We have arrived in FRANCE!

We did it, we did it, we did it! Wow, what a rush. We have just finished our journey from Antigua to Guadeloupe. Unbelievable. I am so proud of myself, of Graham, of the kids! I asked the kids what they would like to see go differently from our last sail and they both in unison said, "We want you to be less scared because when you are scared we are scared."

It was just what I needed to hear to "Suck it up"!

So, I did just that and yesterday we did the customs/immigration thing in Antigua and checked out. We received our exit stamps in our passports, that read "by sea"....way cool and here was nothing left but the leaving.

We got up at 4:30 and I made pancakes and we had some yogurt and We closed the hatches, got our long sleeves and long pants on (we all burn way to easily) and we were ready! This time we all had our life jackets and we had teather lines that ran the length of the boat and we had harnesses for the kids that latched in, in the cockpit.

Everything felt right. I had made up a bin of snacks and P&Js and water and lemondade. Everything was on deck, so we didn't need to go below if we felt sick. WE WERE READY!

Everything went 100% perfect. We had a beautiful beams reach the whole way (wind across the middle of the boat, basically the fastest point of sail). We averaged about 7 to 7.5 knots the whole way. We set sail at 6:20am and set anchor at 1:45. It was great! All of us except for Amelia, dealt with a bit of a woozie stomach but no vomitting! So count our blessings. Sea sickness seem to come and go. Some of the ocean swells were HUGE. SEriously HUGE and I kept my poker face, like no other :-)! Kids didn't see fear on my face. Alex, Amelia and Graham all had a snooze on deck. We saw lots of flying fish. That are really neat. Looks like the have wings? I will have to look them up on the internet.

So France, I love saying that, is really pretty. The little town we are anchored in front of is beautiful. There is a nice little church directly in front of us with a cute steeple. We will be heading in with the dinghy to check into Guadeloupe, France.

Oh, on a side note as we were sailing Alex and I sang 'O Canada' loud and clear, as our Canada flag flapped in the background. We are a little piece of Canada sailing around the world! I think I am going to ride this high for a few more hours.