Vacation

Well this will probably be the last blog you get from us for a while as we are heading remote, so what have we been doing since you last heard..........

I finished my cooking course, which caused me to put weight on! Its all that sampling! Richie finished his boat course, as part of it he has to do celestial navigation, sextant and all and be 600 miles off shore, so we decided to cross the Atlantic, not the easy 8 hour way on a plane, we took the 3 week 5 mile an hour route, what an adventure!!!!

We delivered a cat from Gomera in the Canary islands to Antigua, with a Skipper called Hugh and the Canadian owners of the boat, here we are fuelling up about to leave



The female owner spent the first 3 days at sea with her head in a bucket and it was flat! A worrying start to the journey, but we all did tell her to take sea sick tablets! After the first 4 days we lost the wind for the next 10 days, there was none! So we did a lot of motor sailing.

I have never read so many books in my life, the boat wasn't quite Promenade, there was no generator, so power was limited, when it got dark it was time for bed and there was no water maker, so we were very restricted on that front too! It was quite a smelly crossing! We did however have fishing....... and we did well, we caught more mahi mahi than you can imagine, apparently it is the only fish in the Atlantic, we cooked it a different way every time, I could now write a cook book "100 ways to serve Mahi!"







and thanks to my cooking course I can fillet a fish as well as Richie now!

We did see lots of dolphins which was nice and we had a big fish swim with us for a few hours!

Here I am dolphin watching



we saw some amazing skies, never got a lot of rain, most managed to avoid us, but it was all around



and we saw some amazing sun rises and sun sets, the pictures never do it justice though



While on watch one night, watching a beautiful sunset, listening to my ipod, mid Atlantic, all at peace with the world, I got my ears violated thanks to Kerry and Mr Dan (St Marys), what should come on the ipod but "Bang, Bang loulou!" certainly made me laugh though!

When we were a few days from Antigua we finally caught a fish that wasn't a Mahi, we got a nice big wahoo instead



Rich felt the need to grow crazy facial hair, its amazing what entertains you when there isn't a lot to do!



B would have been proud of that beard! Rich also did all his celestial stuff, which also passed the time, by the end of the trip he was 13 miles off the GPS using the sextant which is pretty good going there!

We finally made it to Antigua, 20 days later, it was nice to get on land, the owner thought so too as she was back to a head in the bucket for the past 4 days of the trip! We flew back to the UK that night, quite disheartening that the 20 day trip we just completed, we would do in 8 hours by plane!

We have had a few days back in the UK and we are about to leave again, this time we are heading to Papau New Guinea and I can't wait to be warm again, the UK is far to cold, but I did get to go real xmas tree shopping although it wont be half as good as my pink feather one that Kerry bought me!

So our next fishy pictures should be of some spectacular stuff............

On a final note Richie wanted to send a present to Bazza, just in case he was missing them yet.....

A very quick check in from the UK, for an update!

It is so cold now here in the UK, it snowed today where my cousin lives! So we have decided it has to be time to leave! I am now in the last week of my cooking course, I finish on Thursday, on Sunday we fly to Spain to start our Atlantic crossing! I can't wait for the warmer weather!

I have a million pictures, but they are all with Richard, so I will get around to doing them soon! The only down side of being warm and crossing the Atlantic, is no internet!!!!!! Which means no scrabble Kerry!

I will take a million pictures of the crossing and post them when we get to the other side, you never know we might swing past the BVI.............

Lisa here checking in! I down loaded my small snorkel camera yesterday and found a few random charter pictures, so I thought I would pop them up! This was our last charter with the St Marys group...........



This was Rich being naughty and playing how many pins can we get on there before she notices!



One of the murials



land crab hiding





we even got them on the banana boat, not for long, but they were definatly on! Made me smile finding those! Seems like a long time ago now!

It is really starting to get cold here now in the UK, but I am half way through my cooking course now, Richie bought me my first knife at the weekend! Those who know me might not think it is a good idea to give me big, sharp knives, but it really makes a difference and still no plasters Kerry (touch wood!) I always had a nasty habit of trying to chop my fingers off on the boat, the first week I started I had a plaster on every finger! So I guess I am improving!

So while I work hard, Rich is off sailing for the week with a friend, I am not too jealous though, sounds cold to me!

