Sailing the Izu Islands and Beyond

So this is the second day where the boat has not moved from the port at Tako-wan (although if you're sleeping on it with 30 kts of wind whistling around then the boat still moves around enough to make you feel like you are sailing). Yesterday was rain all day and last night as we came back from the onsen it was dumping buckets. Today is clearer, however, and the fishing boat we were tied to left at 5:30 am which was my wakeup call as although the crew of the fishing boat were trying to quietly slip out from between us and the wall, they aren't really sensitive to sail boats. They made it out and after climbing up the wall in the rain at low tide to fix the lines I tried to go back to sleep, but the second human alarm clock (Reed) was already awake and he is not really ever quiet. It's why when he was a baby we used to like it when was sick.

The itinerary for the next few days is as follows: swimming and snorkeling today, boat prep tomorrow and then late night departure to sail mostly overnight to Hachijojima by Saturday afternoon. Then we will sleep ashore to be able to make the transition from family sail to the next leg of the journey to Ogasawara. That means taking off all of the toys and other kid stuff, although maybe I will leave the pink box of legos for Eve to play with.

I've been coming to Kozu for 3 or 4 years now and one thing is very clear--when a group of noisy gaijin guys travel someplace together, the treatment by the locals is radically different than when you travel with young kids. Landing in the fishing ports used to feel like entering a war zone where the fishermen would sooner have sunk us than helped us. This time, howoever, showing up with 4 kids they are bringing over buckets of fish. In fact we've been given so much fish (and squid) by the fishermen and the local obachans that we're going to have a hard time eating it all. Last night Elan cooked with the ladies that run the restaurant at the onsen (the only dry refuge we had for the day) so she could see how they would cook the aji (fish) we had been given. It ended up as a breaded sort of tonkatsu-like donburi that was very good.

So at this moment I'm sipping a cup of warm tea and enjoying the gentle rocking motion of the boat as the dull roar of noise goes on around me. Reed is cleaning the floors, Perry is doing dishes, Tess is jumping from bench to bench singing some kind of song and occasionally Elan is yelling commands. I'll sign off here in anticipation of the next instruction coming my way.