October 1997

Hello! My name is Bridget Swirski. I would like to tell you some things about myself. I’m ten years old. I live on a 40 foot sailboat. I have three sisters and one brother. I love to play soccer, basketball, handball, and dodgeball. I also like swimming and sailing. My favorite color is blue. I absolutely LOVE dolphins!!! My favorite instruments are the clarinet, saxophone, synthesizer, harp, violin, French horn, and piano. In the next paragraph, you will be told about going around the World.

My family and I are going around the world on our sailboat!!! I’m SO excited about it! I can’t believe out of all the kids in the world I, and my family, get to go around the world. I LOVE my parents!

We just finished with a big going-away party. I invited six people, but only three could come. Out of our whole family, we invited 120 people! One hundred came. We had dancing, swimming, and, of course, eating. We had tours for people who wanted to see the boat. We had all our flags up. Our flags were all different kinds. They showed all the places we are going to visit.

Stay tuned for more articles coming soon!

December 1997

Well, here I am cruising down the Pacific Coast. Let me tell you about the way down.

Places

First of all here are all the stops we’ve made so far: Half Moon Bay, Morro Bay, San Miguel Island, Santa Cruz Island, Oxnard, Santa Catalina Island, San Diego, (we’re in Mexico now) Turtle Bay, Ascension Bay, Bahia Santa Maria, and Cabo San Lucas.

The Channel Islands

When we got to the first Channel Island, San Miguel Island, it was the first time that I could see the bottom of the ocean in 15 to 20 foot water. From then on, I could see the bottom in every cove and marina. The two places I could see the bottom the most were Bahia Santa Maria and Cabo San Lucas.

Crossing the Border

The day we crossed the border into Mexico from the United States of America we saw hundreds of dolphins. I mean HUNDREDS! The water was so clear that I could see the dolphins while they were swimming underwater. There were only two kinds of dolphins. They were Common Dolphins and Spinner Dolphins. They were really pretty. Well, about a minute before we crossed the border we all went up on deck and my dad got the video camera. Then we did a countdown from 10, and then we all cheered when we crossed the border.

My Favorite Place

My favorite place that we went so far was Bahia Santa Maria. It was the first place that we went snorkeling. We had heard there was a shipwreck pretty close to the beach. We found it but lost it, so we just snorkeled around. Bahia Santa Maria also had pretty big waves to go body-surfing on. But when my sister stepped on a stingray, I didn’t go back in the water for a long time. Another day we went on absolutely HUGE sand dunes. When we were standing on them, it felt like you were standing in a huge pile of flour. It was so powdery.

Holidays

Halloween

We had Hallowe’en in Oxnard. Actually, we had it in Los Angeles, with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. Our boat was in Oxnard. I was an Indian. My aunt had given me her Indian costume that she used when she was a kid. Caitlin was a hippie mother. Meghan was her baby. Tracey was a hippie, too. Alec was a fighter pilot from Vietnam. It was my uncle’s outfit that he had worn in Vietnam. He was a fighter-pilot. We got lots of candy!

Thanksgiving

We were in San Diego for Thanksgiving. In the marina parking lot, they had a potluck. I loved the pumpkin pie someone had brought. I’m sure going to miss pumpkin pie.

Christmas

We had Christmas in Cabo San Lucas. We put up all our decorations. This year, we barely had any compared to the years before we left. We had fried calamari for dinner on Christmas Eve. On Christmas we had prime rib. YUM!

What I Like About Cruising So Far

I like that you get to experience new ways of culture, language, and just different things.

What I Don’t Like About Cruising So Far

I don’t like that you have to know one language and then when you go somewhere else you have to learn a whole different language. I also don’t like that we had to leave our friends and family.

Well, that’s my update!!!

February 1998

Hi, this is Bridget! The place I’m going to tell you about is my favorite place since Cabo San Lucas.

We went to two little islands off the Baja peninsula to go snorkeling. They are called, “Los Islotes.” We got there at 9:30am. We were all ready to do swimming when we got there. All we had to do was put our snorkel stuff in piles. Then we had to put our snorkel stuff in the dinghy after we anchored Shadowfox, our big boat, near the islands. Then we got in the dinghy to go snorkeling.

