Eric, Kelly, and the girls visit

The Family Arrives

Tali's First ferry ride

Cloe gets into boat life

On the 4^th of July Eric, Kelly, and the girls arrived! Unfortunately they arrived too late for the St John Parade. A friend of ours, Wilma, picked them and Carl up at the airport and brought them to the Redhook Ferry. The ferry was a new experience for Tali and Cloe, and a long day. After a little beach time and dinner we went back to the boat with plans to watch the fireworks from Caneel Bay, except for the grandparents watching fireworks the rest of the family was asleep before 9 PM.

The beach at Honeymoon in St John
Alan joins us

Cigar night on the boat

The next morning my brother Alan came over and spent the day with us on Honeymoon Beach on St. John.  He had never met his grand nieces before so it was a great meeting. It was a great relaxing day on the beach. Eric and Carl went for a dive at the point and refilled the tanks before we headed over to Maho Bay. The beach there was great and the get together celebrated with cigars that night. As it was late Alan spent the night, sleeping on the trampoline.

Maho was a fun time

We Flew a kite from the boat

Maho was a fun time with makeup, kite flying and sand fun.

The kite is prepared by Eric and Cloe

Eric and Tali dive

At Maho we saw Cloe snorkeling without her life vest! Eric took Tali in the water and let her use the octopus to have her first scuba dive!

Cloe snorkels without her life vest!

Cloe is a snorkeler!

Eric on the prowl

Kelly is back into the diving!

Carl, Kelly, and Eric took the boat over to Whistling Cay for a dive. It was a nice dive.

beautiful coral

A rainbow Parrot fish

Tali pays the mooring fee

Tali up the mast

We went to put up a big flag, but the flag halyard broke so Tali asked to go up and get the end of the halyard. Eric and Carl put her in the boatswain’s chair and she retrieved the wayward halyard.

Cloe is ready for the sun

Cloe dances on the beach

We sailed to Normand’s Island, which of course was up wind, tacking our way up the end of Drake’s Passage. Normand’s was much changed from the last time they were there several years ago, and the girls had a ball on the beach!

Ahh! Boat life!

Eric checks our position

Kelly and Tali snorkel overhead

The next day Eric and Carl did a dive in Kelly’s cove while Kelly and Tali snorkeled overhead. 

The fish were pretty

Eagle Ray Glides by

Eric plays with an Arrow Crab

The Gennaker flies well!

After the dive Eric picked up Leslie and Cloe and we had a downwind sail under the Gennaker to Little Lameshur Bay where we viewed the VIERS museum on the underwater habitat that was there in the 70s.

Our last day together was another great downwind sail under the Gennaker to Yacht Haven Grand where we took a slip for the night and enjoyed the pool before they left early the next morning. A wonderful, but too short, visit!

An Exhausting sail back

Leslie, John, and Page, note the Carib label is on
upside down. A rare bottle!

A couple days after the kids left friends of ours, John and Page with their kids Camille and Andrew, who had been staying in the BVI contacted us and we were able to get together for a couple hours before they flew back home. It was great to catch up with them a bit and we look forward to getting together next year.