songs and made a traditional Al Ha Esh (BBQ). 
Yes. We took the flag with us, more then 5 months ago, just so we can fly it on our Independence Day :)
On the short way from st thomas to St. John we we hit by a cold front with heavy rain, cold weather and even hail... 
The rain was very heavy that a few hatches started leaking again. Not fun. 
We finally got back together with our friends from endless pleasure who we've missed so much. Good to have you back guys!!
By the time we got to Maho bay we were greeted by an amazing rainbow. A sign that the storm has passed. 
Maho bay is also home for a lot of turtles who pop up ocasionaly to breath and say hi. Every turtle brought a smile to my face. I smiled a lot in Maho bay :)

In Maho bay we also finally got together with Perry, our new buddy boat, a family with 2 kids who are also going down island. I've 'met' Jen through a Facebook  group of families sailing wth kids but it took us a while to get together. The kids are having a blast playing together and so are the adults. 
With Perry we mat Brit who's sailing solo now on his cat. Brit is a surfer/kite surfer and showed us some of his skills in sandy spit. 
One morning Mat from Perry poped out from under our boat with a Conch he found. We waited for it to come out. 
This one was too young to eat, so we throwe it out. But they did treat us to some conch fritters they made with conch they foun earlier in their journey. Delish!


Mika got her first recorder lesson from dad. She did so well! 
Oren and the other big boys got to go diving in sandy spit. 


I'll sign off for now. More stories next time. 
Leaving AT&T Land again so will have limited reception. Not sure when the next update will be. But you can follow our location using the where in the world map on the web version of this blog. 

Stay dry. 

Darya 



Saturday, May 3, 2014

Happy Birthday Mika

A short post about one big girl :)
Tuesday was Mika's 8th birthday, the second birthday we're celebrating on this trip. 
The excitement was building up with a very serious countdown that has been going on for a little over a month. 

Those who know her know how lucky we are. She's the sweetest, happiest, most cheerful and optimistic person I've ever known. And she's my daughter!
Her smile lights up my day, every day. 
A day before her birthday her brothers were busy preparing their cards. 
Gur made her a flower and Arbel made her a card. Remember he's 3.5. And made this card ALL by himself including signing his name. I was impressed! 
Mika was hoping we can invite Ciro's daughter, Katalina, to celebrate her birthday with us. 
As you remember, Katalina and her mom Laura came to meet us when we arrived in Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic. A journey Ciro helped us with. We spent a nice day at the beach then and there was a great connection between the two families, adults and kids alike. When they heard it was Mika's birthday they invited us over for dinner. We happily accepted, and so, just like the first birthday on this journey, Mika's birthday was celebrated amongst friends. Such a heart warming experience! It made us, but more importantly Mika, very very happy. Thank you Malatrasi's! We love you!
They got the cake! All we had to do was add candles
Katalina naturally took the role of an older sister
Birthday amongst friends, can't beat that

Today we got to spend one last day with them, rode the dinghy to shore and had fun trying out their little Sun Fish (Oren did)
Ciro guiding Oren before sending him off alone into the strong wind. 

Later on we tried fishing from our boat, and Katalina even cought what we think was a huge Remora before he managed to get away, taking our bate with him...

If the weather is in our favor, we will leave to Culebra tomorrow (we are now anchored off off the little island of Isleta )
We will miss you Malatrasi's! But with our low budget production, I'm sure we'll meet again!!

BTW, we got our tracker back! You can check out our location again at http://share.delorme.com/daryaelias 
Or on the web version of this blog. 

May we always celevrate amongst friends!

Happy birthday Mika!

אוהבת אותך עד הירח ובחזרה