When we got to where we were going to snorkel, we dropped the dinghy anchor on the rocks below. Then we all put on our snorkel stuff. My brother, Alec, put on his snorkel gear and put his feet over the side. “It’s COLD!”, he yelled. My dad got his stuff on and jumped right over the side. He had a wetsuit on, and he STILL thought the water was cold. That made me feel great. Then, everyone else got in, then me. It was freezing when I first got in, then my snorkel wouldn’t stay straight. It kept going underwater. I climbed back in the dinghy. My mom fixed it. When I got back in the water, my mask fell off! I had to all the way back into the dinghy to fix that!

Meanwhile, I could hear screams of delight coming out of all the snorkelers. The sea lions were swimming with everyone. The snorkelers were also looking at the rocks and fish.

When I finally got straightened our and started snorkeling, I saw half a foot long blue fish. There were also these really small fish. I almost caught one! The rocks were covered with barnacles. The barnacles were purple, blue, and pink. There were also starfish on them.

The sea lions were amazing! They would twirl around, underwater. Then they would jump high up in the air. If you got too close, got in its territory, or got near its baby, then the sea lion would threaten you by showing its teeth. I learned that the hard way.

I really liked going on this experience because barely anyone in the world gets to swim with sea lions.

I am having a great time cruising so far. After we finish with La Paz, we are heading over to Mazatlan. In Mazatlan we might be going to Copper Canyon, which is even bigger than the Grand Canyon in the United States.

Bye for now. I’ll type again soon.

July 1998

Well, now the sailing vessel Shadowfox, and the owners are in Mazatlan, Mexico. Mazatlan is on the Mainland.

While we were here we took a bus trip to another place on the mainland. We went to Guadalajara, Mexico. Guadalajara is east from Mazatlan. It took us eight and a half hours to get there, by bus.

We got a hotel room for our stay. It was an extremely nice price and it had a restaurant in it, but it was not a bed and breakfast. The hotel was a block from the cathedral.

While we stayed there we went to two other nearby towns. The first one that we went to was called Tlaquepaque. It had rows and rows of shops up and down the street. There was a glass blower and the things that he made were very pretty. There was also a huge antique store. It was really a person’s house in the backyard. But the front was an antique store that was a house and you could buy things from the house. It was very pretty inside.

The other town we visited was called “Tonala.” It was a town but most of the town was taken up by 30 blocks of the market place. The market place had things like food to pottery.

Back in Guadalajara we went to a bunch of museums. One was all paintings. Most of the paintings were religious. Another museum had more than just paintings in it. It also had history sculptures. The sculptures were the first Indians of Mexico. Some of the sculptures were holding the tools that the Indians used for different things. There was also another museum with paintings and other things in it. The first room had a Mammoth skeleton in it. It showed, on the wall, what time period it was in. In another room there was a whole bunch of geometric art. I liked that room the best. There was another place with paintings that was in the same museum. The room could have been a large church. But it wasn’t. It was full of the biggest paintings I had ever seen. They were painted on the walls. There were paintings on the ceiling also. There were benches in the middle of the room so that you could lay down and see the paintings on the ceiling.

Then we went back to Mazatlan.

Mazatlan is so hot now. We have eight little black fans. We also have two medium size ones, and two very big fans. It is still 96 degrees F!!!!!!!!

Well, that’s it for now, hope you enjoyed this update.

November 1998

On September 21, 1998, we left on an R.V. trip around the U.S. and Canada. We decided on this trip because we couldn’t go across the Pacific to the Marquesas. We couldn’t go because of hurricane season. We were dying in the heat of the summer in Mazatlan. So we decided on it. The R.V. was 30 feet long. It had two sets of bunk beds. Someone had to sleep on the floor. My parents slept on the overhang bed above the driver seats. I was really excited when we got it. I was practically bouncing off the walls. We were going up across Canada and then down the East Coast. Then across the south part of the U.S. back to L.A. This trip was also like a big field trip to learn about what happened in the early U.S. We went to Niagara Falls, New York, Jamestown, Washington D.C. and many other places.

My favorite place that we went was Niagara Falls. We got to see it in the daytime and at night. We stayed there for two days. The second day we got to go down and be right at the bottom of Horseshoe Falls. It was very wet. We also got to go behind the Falls. You could feel the pressure as the waterfall hit the water at the bottom. At night they light up the falls with huge and powerful spotlights. When they light them up with red, it looks like lava instead of water. But I loved it most when they light them up with white.