Lisa here with a quick note from the UK, I am guessing Kerry and Bazza are otherwise busy at the moment weather watching!
It was funny to see Kerry in her water proofs on the blog this weekend, as we were in T shirts all weekend in the UK, quite unusual for this time of the year, but I was very happy about it! It won't last for long I am sure!

Exciting news from Rich, he passed the first part of his Ocean master course, so that is the theory part done - he got 100%, not just a pretty face! The next part means we have to go to sea, so next month we are going to do an atlantic crossing, so he can do what he needs to do and we get an exciting journey as well, hope the weather is nice for that!

I am week 2 cooking, all is going well, I have learned so much, Rich can't wait for me to practice all my new recipes on him! I am putting weight on though from all the testing! Indian curry today, my favorite!

It has been great catching up with friends and families, it has been quite a while since we have seen some, but as it is starting to get colder, I will soon be more than ready to head away from the UK again, who knows where!

I must admit I have been very bad at blogging, but I have been busy!

A quick summary should bring you up to speed........We loved our vacation in Belize and didn't want to leave, it was quite a busy time though! After the dive liveaboard we went on to a sand castle called Cay Caulker, we rented a cute place for the week and travelled the island on push bikes, no cars on the island just golf carts and no pictures of me on a push bike either! One of my high lights was the discovery of blue margaritas!

While on the sand castle, suprisingly, we did a lot more diving and saw some special things (Rich has a million pictures) here we are in case you forgot what we look like already! This is the right way up!



We also went on a sail and snorkeling trip and got to swim with a manatee, that was one of the highlights of the holiday for me!



We saw a new type of booby bird, a red footed one



There were lots of dogs every where, which I loved, heres a random cute one!



We saw a lot of sharks in Belize, but also eagle rays



Richs favorites, blennys (we have a lot of pictures of those)





One of my favorite things that we didn't have in the BVI, nudibranchs



but we had plenty of these, Christmas tree worms



All the diving and blue margaritas came to a rude stop much to my horror and it was time to fly home before I knew it! When we landed in the UK it was 50 degrees, me and Rich looked at each other in horror, but big suprise the sun was out! In 5 days we did the length and breadth of the UK visiting family, I was looking for my clothes, I know when I left England I had some, where they went I have no idea and in the stores the clothes they are selling for the winter are less substantial than my summer clothes! oh well.

So me and Rich are both back in school now, I am cooking and Rich is doing boat stuff, I am really enjoying the cooking, Promenade certainly well prepared me skill wise for the course and its all I have to do, no popping off to dive or anything, so its not as fun! But I am learning a lot, much to Richs delight I am sure!

Well as every one is poorly back in BVI I thought I had better take up some slack and do a quick blog entry!! I think Kerry and Bazza are just allergic to the boat now! Glad we stopped the sinking of Promenade, you leave them alone for a few minutes..........

Here in Chicago it is very cold, so far we have ate our way around the city, nothing new there! We did Chicago by night the first day we arrived



We found one of those Brazilian steak houses we are all fond of, where they keep bringing around the big skewers of meat and make you eat your own body weight in meat!!!! YUMYUM! Apparently I have been a good girl as I got a bottle of bubbly to wash it down! I also got my self a MAC laptop on the way home, now I have no idea how to use it, Kerry....

After breakfast in bed and a few movies in the morning we managed to go out and brave the cold, but it was quite warm yesterday, off we went to see the Navy Pier, when we went past the day before there were 6 foot swells crashing along the Pier, today, it was flat and pretty



Heres a view back over the city, aaahhhh! After all that we got a "trolley" back to town and went for a stroll



and found the newspaper building, they do have some great architecture in the city, this one was unusual though as they stole stone from all over the world!



Heres Westminster Abbey from England, they also had the Great Wall of China, Taj Mahal, Alamo etc. Then here is Rich with a metal moose, I don't know, but we thought it was pretty cool!



We found the Theatre district and Starbucks (by the dozen) as we were walking along, we found the best smell in the world and it happened to be a fondue restaurant, you got 3 courses and they were all fondue, so you know where we ate last night, fondue heaven, cheese to start, a wine sauce for all the meat and chocolate to finish!