Jazzy Lady's 2019/20 Cruising Adventure

Vessel Name: Jazzy Lady
Vessel Make/Model: Catalina
Hailing Port: Montreal
Crew: Meg, Mark, Annie, Alistair
23 April 2020
30 March 2020
25 March 2020
13 March 2020
21 February 2020
21 February 2020
08 February 2020
16 January 2020
09 January 2020
03 January 2020
29 December 2019 | Paradise
17 December 2019
12 December 2019
06 December 2019
06 December 2019
24 November 2019
Recent Blog Posts
23 April 2020

REFLECTIONS

30 March 2020

Night Watch

(March 28th)

25 March 2020

Emergency Migration

Emergency Migration

13 March 2020

The Three Musketeers

Mark has gone away for four week-long stints of work, one each month since December. The first time we had Tracy with us, the second time we had my Mom with us, last month we had Walden to play with every day after school and this month it was just us three musketeers:) So it actually felt like [...]

01 March 2020

Jazzy Lady bursts at the seams

*This post starts while on the last full day of our trip, and ends a few days after our arrival home.

21 February 2020

Still in Spanish Wells

At home one of my favourite summer delights is lying in a hammock listening to the wind rustle through oak or maple leaves. Another audible treat is the smoother, lighter swishing of the wind through the needles of a pine tree. Here in Bahamas I am storing the audio memory of wind through palm trees. [...]

Still in Spanish Wells

21 February 2020
megan osler
At home one of my favourite summer delights is lying in a hammock listening to the wind rustle through oak or maple leaves. Another audible treat is the smoother, lighter swishing of the wind through the needles of a pine tree. Here in Bahamas I am storing the audio memory of wind through palm trees. It’s a snapping of the plastic-like leaves against each other, a dull tinkling of warm breeze through tropical fauna....That is my meditation for the day..while I wait for a load of laundry to finish drying.
We’ve gained another group of pals: a crew of five aboard the Catamaran Walden. They have 3 kids, aged 8, 9 and 10. A match sent from heaven for our kids! (Apart from Oceo’s crew, of course). We met them last Tuesday and have played with them every day since:) The pattern has been to get our schooling and chores done in the morning and hang out after lunch. (Sounds like Laura Ingolls’ schedule in Little House on the Prairie). we’ve been snorkelling, boogy boarding, sand castle-making and bridge jumping! Last week Mark hitch-hiked to the North Eleuthera airport to pick up new parts he’d ordered for Jazzy Lady. On his way back he be-friended a large gang of Americans beginning their week-long stay at some rental homes here. Of course, by the time they parted ways, Mark had exchanged life stories with them, as well as a ‘road pop’ beer they’d given him.
This town of Spanish Wells is small enough that we ran into that same boisterous group of holiday-goers during our grumpy family walk the next day. (Our marriage was still feeling on the rocks after the rope in prop incident). They were in their rented golf carts and insisted we hop in to join them for a cocktail at their beach house. Desperate to escape our current painful family dynamic, our kids hopped aboard with these friendly strangers before Mark or I had even processed their invitation! Drinks turned into dinner (not to mention some well-deserved spacing out in front of the TV for Annie and Alistair and some long overdue adults-only time for us parents). Mark went back to our boat for food supplies...if you know Mark you remember he has a ‘Go big or go home’ spirit about most things, especially food, so you won’t be surprised to read what he pulled out of his sleeve last-minute: Duck Confit (a giant can he brought home from Europe 3 years ago....that somehow still hadn’t expired). We were storing it in our bilge for a......I’m not sure what type of occasion...He served it over a bed of cabbage and lettuce salad with potatoes he’d roasted in the duck fat. Our hosts were thoroughly enchanted by this French delicacy. I was partly mortified, partly delighted, and partly mystified...which pretty much sums up our relationship😂 And, just like that, after hours of un-winding, our marital woes dissipated and our love re-kindled through the telling of our past 6 months’ adventures to a mesmerized audience. There was even a token Canadian couple in the mix who characteristically trumped everybody else’s generosity by offering us the use of their house for one night, as they had to leave a day before their booking expired. When I told them it would be my second hot shower since arriving in Bahamas they looked like they might fall to their knees and weep🤣
My sister will be arriving tomorrow evening with her family. We will head south down the west side of Eleuthera Island and end up in Rock Sound for their flight home. It’ll be a much-welcomed distraction from our stagnant state since our arrival in Spanish Wells over two weeks ago. Even on a heavenly trip like this we put so much pressure on ourselves to go everywhere and see everything. So we’ve been very frustrated at being forced to pause here for so long while we waited for the boat to be fixed AGAIN. We want to provide perfection for our kids, laying this foundation of priceless memories, etc. But when we stop and reflect we realize the kids don’t care where they are most of the time. They have a FANTASTIC troop of buddies to play with and they ENJOY the routines developed after several days in the same place. Kids love adventure but they also thrive on having a certain number of predictable factors in their every day lives. Alistair has not mentioned being homesick for a whole 3 weeks now! (Turns out he’s our emotional heart#in-sleeve guy). While Mark and I fixate on seeing the hiccups as a time and money loss the kids are on cloud 9 for most of it, simply enjoying their surroundings.
Since we were up in the hard for a few days and then our Walden friends were hauled after us, the kids made a playground out of the boat yard. The pic of the day is an ice-cream break under Walden’s hulls.
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