Well, another thing that I liked was Mt. St. Helens. We happened to go there on a foggy day. So we didn’t get to see it. But there were plenty of pictures. We saw a movie on the big eruption that blew the whole side off. It showed real footage. I thought that it was really cool. On our way there, we saw all of the trees that had been knocked over from the huge blast. Whole forests had gone down. They were all facing the same way. No one bothered to clean them up.

The other place I really liked was in Kentucky. It was in Bowling Green. There, we went to the Corvette Museum and the Corvette Factory. The Corvette Museum showed all of the kinds that they ever made. They were actual cars, not models. There were also Corvettes that they never released. They looked really cool. They kind of looked like spaceships, though. I think that they should start selling them in the year 2000. It would be a great time to open up a new, cool looking car. Well, my favorite was the 1999 model. It was soooooo coooooooooooool.

Well, I hope that you enjoyed my update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

March 1999

Hello! Time to update the webpage. Well, after we took the bus down to Mazatlan, it was pretty late at night. We couldn’t go to the boat because it was trashed from us being gone for three months. We had reserved two rooms at a hotel. We had to stay there three nights because we had to fix the boat up. Well, in the next three days, we worked as hard and as fast as we could. Soon, well, not really, the boat was back to normal again. It felt great to climb back into my own bed.

Well, we provisioned and left Mazatlan as soon as we could. All of the kids didn’t want to leave. It was, by far, our favorite city in Mexico. Our first stop was San Blas. I loved it there. The beaches had the best surfing waves. But, unfortunately, we didn’t go to shore because we didn’t want to check in with the harbor master if we were only going to stay there for one day. The next morning, we saw dolphins swimming around the harbor. We got into the dinghy and followed them for an hour. We got some pictures of them with our digital camera.

Then we went to Chacala. We saw a lot of sea life on the way there. We saw a humpback whale surface 20 feet off the port bow! A few seconds later, another one surfaced 20 feet off of our starboard bow! It scared me so bad. Just them taking in a breath of air, startled me. It was loud. My heart didn’t calm down for ten minutes. In Chacala, we met up with some old friends from Alameda. Their boat’s name is “Tortuga,” which means “turtle” in Spanish. The people that are on Tortuga are Rick, Marilyn, and Lauren. Lauren used to be our baby sitter in Alameda! We had a little get-together on our boat. They let Meghan, Caitlin, and I row around in their dinghy. It was late and I am a worrier so I got afraid of sharks. Meghan would row one way, and Caitlin would row the other way. So Meghan would row home, but Caitlin wouldn’t let her. So we were going in circles! We finally started rowing back to Shadowfox very slowly. We saw a splash and a fin ½ a foot behind us – it was just a big fish but we were thinking of sharks. All three of us saw it. We rowed as fast as we could back to our boat! We screamed and squealed as we went! It must have been hilarious for Tortuga and our family to watch. I had never seen my sisters row that fast as a team in my life.

The next day, we entered Banderas Bay. We didn’t want to go into the marina yet, so we stayed in La Cruz at anchor for a few nights. We met up with Cuckoo’s Nest, which has a sixteen year old boy, “Shaun,” on it. We knew Shaun from La Paz, last season.

A few days later, we entered Marina Vallarta, in Puerto Vallarta. Our friend, Kathryn, was there. We had met her in Mazatlan. She is ten years old, on the boat, “Kabunza.” We went to the water park together that day. We thought the park would be 40 pesos to get in, but it was 60 pesos. We were surprised, but not really, because Puerto Vallarta is a “ritzy” place. The water park was worth the extra cost. We met a whole bunch of kids there. We met Michael (11), on the boat “Dunamas,” and two other kids, Jordan and Kyle, that were staying in a hotel. Kathryn left for Barra de Navidad, so we hung out with Michael. A new boy, Kanoa, came down from the States, to his boat, “Malahia.” We went bowling with him and Michael. It was fun.

The older kids also found new friends in Puerto Vallarta. Kelsey (16), from “Ca Du Re,” Cynthia (14) from “Christina,” (we had met her in Mazatlan), Garth (17) from “Kabunza,” Shaun, Alec, Meghan, and Caitlin went to movies together and had sleepovers. So, we were all pretty busy.

