1st post from the SSB - God went crazy with the glitter

1st post from the SSB - God went crazy with the glitter
Yesterday we sailed from Bequia to Tobago Cays. I still feel nervous as we are sailing but it is mostly just the thoughts of what could go wrong, not really nervous about what is happening! Graham and I still need to work on our communication during high stress times. We tend to yell, ha….surprise! And why the heck is it that every time we get blasted by an "out of nowhere" gust of wind that batters us down, I am almost always at the helm???? You know what I realized though that I had forgotten about
myself is that I thrive on competition. Yesterday on our sail here there was a boat ahead of us as we left and for a large part of the trip I wasn't worried about sailing, I was just thinking about passing him and we did!! It felt really good. Once we had passed him, the dark clouds started looking pretty scary and I begged Graham to reef the main before it got to crazy. He did this reluctantly and luckily it turned out that the squall past behind us. Once we reefed though the boat we had passed
was able to pass us. Back to my game face and "Graham get the main all the way out!!!"
Once we reached the Cays we were in awe. It is really beautiful. It is a group of a few small islands and horseshoe shaped reef. The water is every color blue you can imagine and every island has a beautiful white sand beach and picture perfect palm trees. It is a national park; it's like Banff on water! As we began to motor through the passage between two of the islands towards the reef, we look over and who do we see, Amelia's friend Sorlynn (remember the French girl we have met up with a few times
on the crazy boat) arriving on her boat at the same time. There was much waving and yelling to mark our arrival!
We all settled into our new anchorage and we made chicken stew, biscuits and later in the evening buns! The sky was amazing last night. We all laid in the cockpit and looked up at the sky and it was like God had sprinkled glitter across it. It was like no sky I had ever seen. The stars looked crowded. Tonight Amelia wants to sleep on deck, so we will see.
Today we woke up to a wonderful breakfast…..eggs, bacon, potatoes, mango, and coffee….yummy. Amelia unfortunately managed to get in trouble even before 9am, so her punishment was that she couldn't go to the beach in the morning. Graham decided it was a good opportunity for a one-on-one fraction lesson. I don't think she will be sneaking off to read while the rest of us are cleaning up, any time soon. Life goes on even in paradise!
We just got back from a family snorkel. We went to this area where there are MANY turtles. It was very cool. The kids got so comfortable swimming with so many of them that they even began touching them. We are just taking a break now. The kids are reading and Graham is putting more copper strapping throughout the boat? Something to do with making our SSB signal stronger. His breaks look a bit different than mine!
Missing you in Tobago Cays
Julie