We arrived in beautiful Venezuela on the Sunday, 26th of October. We left Grenada on Saturday at 11pm with Algeria a catamaran with 2 kids, Tessa (8) and Tristan (12). When I woke it was bright and sunny. We could see mainland of in the distance. After dodging a couple of squalls we put out our 3 fishing lines. In an hour we heard the line go zzzzzzzzzzz! "FISH ON!" After a while my dad got it close to the boat and my mom gaffed it. It was a little blackfin tuna! Yum yum. We put out all of the lines again and 2 hours later zzzzzzzzzzz. "It's a big one!" my dad says as he starts reeling in the line. We got it on the boat and drugged him with rum so he would stop squirming. This one was another blackfin but a lot bigger! After a couple more hours we were anchored in Los Testigos. Los Testigos was amazing! Only a couple of little fishing villages and one restaurant on the whole island. After school on Monday we went to lunch at the restaurant called La Casa Verde (the green house). Everyone speaks Spanish it is the local language. The only two thing on the menu tuna and chicken. My mom and I shared a tuna. The food was amazing! Also the owners of the restaurant had a six year old son Miguel! Ethan was happy to have someone his age! Los Testigos is also known for its sand dunes. So we decided to go and play in them. We took Miguel with us. The sand dunes were beautiful! Lots and lots of sand. At the bottom of the sand dunes was a beach with huge waves crashing on shore. The boys were the first ones in jumping head first into the waves! It was fuuny to watch Miguel kept on grabbing liam and trying to throw him into the big waves. Two hours past and the boys were still swimming! My parents fianally decided it was time to go and we packed up and headed home. Miguel was upset because he wanted to visit another beach just down the way. We spent another day swimming and enjoying Los Testigos but it was time to go. We got up early the next morning and raised the anchor on our way to Isla Margarita to provision and see friends. It was a long and hot passage and.... WE CAUGHT A MAHI MAHI!!! The first time we had ever caught one! We have been in Isla Margarita for 5 days. We have enjoyed the fresh seafood on shore at El Morocho. My parents have really been enjoying to $0.50 beer. It has also been fun being with Independence again! Last Friday was halloween. Ethan was desert sniper, liam was an fbi adgent and i was an east indian princess. We trick or treated at a couple of boats then went to shore and got some candy. After trick or treating all of the kids went to alegia and watched some halloween movies. We like margarita but the anchorage is rolly and you cant swim. So tomorrow we are going to Tortuga and the Los Roques. After a while in Roques we will head to the Aves and Bonaire. We are hopping to be in Cartegena by Christmas.

Michaela

It has been awhile and my parents were suppose to upload this a long time ago. We are in Bequia now and just finished our dive course. My dad, Liam and I all passed and are now PADI certified open water divers. Will update more soon...

Sorry I haven't been updating this blog lately! We have been very busy. We are currently at anchor in Iles des Saintes, Guadalupe. After Culebra, S.V.I. we traveled through the B.V.I.! It was beautiful, but very popular for Sunsail and moorings rental boats. After the B.V.I. we traveled to Saint Martin! I loved it there! The French Baguettes, Croissants, Crepes, Nutella, Chocolate, and Cheeses were to die for! One of the islands off St. Martin had some mud that was supposedly good for your skin so we spent the afternoon covering our bodies in this orangish mud! After that our skin felt smooth for days! The next island we visited was St. Barts. Our friends that we are traveling with (high five) were towing there dinghy and some how their engine fell off! So they had to sail back to St. Martin. The bay that we anchored in had tons of turtles that we got to swim with. After Saint Barts we went on a full day sail to St. Kitts. On the way we caught a Blackfin tuna yum yum! In St. Kitts we enjoyed a taxi tour of the island with High Five (Gary, Janine, Bradley (12), Tavish (12), and Richard (9)) and Migo (Patrick, Sofia, Joana (14), and Jonatan (10)). The island was beautiful and the rainforests have monkeys! Next we traveled on to Nevis. We only stayed a day there but the island was pretty. After Nevis we went on a rough passage but made it to Montserrat the island with the active volcano. We took another bus tour with the same people. We visited a place where the mud flowed! It filled a house to its second floor! Then we drove up to a lookout place and we could see the old ghost town of Plymouth. Montserrat was awesome but we had to move on. High Five traveled to Guadalupe to pick up guests, while Migo and us sailed to Antigua. In Antigua we went to English Harbour or Nelsons Dock Yard. We meet up with Independence (Otis, Jenny, Ben (5), and Sammy (2)) and spent a couple days on the beach with them. Ethan was sad when we had to leave but he had fun meeting up with high Five in Guadalupe. Iles Des Saintes is fun we went snorkeling yesterday. Yesterday was not fun for Migo though... Their boxer Flika has problems with her bladder she leaks pee pee every where. So they had to give her away to a sail maker who has another boxer. The sail maker has 5 acres and goats and chickens. Later today we are going to Dominica with High Five.

We have decided to write a blog for all family's thinking of doing what we are doing. We hope to encourage others to take their kids out and cruise!
Our cruising started 7 months ago in Charleston, South Carolina. After a week in South Carolina, we headed up the ditch (the ICW)! Soon we were in Oriental, NC! The town of Oriental was wonderful: everyone was nice and we meet a ton of kids heading the same way we were. I recommend it a lot! We headed back down the ditch to Key Biscayne, FL. From there we crossed the Gulf Stream on our way to the Bahamas! The Bahamas were great; picture perfect beaches and crystal clear water. We buddy boated on and off with the family's we met in Oriental. Snorkeling and spear fishing added to our adventures. Then nearing the end of the Bahamas we had to say bye to a lot of our really good friends that had to head back home. That has been the hardest part about cruising, saying good bye. Seeing the Bahamas fad from view was sad but we knew there was more to come. After the Bahamas we went to the Dominican Republic. I loved it there. Very different from the Bahamas, it smelled tropical and looked it too! The weather was good so we crossed the Mona and made it to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was nice but the weather said to keep moving so we went to Vieques, SVI. Vieques was wonderful but after about a week we had to move on to meet family in our current location, Culebra, SVI. We have enjoyed family visiting; our Grandma came to Nassau, our Auntie Heidi came to the Exumas, and Uncle Brian and family came to Culebra. We are waiting for the swells to die down so we can head to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to meet up with our friends aboard High Five. We are looking forward to our adventures as we head down the Caribbean Island chain. Stay tuned...