For Christmas, we enjoyed a series of parties. We were very stuffed with cookies and sweets of all sorts, gifts from all our friends. For our family celebration, I “played Santa” this year and handed out the gifts on Christmas Day. We enjoyed every gift we got. For New Year’s Eve, a large group of people went to Ca Du Re for a midnight sail to see the fireworks and hear all the people celebrating all over Puerto Vallarta. There were at least five different hotels shooting off fireworks. On our way back into the marina, Tracey and I fell asleep.

Note: If you go to Puerto Vallarta, there is a great ice cream place, at the top of Dock H in Marina Vallarta. It serves Italian gelato ice cream. My favorite flavor was cream and chocolate.

Well, then we started heading south from Puerto Vallarta for a few weeks. Our first stop was Ipala. It was a very nice anchorage, but the land was all desert. It was more like Baja California. There was an old fishing boat wreck near the beach. I wanted to go snorkeling, but we did not have time. Two Mexican boys paddled out to our boat to ask for school supplies. We gave them pencils, pencil sharpeners, erasers, and notepads. That night, I heard a big splash right outside my port. I got splashed by whatever it was. I went up on dock to see what the heck it was! Alec and Tracey heard it too and they were also on deck. We soon found out it was dolphins swimming everywhere around us, splashing and thrashing. I did not get much sleep that night because they kept splashing outside my port and coming noisily up for air and blowing loudly. The next morning, we had some engine trouble. Turns out we had run out of diesel! We were supposed to get fuel last May on our way out to sail West, but since we didn’t go, we forgot to fill the tanks! Luckily, we had gerry cans of diesel on board. Filling the tank took awhile. Then, we were off to Chamela.

Chamela was much more jungley than I expected. It didn’t have any desert like Ipala. I was surprised. On our way into Chamela, we passed an invisible line, where the weather suddenly got really hot and humid. We anchored in the north end of the bay. On our way out the next morning, we passed the islands south of where we anchored so see where we might want to stop on the way back up the coast.

Our next stop was Tenacatita, one of my favorite places. On our way there, we were going to anchor at Careyes but we would either hit a boat next to us or a rock reef, so we said, “Forget this place!” and continued south to Tenacatita. Two of our friends were there, Kanoa and Kathryn. We swam from Shadowfox to Kabunza and then into the beach. We walked down the beach to the resort hotel and swam in the pool. Then, Alec picked us up in the dinghy to take us home. Most of the days were similarly spent. After school, we went swimming every day and then took salt water baths, sitting on our life vests like diapers, floating next to Shadowfox and shampooing. We met a new family on the boat, “Marara,” Cory and Laurie, Cory Tom (11) and Rachel (15). We had fun getting dragged on an inner tube behind their dinghy, circling around the anchorage, bouncing and screaming along. We stayed in Tenacatita a week. Kabunza and Malahia were returning to Puerto Vallarta but Marara were coming to Barra de Navidad with us. On our way back, we plan to take to jungle ride up the river at Tenacatita.

On our way to Barra de Navidad, we caught a black Skipjack. We had a potluck that night on Ca Du Re, with Cuckcoo’s Nest, Sweet Pea, and Illusions. We gave the Skipjack to Lupi and Marche, their doggies, as the fish is too strong-tasting for us to eat. We had also caught a tuna, which we brought for the potluck – bbq’d tuna steaks, yum! We were anchored in the lagoon near a big hotel. At 5pm every night, they have beach volleyball games! It was fun, I played every night. The hotel activities were tennis, swimming, badminton, minigolf, volleyball, soccer, and a workout room. We were only able to use the activities if we stayed in the marina, which we were able to do for a few nights.

The town of Barra de Navidad is very nice, also. The Sands Hotel has a spider monkey in a cage outside. The monkey grabbed Cory’s Fresca out of his hands and drank the rest of it through the fence! There was also the Sunset Bar, where the older kids could play pool and dance. The best place for burgers and chicken sandwiches and milk shakes was Tessie’s Malt Shop, near the church. Yum, Yum!! We went to an outside market and Meghan and I bought handmade crocheted purses and Tracey bought more onyx animals. Mom found a pretty silver bracelet with dolphins on it. Shopping was fun in Barra.

Well, we are still in Barra, but we are leaving tomorrow for Tenacatita. We are going back up the coast to Puerto Vallarta, where we will have a haulout to paint the bottom of the boat. While the boat is in the yard, we will stay in a hotel. We will have some friends visit us from Arizona. Then we get ready for crossing the ocean to the Marquesas.

Ta Ta for now!!! Bridget

May 1999

Well, here I am for another up-date on what has been happening on Shadowfox lately.

