By night, guests will stay aboard the Kai Ohana just off the shore of the island, and by day they will explore and assist hands-on in several volunteer projects on the island. And we’re working with our friends at Hope for Haiti, a nonprofit organization based in Maryland that is leading these poverty alleviation efforts, so that the travelers joining our adventure will contribute both time and resources to the island.

We believe that the experience is unique because it is part Caribbean adventure, part chance to make a difference in a destination few travelers will ever see.

“We have charted a different course, so to speak. Staying true to our original mission of serving the common good of humanity, we are returning to Île à Vache to continue the work we started on the island,” said Craig. “We’re starting with the poorest place in the Western hemisphere, to make a difference in a community that desperately needs it, and to share the experience with other adventurous souls who want to explore Haiti, and support a worthwhile cause.”

Kai Ohana Volunteer Voyages is offering spots to thirty travelers this season, starting in January 2011. Contribution fees are donated directly to Hope For Haiti, providing the organization with critical funding needed to complete and sustain projects on the island.

Berths aboard the Kai Ohana are limited, so visit www.KaiOhanaVolunteerVoyages.com to see photos, maps and to schedule your trip now. Help us spread the word!

The voyage north from the Bahamas to Charleston ended with three solid days of non-stop cloud coverage. The clouds brought rain, wind, and waves. Finally, motoring into Charleston Harbor was a feeling of relief. It was our first time back to the United States in over two years. Just from a few glances I could see the historical importance of Charleston, and people loved the look of our classic wooden sailing vessel. Everyone was going by on motorboats smiling and waving at us. All the activity and attention was overwhelming for us. Haiti and the Bahamas had seemed so serene compared to this.

The marina where we were supposed to dock wasn’t too hard to find because of the big black fenders they told us to look for. Well these big black fenders looked like the big barrels cartoon characters run down hills backwards on, so they definitely stood out. It was nice because we didn’t have to worry about damaging the boat, but we did have to worry about damaging ourselves trying to get off the boat, because they had a six to ten foot tide. We sat and contemplated with the dockhands how we were going to get on and off the boat. In the end, we decided to balance on the black fenders, jerry-rig a wobbly ladder to the side of the dock, and then pull ourselves up over the wooden benches. We all found it quite hilarious at first, especially watching Tracy the shortest of us all climb on and off, but after a while the novelty of our homemade jungle gym wore off.

That evening the last of the major storms was rolling through. We all sat in the salon, clean from our hot showers, and finally relaxed saying,

“I’m so glad we are not in that storm right now.”

It looked like a strobe light up in the clouds. That was one party we did not want to join.

The following morning, unaware of how immigration works in the United States, we all walked up to the immigration office. Along with the unpleasant welcome, they sent us immediately back to the boat because we were in violation of the rules. Returning to the boat we found a stern officer with a gun strapped to him. He had been waiting in the hot sun, and the sweat was pouring off his head. We all looked at each other with the same nervous expressions. Come to find out this guy was one of the friendliest immigration officers that we’ve come across. When we were finished showing our documentation, we just sat there laughing while he joked around with us, he was like our very own stand up comedian.

It didn’t take us long to get settled. We found the library, Block Buster, grocery store, and the parks. We had signed up for the library and the movie rentals as fast as we could. It was difficult getting used to the U.S. because everything is so precise, no one ever asked how we wanted our meat cooked in the islands, or for our identification. We were now carrying our passports, library cards, and had to remember how we preferred our food cooked.

After a week of being on the outer dock, struggling to get on and off the boat, we decided to move the boat inside the marina on the floating docks. Fourth of July was right around the corner and we were in front row seats for the fire works. Being on the new floating docks we made friends with our neighbors and had fun dock parties. On the Fourth of July we invited all of our new friends to our boat for a cook out. Above us, the main dock was packed with people who had come from all over Charleston to watch the fireworks. That’s when we heard it, someone beating on a drum. Preston and Sara ran around the Marina with their drums and maraca’s trying to find the mysterious drummer so they could join in. Finally, they found him, and the drumming really came alive. They moved around the entire crowd drumming and collecting change from people who enjoyed it. They then moved out into the streets of Charleston collecting even more change, and then joined a birthday party someone was having in their backyard and became their source of entertainment. All the fire works, friends, and music, really made it the best Fourth of July we’ve ever had.

We spent the following week cleaning up the boat and getting ready to leave Charleston. Before we left we checked the weather and saw that tropical depressions were moving up from the Caribbean to the east coast, along with hurricane warnings foregoing our stay. We weren’t too terribly sad that we had to stay, because all the great friends we had made gave us plenty of things to do. Alysia, for instance, worked at the maritime center. She would take us to her house after work so that we could swim in her pool and play with her cats. She also had a beach house that we would spend time. My mom made friends with Bob, the man who lived in the boat next to us. They would spend time in the galley cooking and sharing recipes. Tracy had a great friend named Gary, a fellow sailor, who took us on guided tours of Charleston and through the World War II memorial. Last but not least, we ran into our great friends, Rose, and Mark that we had met in the Bahamas. They took us to the Yacht Club to go sailing on their lasers, which is when we were also able to meet Rose’s mom, Alexis. Our moms became great friends and spent time with each other getting haircuts and swimming at the yacht club pool.

After staying a while longer the storms had passed, and we were ready to go. Well, that is until the heat exchanger broke. Sara and Mom were actually glad they could stay a little while longer because they didn’t want to be sailing on their birthdays. Celebration was in order — a day at the farmers market, tie-dying t-shirts, a tour on the Sand Lapper Water Tours, and then a fun birthday dinner at the Cinema Café. Before we new it the guys had fixed the heat exchanger and we were off for good this time.

