Mopelia, day 10, September 28

Happy Birthday, Lisa!

The girls from Le Pukeko called early to ask about resuming wood shop class. We resumed the lesson by marking out and cutting the pins from the previously cut tails. Their skills with the saw had improved a lot from the previous day. It is so pleasing to work with eager students. Alize doesn't like to sit still. She whittled away at the back edge of my workbench while I was working with Anouk. I don't mind the "customization" that kept her busy.

I started Anouk chiseling out the parts of the ends that were to be removed on the back seat of the cockpit. This freed up the workbench to cut the pins with Alize. Suddenly I heard, "Popeye, I have a problem." I looked up and blood was streaming down her arm! We washed it up downstairs and tried to contain most of the blood splatter. She sliced a clean cut across her finger tip. My chisels are sharp! After washing her arm, the cut would stop bleeding when held closed. One band aid thankfully did the trick.

But then Anouk's eyes started to swim. She said, "Everything is spinning around." I laid her on the settee berth and got her a glass of water. We held her hand up to relieve the blood pressure some. I sat and talked with her for awhile and her color returned. A short while later, she was up and working on her box again.

Meanwhile, Alize was planing away on a scrap of Pis Pis I said she could use. She had it clamped in the workbench vice and was vigorously planing shavings with my hand-made jointer plane. It is really fun to sweep curly shavings with a sharp, well adjusted plane. She made quite a pile of Pis Pis curly-ques.

Anouk resumed work like nothing had happened and the girls finally fitted and glued the boxes together. This was another three hour session. One more would be necessary to cut the boxes apart, hinge and finish sand.

Lisa had returned from another beach walk with the ladies. We cleaned up ready for her party. She had baked a flourless, chocolate cake with raspberry and chocolate grenache. I made a pot of duck curry and green Papaya salad. Lisa prepared a pitcher of Margaritas with fresh lime juice. We had been making ice balls in our freezer for days in anticipation of a fun boat drink.

Just give cruisers a reason to party and look out! Festive hardly describes the mood. Kaia had knitted wool/silk socks for our winter return to the US. They also gave Lisa a 2K tank top. Magali sewed together a Le Pukeko bird from colorful cloth with elaborate decorations. It was stuffed with Lavender. Anouk made a wind chime from a coconut shell and urchin spines. Alize wove a colorful bracelet.

We ate nearly every scrap of food and went from Martaritas to wine and rum. Lisa put on her infamous dance mix music and the ladies really got in the spirit. This became too much for the teen age girls, being embarrassed by their mother's gyrations. They retired to the forward cabin to watch videos. The guys retreated to the cockpit to talk boats, fishing, etc. waiting for the ladies to get danced out. They just kept dancing. Kjell fell asleep and we decided to beg the ladies to call it a night.

What fun! The pile of dishes and glasses attested to the depth and length of the celebration! Lisa is officially a year older!