We were supposed to go across the Pacific to the Marquesas islands. We tried two times. So we decided that two tries was enough and not to try again. I was really confused to be coming back to Puerto Vallarta again. Ideas were forming in my head about what we would do instead of going west. When we got back to P.V., we decided to take it easy for a while. So we went to see a movie and had dinner in town. Over dinner we talked about what we were going to do.

We haven’t decided officially what to do until the summer ends. We will sail up, maybe as far as San Carlos, which is in the Sea of Cortez. We know that we cannot stay in Mexico for the summer because it is way too hot. So we are going to the States for the summer. We would like to be out of Mexico by the end of July because of the heat.

I am looking forward to a few things in the near future. My parents say that we are going to try to rent a house this summer and I am looking forward to living in a house for the summer. I am also looking forward to seeing and visiting my relatives. I miss them all very much. I think I will also get to see some of my old school friends. So I am really looking forward to that. Well, that is all that I can tell you right now. So talk to you all next time!

October 1999

Well, here I am again. Alot has happened since I last wrote.  We decided to sail up to San Carlos in the Sea of Cortez.  So we started on our way from Puerto Vallarta to Mazatlan.  The trip was non-stop.  So we had to sail overnight.  It was pretty rough.  We had most of the waves coming over the bow of the boat.  It was mostly because of the angle the waves were against the hull.

When we got to Mazatlan, we did chores to make Shadowfox look normal again.  We washed her and cleaned her inside and out.  Our stay in Mazatlan was relatively brief.  Our friends on the boat, “Baloo,” came from Seattle ten minutes after we arrived.  They had had a baby.  His name is Peter and he is the cutest baby in the world.  Monica and Brian, the parents, were moving onto their boat for awhile.  So we babysat, with much pleasure, while they settled in.  We saw Peter eat his first solid food, rice cereal.  He absolutely loved it.  He was six months old.

Baloo and Shadowfox decided to buddy boat.  We tried going across to Baja the next day but it was to rough for Peter’s first time on the ocean.  So we went back to Mazatlan.  Then we left the next day.  We had a great sail.  We were going 7.5 knots the whole way.  We blasted Venga Boys and we danced the whole way there.  It was the first time I had ever heard Venga Boys and it was the best dancing music I had ever heard.  It was calm enough to allow us to dance all we wanted.  Baloo caught up to us and we got close enough to take pictures of each other.  It was one of the best sails we had ever had.  Well, we did such good time, that we got to Baja without going through two overnights.  Right when we got into an anchorage, called, “Caleta Lobos” ( little cove of the wolf ), the wind really picked up.  It went from 5.0 knots to 25.0 in a matter of seconds.  We were happy to be in.  Last time, it took us three days to get from La Paz to Mazatlan but, then, there was a storm.  Peter had enjoyed this trip.  He had seen his first dolphins today.  Peter laughed with joy.  He’s so cute when he smiles.

The next day we got to La Paz.  We met a few people.  We went swimming at a hotel pool.  We went to Marina Palmira for the first week.  We made friends with people our age.  Then we went to Marina De La Paz  for a few more days while we bought groceries and last-minute supplies.

At our next stop, Agua Verde, we went to the small town on the beach.  It was more like a village.  We thought that they would want a few things.  We gave the women food.  We gave the men beer ( they immediately started drinking them).  We gave the children candy.  We gave everyone “t” shirts.  The little kids seemed interested in us and they followed us around the town.  They were really cute, too. Our friends on the boat, “Baloo,” were there with us.  Everyone loved Peter.  It’s not every day they get to see a blonde baby boy with blue eyes.  The little kids liked to touch his head.  In Mexico, blonde hair never happens in anyone’s family, so if they touch blonde hair, it’s good luck.  I’ve had the experience many times.

For my 12^th  Birthday,  we were in a very beautiful spot called, “Honeymoon Cove,”  with Baloo.  There is only enough room for one boat unless you raft up with each other, which we did.  I had a nice birthday.  The place was really pretty with turquoise water and a sandy bottom.  It was shallow enough to swim down to the bottom right off the boat.  You had to wear fins and it kind of popped your ears.  I swam with a huge school of fish.  It was really fun.  It was like I was blending with them and they didn’t get scared of me.  They came right up to me and swam in and out of my legs and arms.