Watch the Charleston Video here.

This is a rather larger format piece, at about 5ft tall. Medium is acrylic, the prompt is “Good vs. Evil”. I chose to use traditional western imagery to personify the concepts good and evil, and as a reference to life and death. The structure of the piece is laid out to suggest balance. The figures reflect each other, watching and weighing the situation, as long as both scales remain even they remain in balance and the weapons of combat remain at rest. I chose to posture them both similarly to Jesus on the cross representing the sacrifice each make in allowing the other to exist, the idea being without knowing your opposite you cannot know your self, and so they must both exist or both will be vanquished. A very zen idea for a very western image I think .

So check out the gallery for this week’s update there you will find several close ups of my piece. Let me know what you think, I’m all ears.

This is a rather larger format piece, at about 5ft tall. Medium is acrylic, the prompt is “Good vs. Evil”. I chose to use traditional western imagery to personify the concepts good and evil, and as a reference to life and death. The structure of the piece is laid out to suggest balance. The figures reflect each other, watching and weighing the situation, as long as both scales remain even they remain in balance and the weapons of combat remain at rest. I chose to posture them both similarly to Jesus on the cross representing the sacrifice each make in allowing the other to exist, the idea being without knowing your opposite you cannot know your self, and so they must both exist or both will be vanquished. A very zen idea for a very western image I think .

So check out the gallery for this week’s update there you will find several WIP’s (Work In Progress) of my piece. Let me know what you think (Do you want to see more of my art? Do you want me to post a photo of the finished piece when I am done? Any suggestion on the piece? Do you not want to see any more art weeks?), I’m all ears. And check back next week for the Greater Abacos Update.

The sun was high as we negotiated the narrow cut, and the aqua blue waters made it a little easier to see the coral reefs. The captain had studied the charts in advance looking for a safe anchorage and decided on a hole on the lee side of Lynyard Cay. Once the anchor was set, our own Jacques Cousteau, Preston, dove in to check to see how it was set in the thick grass, and prepared to place an extra anchor to prevent Kai Ohana from dragging since the weather was forecast to get ugly.

After sailing five days, with only a tiny grocery store in San Salvador to provision (and remember, we were in Haiti before that where there were no grocery stores) we were in desperate need of food, especially fresh produce. These items do not last long in the tropics with minimal refrigeration and six hungry crewmembers. According to the cruising guide, the closest destination with a grocery store was Marsh Harbor about a twelve mile, forty-five minute dinghy ride away. Well, the ride there was actually fairly pleasant since the captain and I followed a thunderstorm into the marina. So far, a good wind blown hair day. Unlike in an automobile, a ride in the dinghy forces you to be prepared for weather with plastic tarps, waterproof bags, rain gear, and extra gas. It is not so easy to stop at the corner gas station when you are in the middle of a large body of water with deserted islands all around you.

Once we tied the dinghy off behind the gas dock, we started our walk into town to find a cab and discovered we could rent a couple of cruising bikes with baskets for a nominal fee, which is the best way to stay on your exercise program when living on a boat. So off we went with our lists in search of the grocery store. We found the visitors center first and were happily given directions, saving us time, and upon our arrival I was pleased to discover the largest and most adequately stocked store we’d seen in over a month. Yippee, variety and fresh produce! Since I am not a great fan of canned veggies, and one never knows when we will see fresh produce, I get a little carried away and tend to purchase way more than we can safely carry every time. To my surprise one of the employees was brilliant enough to suggest we load the baskets high enough to just see over them and then taped it all down securely with packing tape. The rest of the supplies we carried in our backpacks and in plastic bags hung from the handlebars. What a sight we were, especially to the cars that had to avoid us as we teetered down the road.

Originally when we arrived in the dinghy the tide was high and getting on the dock was effortless. However, on our return, we discovered the tide had fallen about four feet. Okay, handing groceries down to the dinghy is easy enough, and as I took the bikes back to the rental center, I thought about the gymnastics I would have to do to get down into the dinghy. Hey, if those brassy pirate women could jump down into the wooden dinghies with a knife clinched in their teeth, so could I. To my pleasant surprise when I arrived back to the docks, the fine gentlemanly Captain had all rations stowed and covered with tarps, gas tanks full, and our tiny vessel motored around to a jetty where I stepped down the rocks like a proper lady and gracefully boarded.

Remember the good wind-blown hair day I was having? Ha, there were more thunderheads on the horizon. We pulled out our yellow banana suits, and prepared for the worst. In the Bahamas there is no straight shot to a destination because of all the reefs. Even in a dinghy you have to be mindful so you do not tear up your propeller. The Captain’s timing and variation in the route helped us dodge most of the severe weather and lightning strikes. About five minutes of rain was not so bad.

When we arrived back at the boat, the crew was excited to hear about our adventure (they were as worried about us as we were of them), and as we exchanged stories, they helped us unload the dinghy. I always appreciate this because the dinghy is like a cork bobbing up and down — everything is moving, Kai Ohana is moving, the dinghy is moving, you are moving, and the groceries swing freely in their bags, with the water directly beneath.