Well, Honeymoon Cove is right near a place, called “Puerto Escondido”.  Here we were able to go grocery shopping.  We had to walk a mile to get there, though.  It was at a small RV park.  It was the nearest store.

Another place we went was one of my favorites.  It is an anchorage on an island.  The name of the anchorage is “Puerto Ballandra”.  My Dad had promised that he would make us a rope swing.  So he pulled the spinnaker pole up the mast and attached a rope to it.  We held onto the rope and swung ourselves into the water.  It was so fun.  I was out there day and night, well not at night because I would never go into the water at night.  We met a guy in Meghan, Alec, and Caitlin’s age area.  He was on a powerboat called, “Well Deserved”.  The people who lived on Well Deserved were very rich.  The kid’s name was Kevin.  He had alot of fun with us.  During the day, we would go wake-boarding, knee-boarding, and inner-tubing.  I was only brave enough to do inner-tubing.  I tried knee-boarding.  I was up for a little while, but I fell and got water up my nose.  They asked me if I wanted to go wake-boarding, but before I could say yes, I saw Kevin on the wake-board do a cartwheel and land on his stomach.  So I said no.  At night, the older kids would go to his boat and watch movies.

From Puerto Ballandra, we went to the town of  Loretto.  We saw a real whale shark right next to our boat.  It looked really cool.  After Lorreto, we went to an island called Isla Coronado.  While we were there, some people set up a potluck on the sandbar.  It was only three feet deep on the sandbar.  So everyone in the anchorage went to the sandbar in their dinghies and put down their little anchors.  Then we tied the dinghies together.  People brought chips and other snacks.  Then we socialized.  The kids, me included, swam in between the dinghies and came up in the middle of them and scared the people half to death.  It was fun.

Another place was San Juanico.  We met two boys my age.  They were on a boat named, “Dolly,” a powerboat.  Their names were Anthony and Louie.  They were really fun to “hang out with.”  We went to the beach together and hiked.

Then we went north again.  We went into Bahia Concepcion.  On our way in, we flew our spinnaker.  We were going so fast!  A huge pod of dolphins came to play with Shadowfox.  They played in the bow waves Some of them were Spinner dolphins.  When they jumped out of the water, they would spin in the air. Others were Bottlenose dolphins and would be friendly and come really  close to us.  I sat on the bow sprit and the dolphins would splash at my dangling legs.  But then we got into shallow water and we had to put the spinnaker down. When we did that, we lost speed and the dolphins left.

When we got into the anchorage, called “La Burra,” we found out that our friends on the boat, “Fairwind,” were there.  The next day, for a school field trip, we went clamming.  We went across the anchorage to a place that was shallow and very sandy on the bottom.  We dug for hundreds of them.  Then we went home and had them for lunch, a couple of lunches.  We cooked them by steaming them and putting garlic and melted butter on them.  For another  field trip, we went up a hill and found Indian drawings on rocks.  Most of the drawings were of animals.  But one of them was of a square-sailed ship.  We think an Indian drew that one when a Spanish ship came into the port.  Well, another thing that happened while we were here was a large wind storm came down from the mountains.  It blew for only a few hours, though.

The next place we went was Santa Rosalia.  The seas were really rough on the way there, about eight foot waves.  Plus, the dinghy was not tied onto the back of the boat very well.  So we had to go back there, where there isn’t a railing, and strap it tighter.  We almost lost my Dad and my brother Alec in the water.  Then, if things couldn’t get worse, Dad was fishing.  We didn’t have the engine on, it was too windy and we would be going too fast.  We had the sails up the whole time.  So guess what happened? We caught a large tuna.  So we all scrambled to take the sails down.  We turned the engine on and came about in 30.0 knot winds.  We managed to get the fish.  Then we had to go over a sand shelf that was only 20 feet deep.  Sometimes with a big wave, it was only 10 feet deep.

Meghan had decided to go with Monica and Brian on Baloo that morning.  They were lucky that she went because they were having trouble.  They are a smaller boat than we.  Peter was terrified of the motion.  He was screaming and water was coming onto him. Meghan had done racing in the Puerto Vallarta Regatta.  So she took Monica’s place on deck.  Peter wouldn’t let Monica leave.  He was so scared.  Well, then we got behind an island and it wasn’t that rough anymore.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, the waves were making the fuel in the tank slosh around.  None of it was getting to the engine.  So, we ran out of diesel.  We called the marina and said to be ready to help us in.  So when we got there, a whole bunch of dinghies acted as tug boats for us.  Right when Peter and Monica got off the boat, Peter got this huge grin on his face.  Then, the people who helped us, Baloo, and Shadowfox went to town for a taco dinner.  The next morning, we enjoyed sashimi from the tuna we had caught.

After Santa Rosalia we went to Isla San Marcos.  There, we had the Fourth Of July.  We had a potluck on one of the boats.  Then we went to the beach and lit sparklers.  Some of them didn’t light because we got them last Christmas.

Then we sailed across to the mainland.  We stopped at a city, called “San Carlos.”  We got the boat ready to go.  We were going to the U.S.A.   The older kids met people in the hotels.  My Dad went to Tucson, AZ., and bought a van.  Then he drove down to San Carlos and picked us up.  We drove to Tucson the first night.  The next night we went to see our old sailing buddies.  They live in Chandler, AZ.  They were on the boat, called “Odysseus”.  We stayed there for a couple of days.

On our way up to Canada, we saw the Teton National Park.  The mountains had snow on the tops of them.  Then we went through Yellowstone National Park.  We got out of the car for this one.  We took the boardwalk around the geysers.  We watched Old Faithful shoot up.  Then we got to Canada.

The first place we went in Canada was called “Banff.”  We’d been here before and we loved it.  My mom and dad have been there many times.  This is my third time but I didn’t remember my first time because I was too young.  While we were there, we shopped alot.  We were staying in an apartment.  We went to my favorite restaurant in the world, which is the Grizzly House Fondue Restaurant.  They prepared weird kinds of animals, such as: venison, caribou, ostrich, alligator, and buffalo.  My favorites were ostrich and alligator.  Yummy…  We also visited Lake Louise and hiked around it, during our trip to Banff.

Then we went to Kamloops, west of Banff.  We went to a mall there, and saw a couple movies.  I got my ears pierced for the first time in that mall.  The hotel pool had a slide.  I met some kids at the pool, and now we are friends.

Heading west again, we went to Victoria, B.C., on Vancouver Island.  We had to go on a car ferry to get there.  After checking into a hotel, we visited with our cruising friends.  They are on a boat, called “Cuckoo’s Nest.”  We stayed there for awhile and the older kids spent alot of time with Shaun.

Then we went to Port Angeles, Washington.  Monica, Brian, and Peter had arranged to see us.  Their parents had a trailer.  We were going to stay there for the night.  Meghan, Caitlin, and Alec were still at Victoria that night.  They were coming on the ferry tomorrow.  So we stayed with them in the trailer that night.  Then the next day, we waited for them to arrive.  When they did, we went to a nearby town, called “Joyce.”  We stayed there for a week.  My parents were thinking of living there later in our lives.  So they spent most of their time looking at houses.  I got to see a few of them.

After a couple of weeks, we went down farther into the United States.  While we were driving through Washington, we stopped at a rainforest.  We walked almost a mile hike through parts of it.  We did the same trail a couple of times, though.  So we walked more than two miles.

That night we stopped a little ways over the border.  Well, we stayed in an apartment right on the beach.  It was too cold to go in the water, though.  We stayed there for two nights because it was such a nice place.  We rented a kind of bike and rode all over the beach.  It had three wheels, and you were in a lying down position.  You steered by leaning the way that you wanted to go.  It was really fun, but I was kind of sore the next day.

When we got to CA, we visited our grandparents.  We were very happy to see them and they were just as happy to see us.  We spent a month house-sitting for one of our pairs of grandparents.  They went to New Zealand.  They had alot of fun and they brought back some really fuzzy sweaters.  They’re very comfortable.  This gift got us ready for our next trip.  So after spending some time with our other wonderful grandparents, we headed out.

We are house-sitting for a great friend of ours in Santa Fe. Our friend’s name is Margaret.  She wrote a book on Pop Chalee, the artist.  It snowed while we’ve been here, so the sweaters helped in the cold.  We are in Santa Fe right now. My Dad isn’t here with us.  He has a job in CA.  He came for a weekend.  We were very happy to see him.  We will be here until after Halloween. For Halloween I’m going to be a Medieval Princess.  I have a great costume that no one else has.

We will leave for Redwood City, CA., in the very beginning of November.  We will be house-sitting for some more friends while they go to New Zealand.

Well, that’s all folks.  See you next time.