Once we had the galley restocked we could concentrate on matters of exploration. Little Harbor was a short ten-minute dinghy ride to the south. There we found a pub where we could sit and enjoy each other’s company without the movement of the boat. To my delight there was the Randolph Johnson art museum to investigate. Mr. Johnson spent 40 years on Little Harbor producing art as well as building a home for his family. My hats off to his wife, she had to be strong and adventurous as well because when they first arrived on the deserted island they lived in a cave with their two small children until they could build their home. We took time to follow a trail to the windward side of the island where his sculptures were poised along the trail. As we walked over the crest of the hill we could see the whole of the Atlantic stretched out before us. The limestone shore had a moonscape feel. We walked down the stairs to the sand, where we were shocked by the amount of trash strewn everywhere. It comes from all parts of the world and washes up on the windward shores of all the islands we have visited. The trash that ends up on the beaches not only affects the view, it adversely affects the sea life as well. The crew found several plastic bottles that hermit crabs had crawled into then died because they could not crawl back out. This continues to be a part of our voyaging experience that is a constant let down.

We returned to Little Harbor often, and one of those trips we visited the ruins of the old Lighthouse. It was amazing to me that a man could live on this island with his family just to manage a lighthouse. But that is how it was back in the day before technology. They would raise much of their own food, collect rain water, maintain the light house, and would be excited when mail would arrive or if visitors sailed into their tiny harbor. Today there is a solar-paneled light that is set up on a galvanized metal stand that takes the place of the lighthouse; not nearly as romantic as the real deal.

Just northwest of the lighthouse, yet within walking distance, there was a beach that was a popular destination for snorkeling. The reef was well developed, and supported a diversity of life including the cutest little sea turtle. I could just imagine it talking like the one in “Finding Nemo”; they nailed that character in the movie. As long as we acted nonchalant it would swim casually along near us. If we tried to touch it, it would look at us as if saying in his California surfer accent, “Dude, that was totally inappropriate!” and would swim away hiding in the reef.

Once sufficiently water-logged we headed to the pub to try the drink Little Harbour is famous for, The Blaster. It is true to its name, and I will spare you the details of having more than one, but during this happy hour adventure, we met Marc Williams and his daughter Rose from Charleston, South Carolina. After Hap Hap Happy Hour, they came to visit us on Kai Ohana where we grilled sierra steaks he had caught the day before. Rose shared her art with Tracy, and Marc, being a fine “old-timey” musician shared his talent and songs with Preston. He also gave us a chart and essential advice about the Charleston approach, marinas and anchorages.

After recuperating, the Captain and I decided to kayak to Lynyard Cay on what ended up being a rare, beautifully clear day. The cay (always pronounced “key” in the Caribbean) is a barrier island and on the leeward side there is nice swimming. We visited a few leeward beaches, then explored the windward side, and then an abandon house that was for sale. Surprisingly there were a few vacation homes on this island that were completely off the grid using solar and wind power as well as rainwater collection – more proof that it can be done. During a swim that evening, before we paddled back to the boat, I learned to walk, I mean run, on water when I disturbed a large shark feeding in my vicinity. I had a good laugh at myself back on the beach; it scared me silly.

One evening, the crew who always loves bonfires on the beach with food and music organized a family beach party. We used a fire ring where other sailing adventurers before us had enjoyed innumerable evenings with guitars alongside roaring fires. And as tradition would have it, we left a message about Kai Ohana on a piece of flotsam for the next group of adventurers to ponder while visiting Lynyard Cay.

Many people have asked me what my greatest fear is during this sailing adventure, and much to my dismay, it is lightning. We were in the Abacos because there where forecast to be plenty of thunderstorms and lightning throughout the area – after all, we were in the Bahamas during the “official hurricane season”. Each day we survived the onslaught unscathed was a relief. There is not a heck of a lot you can do while at anchor, and the darn things are striking the islands or the water all around you. But you can only be so lucky. One night while watching a movie there was suddenly a loud bang (the thunderstorm apparently formed right over us without warning) scaring the daylights out of the crew. Of course we all jumped up to examine our boat; we still had our mast, the boat was not sinking or on fire, but to our dismay we lost our GPS, our wind-speed indicator, and our autopilot. Losing the autopilot was not so bad since we never use it, but the real bummer was the GPS. Since we were in the shallow water of the Bahamas, and it showed us exactly where we were located in relation to the numerous reefs, we were in trouble. Okay, so we would have to just become better sailors, and if sailors before us could navigate these waters without today’s technology, so could we.

During bouts of bad weather, we did spend a lot of time on Kai Ohana relaxing, playing music, reading, watching movies (when we weren’t being hammered by the weather), and studying lessons. Preston also took the time to write and record a song inspired by our adventures on Kai Ohana. And because we do live on a wooden boat, there is always something to tend to, and many times the universe sees fit to add to the list. One of those occasions happened on a quiet late afternoon while we ate an early dinner during a beautiful sunset – “muy tranquillo” as we would say in Mexico. All of a sudden there was the sound of a gunshot, and we all dove for cover. What the heck was that? There were no thunderstorms in sight! Once we had recovered, we discovered that one of our starboard windows had shattered out of the blue. The Captain deduced that the metal frame that kept the tempered window in place was screwed down too tight and the window just couldn’t take the pressure anymore. It was just a freak accident, yet the repair kept Preston and Craig busy for a couple of days.

We finally got a decent weather window to at least leave the island, and the repairs were complete so we left our relatively safe anchorage for the open ocean once again. Preston stood on the bow watching for coral reefs and the girls kept an eye out as well. And once out of the narrow cut, and away from the stress of running aground, we sailed off into the blue Atlantic towards Charleston.

Want more on Greater Abacos?
Check out the Greater Abacos Photos.
And watch the Bahamas Video.

Two hours later at the end of my watch, the sun had risen but the clouds where still blocking the strong rays, making the surroundings gray. The boat was near our intended anchorage so we brought the engine to life, pulled down the sails, and dropped the anchor in a patch of sand. We ate whatever food we had that was still on board, mostly Haitian mangoes, bananas, plantains, and miniature watermelons, and my mom’s famous fresh baked banana bread, all chased down with the first cup of hot coffee I’d had since we started our nine day sail because of the hassle of boiling water at sea. Once we filled our empty stomachs, we launched the dingy so the parents could go ashore to find the immigration office, a restaurant, and a slip in the marina, while leaving the crew to do the most nasty job on the boat, pump out SAM.

SAM is our nickname for our slimy, slick, black, stinky bilge monster that likes to swallow things such as tools, sunglasses, cups, small children, and many other items you’ll never see again once consumed. SAM stands for “sick and mucky” and if you’ve ever smelled it you would understand why it’s not a fun job. We spent the whole time my parents were ashore, manually pumping and rinsing the bilge getting SAM back into a bearable state, which made their return to the less-odiferous boat with  good news only that much better. They found the grocery store, a slip in the harbor that we could tie up to that afternoon, and had ordered cheese burgers for all of us at two o’clock at the marina restaurant. We successfully brought the boat into the tiny harbor and slip without any damage, then cleaned her throughout while the parents zoomed off in a van with a government official to fill out immigration paper work. They got back just in time for our lunch appointment at the marina restaurant. We gorged ourselves on bread, soup, and a salad bar, and then we got our hamburgers and fries and washed it all down with ice cold beverages. By the time we left the restaurant, the staff almost had to roll us out the door. After some serious digesting back at the boat, Alexis, Sara, and I went for a bike ride to see the small community and grocery store while Tracy and my parents went to check the Internet.

There were two grocery stores on the island that were minimally stocked, and the only time they had fresh food was on Wednesday when the delivery barge arrived. But if you didn’t get there within a few hours, you’d miss out on the booty. After we pedaled back to the boat with precious junk food in hand, we unloaded our plunder and went to the Driftwood Bar to have a couple drinks and check email over ice cold drinks. Sara, Tracy and I met many of the captains that ran the million-dollar fishing yachts docked in the marina. It didn’t take long for us to get invited to go marlin fishing the next morning. But when we woke up, both my sisters and I discovered that we had forgotten to reset our watches and woke up an hour late. So being stuck on the boat, we all decided to put the time to good use and worked to get her ready for the next passage, and because the weather was becoming tropical and very unpredictable, we figured we’d be staying a couple of days. Around noon that day a character named Ken raced up in a hotel golf cart, slammed on the brakes while turning the wheel hard to the left, and sent the golf cart sliding sideways to a halt in the gravel parking lot. My dad and I introduced ourselves to this new friendly visitor and found out that he owned a twenty-eight foot offshore fishing boat across the marina. We invited him on our boat, gave him the grand tour and quickly became fast friends. Before he got back in the golf cart and zoomed off, he invited the whole family to go explore and dive on the windward side of the island.

In the morning, we all walked over to Ken’s boat with our snorkeling gear and met his local deckhand, Abbey. After we got every thing stowed below, we released the dock lines and Captain Ken motored us out of the marina into open water on the lee side of the island. He pushed down the throttles, quickly bringing the boat to a twenty knot plane, and took us to the east side of the island in a matter of minutes. Once we got out of the lee of the island, the seas picked up and Alexis and Tracy started to not feel so hot. But we quickly made our way through the barrier reefs and outer islands that protect the main island, and Ken navigated us through the bay dogging razor sharp submerged coral heads that could have easily sunk his boat. Once safely inside the barrier reef, Ken located the first of two coral reefs that he favored because of their abundant life and diversity. Abbey dropped the Danforth anchor over the bow and as it quickly sank to the sandy bottom, he let out enough rode to keep us fifty feet from the thriving reef. Everyone geared up and dove off the boat into blue water that was a little murky because of the consistent high winds. We all took our own path around the reef, seeing many fish and different types of coral that I had never seen. My favorite fish was small, but the vibrant colors made it unique. It was black with bright neon electric blue stripes running down the length of the fish making it look like it had accidentally swallowed a light bulb. After everyone had done a couple passes around the first reef, we all started the long trek toward the barrier reef off the bow of the boat. The leeward side of it was pretty dead, but it became better and better as we made it around the windward side. With Ken protecting us with his Hawaiian sling ready just in case a hungry shark cruised up from the depths, we circled the outer reef. Ken started looking for lobster and conch for dinner, while the rest of us floundered around enjoying ourselves. We all eventually made it back on the boat a couple of conchs richer and ready for a cold soda where Ken told us of the next game plan, which involved going over to one of the small barrier islands to explore and snorkel over the islands sand banks to find a few more conchs.

Abbey was the first to swim ashore and while he was waiting for us, he disappeared into a small coconut grove. He reappeared once we reached the beach with his huge arms filled with fresh coconuts, which he proceeded to smash against the edge of a razor sharp limestone rock with his gigantic hands. Once filled with fresh coconuts, Ken, Abbey, Alexis, and I dove the sand bars while Sara, Tracy, and my parents explored the island. We found enough conch for a tasty conch salad and swam back ashore to gather everyone to head back to the boat.

Motoring back through the bay was a little more intense because the tide was lower and the setting sun was glaring off the water which made it hard to see the coral heads, but once we were back in deep water, it was a downwind run the whole way.

After about thirty minutes, we arrived back at the marina where we all collaborated in a feast of Ken’s conch salad, Daniel Horak’s (a new friend, fisherman and pilot) Haitian rum, and my mom’s fresh sushi. By the end of dinner, we were all stuffed, but we forced ourselves to the bar regardless to hear all the day’s fishing tales.

The next couple of days we all did the mundane sailor stuff; we did our laundry, took a dingy ride to the nearby Club Med, visited the local pubs, and my favorite, having a bonfire on the beach and playing music with occasional visitors stopping by to see what the “natives” were up to. I also got invited to go offshore fishing with two young guys from Florida that had a high performance fishing boat that their dad had recently bought them. The young captain’s name was Jason. He was a tall blonde haired guy who seemed very calm, yet there seemed to be something inherently crazy about this nineteen year old. His deck hand and best friend, Matt was a short eighteen-year-old with a passive attitude, good taste in music, and a brown lopsided white man “fro”.

The first time I met these two, Sara and I were sitting around one of our beach fires strumming away on the guitars. Now this “beach” we decided to have a fire on was some sand, but mostly small boulders that made it very hard to navigate in the dark, especially when a lot of beer is involved in the equation. So here they came, after an evening at the Driftwood Bar, stumbling through the nearby bushes and scaring the life out of us. After quietly making their introductions, they found a place to stand and attempted to conquer the bucket of ice cold beer they had brought with them. By the time the fire died, they were having a hard time standing on the shifting boulders so Sara and I called it a night, put out the fire, shuffled them back to the paved road and hit the sack.

The following day they invited me to go fishing with them but after this first impression, I was a little hesitant to get on a boat with them. About 1:00 in the afternoon I was pleasantly surprised when I walked over to their boat; it was a 28 foot Contender 1 with double 375 hp V8 Yamaha outboards and all pimped out with a stereo, radar, neon blue running lights and all the latest fishing gear, including out-riggers, rods and reels, and lures. When I got there they were ready to go so I untied the dock lines, jumped aboard, and off we went. It only took about thirty seconds to get out of the marina, crank up the stereo, and get on an eighteen-knot plane. After about a minute Jason looked over and asked if I wanted to see how fast she would go and I said sure. Before I knew it we were racing in the lee of the island at forty knots, and I felt like I was holding on to the side of an airplane in mid-flight. After we blasted around to the windward side of the island Jason brought down the throttles to an eight knot cruising speed, then ran to the back of the boat to help Matt get the lines on the out-riggers and into the water. Once everything was rigged Matt shoved a Sugar Ray CD into the stereo, and we trolled over an underwater ridge in search of fish. Twenty minutes later something hit the port line, and they let me reel in a small barracuda. After an hour of fishing we only had one other hit so they decided to pack it up and blast back to the marina.

Half way back, a thunderstorm popped up about half a mile in front of us and instead of taking an extra ten minutes to go around it, Jason decided to just go all out straight through it. By the time we popped out of the other side, my flimsy little windbreaker was soaked through, and though I was in the Bahamas in May, I felt like I had been caught in a Texas winter rainstorm.

After we docked and cleaned up the Contender, I walked back to the boat where Ken was waiting to take me and my sisters on a tour around the island in Abbey’s truck. Over all, the island’s terrain was pretty much the same except for the coastline, which changed drastically from the leeward beaches to the windward cliffs. Ken also drove us to a beach home he was thinking of purchasing, and later that day, he took us out to eat at a different restaurant where I got another burger fix just in case we were to sail off in the next couple of days. This was a smart move because the next day my dad said he wanted to be ready to leave in two days.

So we borrowed Ken’s hotel golf cart and loaded all of our jerry cans on it and puttered over to the nearby grocery store. We filled the cans from five gallon bottles, and on the way back, we discovered that Ken had “unknowingly” lent us an empty golf cart. We had Alexis steer while Paps and I pushed, but after the downhill turned to flat, we gave up the ghost, and I went to get gas. In the meantime, dad got a tow to the nearest gas station, filled up the five gallon tank for forty dollars, and then told Ken that he wasn’t giving it back until he had burned up at least half the tank.

The next day, the day before our departure, Ken asked if we would stay one more day so I could go marlin fishing with him and Abby. We all agreed that it would be a good experience, so the following morning I jumped aboard and off we went. During the first two hours we had no bites, and we had to struggle with keeping our lures unfouled of cumbersome Sargasso weed. We moved around a lot, fishing over two different ridges, and over the second one we seemed to have more luck. Once the weeds lessened and the wind calmed the mood of these two hunters seemed to get very serious. Out of nowhere, the farthest out-rigger unclipped, the line screamed off the reel and there was an explosion of water where a hundred and twenty pound marlin came flying out. The way Ken described marlin fishing to me in the pub was “complete boredom interrupted by pure hysteria,” and I now understand what he meant. When it was clear that the marlin was hooked, all the other lines were reeled in, and the yelling and profanities lessened, Ken stuck me in the chair and let me battle the fish. The stamina of the marlin was amazing, and after about twenty minuets Abbey took over and fought the fish for another thirty minutes. When we got the fish up to the side, Ken grabbed the bill, removed the hook and released it back into the deep blue sea. We flew the marlin flag, letting everyone back at the marina know that we had successfully landed one, and motored back to the docks.

After helping dock Ken’s boat and clean up, I made it back to Kai Ohana to find that everyone had prepared the boat to leave as soon as I returned. Apparently while I was gone, the wind had shifted from off the ocean to over the islands central lagoons, and the no-see-ums and mosquitoes had nearly driven my family crazy, which motivated them to move the boat and anchor off-shore to get a good-nights sleep before we continued on our way north.

Want more on San Salvador?
Check out the San Salvador Photos.
And watch the Bahamas Video.

Why for a School on a Remote Haitian Island?

Just prior to the hurricane season of 2008, and despite travel warnings issued by the U.S. State Department, we sailed Kai Ohana, to the island of Ile a Vache off the southern coast of Haiti to see for ourselves the poverty we have all heard about. While there, we delivered supplies and funds we collected for two elementary schools while traveling through the Caribbean, and for ten days, we helped the people there in any other way we could. (Read more about our adventure).

Hope for Haiti

In the past nine months, we have been on the east coast of the U.S. working to partner with a non-profit to raise money to build two schools for the villages we visited – La Hatte and Grand Barriere. Hope for Haiti, a Maryland based non-profit proved to be the perfect fit. They are currently building a school in the village of Grand Sable, Ile a Vache, and agreed to help us achieve our goals elsewhere on the Island.

NOW WE NEED YOUR HELP…

Without funds, nothing can be accomplished, but they don’t need much relative to our standards to provide a decent learning environment. The budget for the five room school house currently being built in Grand Sable plus two years of salaries, supplies and operating expenses is $20,000! Our Goal is to raise enough funds to build the school in Grand Barriere, then focus on the one in La Hatte.

FUNDS RAISED AS OF MARCH 15, 2009

Please take a moment and click on the Paypal Button below to contribute to the future of the children of Ile a Vache, Haiti. Then send your friends and family members an email to do the same. Thanks!

Because so much of the world is in such need, it didn’t take long for us to find our first project. 115 miles into our journey, we met Captain Beans, an entertainer on Marina Cay. Captain Beans had been marooned for some time on the island of Ile a Vache off the southern coast of Haiti, and after falling in love with its children, he committed to do for them whatever he could for the rest of his life. With a local from the fishing village of La Hatte, Jean Phelix Joesph, he co-founded the Good Samaritan Foundation that educates and cares for the underprivileged children on the small island. And after we got to know the good captain, heard his story, and felt his passion toward the children, we knew we had “been called” to help them in any way we could.

After the news of three hurricanes decimating Haiti during the 2008 season, Haiti’s plight should be well known to those throughout the world. But Haiti has been a country in severe poverty since its independence from France over 200 years ago. Though it appears the numbers are not quite as bad for the population of Ile a Vache, the Mercy and Sharing Foundation (www.HaitiChildren.com) who works extensively in the poorest neighborhoods of Port au Prince, claims that the statistics for the 9,000,000 inhabitants of Haiti are alarming:

• 10% of the child population in Haiti will die before the age of 4.
• 7% of the children in Haiti are enslaved. That’s 300,000 children as young as 3 years old who often suffer sexual, emotional and physical abuse.
• 45% of the Haitian population is illiterate.
• 70% of the population lives below poverty level
• 30% of the population is either ill and or underweight

With these kinds of statistics in mind coupled with Captain Bean’s descriptions of the grating poverty the islander’s experience, we really found ourselves with no other choice but to help these folks in any way we could. So despite travel warnings issued by the State Department for Haiti ten days prior to our departure from St. Thomas, the family decided to sail to Haiti to specifically help the future of the country, its children, starting with those on Ile a Vache.

After a couple of weeks of preparation, we sailed nine days to Port Morgan Bay on the Northeast corner of Ile a Vache and met up with our contact, Mr. Joseph. He acted as our tour guide while we were there and scheduled several outings for us including a trip to meet the children of his village, the fishing community of La Hatte.

On our first full day there, we didn’t quite know what to expect, so we packed the dinghy with everything we thought we would need to document the journey and motored our way down the western coast of the island to La Hatte. As we anticipated, the villagers were very gracious and after introductions with the village elders, they led us up the trail through town to the school.

We were surprised to see that there was only one classroom for the kindergarteners and another small building that housed the “library”, which was a stack of books on the floor, but no others. There was a foundation of a building they had started, but they had run out of money before erecting the walls and a roof. The older children sat and worked on rough-sawn benches and desks and were sheltered from the sun and weather by rusted tin sheets laid over rickety pole lean-to structures. While watching these children focusing on the instructor at the chalkboard, we couldn’t help but mentally compare our schools back home with these.

After we observed the students at work and received a beautiful welcome song from each class, we asked Phelix to assemble all the students in the courtyard; we wanted to observe how they were in their most comfortable environment – the playground. We broke the ice by producing a couple of hula-hoops and some jump ropes and after our few lame demonstration attempts at the hula-hoops, they showed us their innate talents. No demonstration was necessary, however, for the jump rope, as these kids had obviously been jumping rope since they could stand up. The biggest curiosity unexpectedly ended up being the little flip screen on the video cameras. These children had obviously never seen a TV and to see themselves in a moving picture was truly a treat.

The following day, Phelix had arranged for us to travel thirteen miles east of our anchorage to the other school he serves. There is absolutely no infrastructure on Ile a Vache – no roads, running water, sewer systems, or electricity – so the only way to travel is by walking, or by horseback. Since it had rained the night before and the trails were nothing but mud, we were happy to have access to the local transportation.

We rode about three hours to the school, which ended up being a lean-to constructed on the north side of a home. Phelix had leased one room in the home for the kindergarten and the space at the back of the home, but the owner wanted to have his property back and was in the process of evicting him at the time we arrived. The superintended of the school was obviously upset at the prospect of having to close the school, and after we visited with the administration and completely distracted the students, he took us to a piece of property that they hoped to one day purchase for the school.

We were very impressed with Phelix and the work he has done for the children of Ile A Vache with such precious few resources. His schools are ill equipped and most of the classes are held outdoors. Not only do the students need uniforms and lack the bare essentials like books and supplies, many of them show up for classes without having eaten a morning meal.

For those of us who have been privileged enough to be raised and educated in the first world, it is hard to imagine the hardships these people endure just to feed themselves, much less to get a basic education. We traveled to Ile a Vache to help the children on the island, yet we cannot do it alone. We need your help. Won’t you please help Phelix and the children of Ile a Vache by donating $5, $10, or $20 to their schools? If we can get a lot of people to each donate a little, it will make all the difference in the world to these young lives (to read the full article on our adventures in Haiti, click here). To make your small contribution, please click here.

The next morning Dad woke us up early to move the boat because, according to the harbormaster that embarrassingly interrupted Dad’s pre-sunrise deck shower, a cruise ship was going to anchor right where we were. After we moved the boat, we all sat down to eat and have a meeting about what needed to be done on the boat and by whom when the cruise ships started lumbering into the bay. By the time we finished the meeting, there were four of them tied to the dock and one more dropping its anchor right where we were anchored. The Disney Cruise Ship, Magic, was the only cruise ship I had ever been on and it just so happened that we anchored at one of its stops. It’s interesting that when I was eight, I was one of them looking down at all the sailboats wondering what it would be like to live that lifestyle. Now we’re the ones in the aquarium looking up at all the curious passengers who watch our every move (even with binoculars) all day long.

Later that morning, we dressed up (that is put on something other than bathing suits), hopped in the dinghy and motored off to the immigration office. When we arrived there was no dinghy dock so we had to throw an anchor off the stern and tie the bow to the seawall because it was very rough. The challenge was jumping the two or three feet up to the sidewalk from the heaving dinghy held off the wall by the anchor. That meant you had to time your spring from the dinghy; it was like jumping from a moving trampoline to the sidewalk. We walked to the immigration office as soon as we were safely on land only to get there on time according to the hours sign, but earlier than the official’s actual arrival. When they finally did arrive, we were greeted with an unexpected air-conditioned waiting room and the traditional paperwork and questioning. The officers who were asking questions had been the most polite we’ve encountered on our journey so far, but only Mom and Dad fielded them. So Tracy, Preston, Sara, and I just sat and listened to their exchange or read or wrote in our journals. I wanted to stay ashore and check out the island, but instead we had to return to the boat to do our chores and some maintenance items.

I finally got my wish for “shore leave” so Sara, Preston, and I went exploring as a group. We walked around Charlotte Amaila and climbed the famous 99 steps to the top of the hill where they had a large gated area (one of Blackbeard’s homes, I believe) where there was a pool, tourist shops and some historical statues. They charged a fifteen-dollar entry fee, but we didn’t think it was worth it so we walked back down the backside of the hill, which reminded me of being in California and Mexico meshed together. The view was great, and we took a lot of pictures of Kai Ohana in the bay. Back at the bottom, we walked to a square with people setting up decorations, booths and rides for the carnival that was coming up. Then we searched for the library because that’s where Mom had dropped Tracy off to work on the website. After lunch, we found her wrapping up her work, so I took the opportunity to look around. I found a lot of books that looked interesting so I made a list of about twenty that I would try to obtain at a later time.

The best part about the island was the many gardens and much of the town’s old architecture, but the amount of litter in the streets and in the bay frustrated me. Most of the time while walking down many of the streets, we would start collecting trash and within one block we would usually fill a couple of grocery bags. When Mom, Sara, and I went to get water and gas in the dinghy one day, we had to go across the bay between the main island of St. Thomas and the small islands to the south. After we picked up what we needed and headed back to the boat, we noticed numerous bottles floating in the bay so we started picking them up. Sara was at the bow fetching them in, while I was driving, and Mom was on the lookout for other dinghies and more trash. We spent about thirty or forty minutes picking up trash, and when we arrived back at the boat, the whole front of the dinghy was full.

Most of our days were spent working on the boat, but every so often we ladies would go shopping in what we called the “cruise ship mall” where the first day out I found the Dock Side Bookstore. I ended up buying four books, though I would have bought more because I was so excited to find a decent bookstore, but Mom reminded me that I only had so much space on my shelves. After she pried me out of there, we went to Kmart. It has been more than two years since I’ve been in a mall or department store, so I was excited to go because I’d had some clothes on my desperately-need list. After I finished getting everything, I looked around the store and found a whole bunch of interesting things that no sailor would ever need; I guess I’m being cured of my compulsive shopping urges. Once we got back to the boat we told Dad and Preston about the stores and modeled all our new clothes.

When we were in Nanny Cay, I had my sixteenth birthday and Tracy had her twenty-second. The way our family traditionally celebrates our birthdays is my parents take us out individually to dote on us at a fine restaurant and then a movie. In Tortola there wasn’t a restaurant that I was too thrilled about, so I thought there might be better options in St. Thomas. It just so happened that the “cruise ship mall” had a sushi restaurant, Benny Iguanas, which came highly recommended by a wine distributor we met in a cafe. So our second week there, we went to eat sushi! (Tracy went to the same restaurant the following week.) The food was so good that after each of us sampled the combo plates, we ordered seconds of what we liked the most, and I figured that since it was my birthday dinner, I shouldn’t pass up the chance for desert either, so I got a slice of strawberry cheesecake with a candle and of course a birthday song sung by the three pretty waitresses and my parents. Unfortunately, the movie part didn’t work out because we didn’t have a car, so I agreeably took a rain check.

The whole time we were in St. Thomas, the town of Charlotte Amalia was preparing for Carnival. The first week we arrived lots of people were setting up food and game booths, while others were setting up band stages and those very dangerous-looking, traveling fairground, parking lot rides. But by the second week, the partying was getting started! The actual Carnival started on a Thursday with the Jump Up. This is the one that most of the locals on St. Maarten enjoyed the most, the one where you wake up at 4:00am, get silly drunk and dance the street. We didn’t do this one because Mom and Dad are the only ones who typically wake up before 9:00. Friday was the children’s Carnival procession, and Saturday was the adult’s. We also missed the children’s parade, but that evening we went to the square. This was where all the festivities were set up – a reggae band playing; people playing the games; kids lining up for the rides; people dancing, eating and drinking; kids running around; indeed it was mayhem Caribbean-style and a lot of fun for everyone. I think I had as much fun watching everyone as I did participating.

The best part for me, however, was the cotton candy booth. I haven’t had cotton candy in at least five years, and it was so good I could have bought one after another, but I didn’t. After an hour or so, everyone was tired and kind of feeling like they’d seen about all that was going to happen. When you live in St. Maarten for two years, you’ve Carnival-ed and partied enough for two life times, so everyone agreed that bed was looking really good about that time. Besides, we had the real Carnival to attend the following day.

The next morning we met up with some of our St. Maarten cruising friends, Canadians Al and Linda on Cambio, to watch the parade together. Carnival in St. Thomas was really different that in St. Maarten. In St. Maarten there’s more public drinking than in St. Thomas (after all, we were in the States, sort of) and in St. Maarten they throw off the floats a lot more stuff like bottles of water, soda, beer, necklaces, candy, towels, toys, and a bunch of other trinkets. In St. Thomas there’s more school bands and dance troops and drill team type processions and a lot of local dignitaries on the back seats of fancy convertibles waving like Queen Elizabeth, but it was still entertaining. The best part was the double-trailer, two-story steel band ensemble. Man, were they good, as good as any we had seen in the Caribbean. The dancing giants were also pretty cool, especially the one who ran into the tree, and catching himself in the branches, broke a couple off and thereafter used them in his choreograph. After several hours, a BIG rainstorm chased us under cover and then back to the boat. Instead of returning to the festivities that evening, we went to a beach on the other side of the peninsula to swim. It wasn’t the nicest beach we’d seen because there was a hotel right on the shore that made it seem crowded and commercial, but we had fun swimming in the clean water anyway.

When we got back to the boat, Mom, Dad, and Tracy went to our friends boat because they were leaving the next day while Sara, Preston, and I stayed home. I was watching movies until midnight when I heard the fire works starting. This was absolutely one of the best fireworks shows I’ve ever seen. There were fireworks that exploded into shapes of smiley faces, hearts, and rainbows. It was too cool! But the best thing about this show was that every firework that went off reflected off the water so it was like it was going off twice. The next day was dead quiet; nothing was really happening ashore because the island was sleeping off a four-day binge. There wasn’t one store open and for the four days of carnival, no cruise ships came in to port because it was the island official holiday.

Most of our last week in St. Thomas was spent provisioning and preparing the boat since we were heading to Haiti non-stop. According to my Dad, there would be nothing on the island except the people, their land, and the very little food they have for themselves. So the parents decided to get a car for one day and do a “marathon shopping spree” from eight in the morning until the stores closed. Since we had been working so hard during the morning preparing the boat for the voyage, they decided to take us with them that afternoon. After shopping until the stores closed for all the food, supplies, tools and everything else we would need for the next several months, we went for a pizza. And because it had been such a long time since my family and I had gone to a movie theater, and because we have had a long tradition of watching martial arts flicks, we went to see The Forbidden Kingdom. I thought the fight scenes were awesome and the story was entertaining.

But the whole week wasn’t spent working. When we were in Nanny Cay, my Dad and brother befriended a private yacht captain named Tommy Gonzales who also used to be a pretty famous racing sailor in his day. We kept in touch with him, and when we got to St. Thomas he came by the boat in his big dinghy to say hi and ask if we saw him flying his plane over us just a few hours earlier – he’s just that kind of character. Well, it ended up being his day off and he asked us if we wanted to go to White Bay on Jost Van Dyke with his daughter and wife. All of the youngsters went along while Mom and Dad stayed on the boat to finalize the preparations. The dinghy ride was rough, but it was worth it. When we arrived at White Bay, we had lunch, swam, and played in the sand. That evening Tommy invited the whole family to his home for a feast of beef tenderloin, tuna steaks, a lovely salad and all the trimmings. When we poured into his dinghy to go back to our boat at 1:00 A.M., we had several miles of passes, rocks and open ocean to navigate in the dark, but after being at the beach all day I was wiped out and I ended up falling asleep. I obviously wasn’t worried. After a full day of Captain Tommy zooming us between St.Thomas, Jost Van Dyke and St. Johns, I was confident he would get us back safely, and then get himself safely back home.

The day before we left for Haiti, we took one final excursion to Hassel Island just southwest of Charlotte Amalia. It proved to be deserted except for an historical site, but there was a beach on the lee side, and we all wanted to look around for the big iguanas we’d heard about. After we beached the dinghy, I got the camera out and took a lot of pictures of the area including a little campsite where people had built a permanent fire ring and benches. There were iguana tracks in the sand and I tried to get a photo of one of the reptiles, but I didn’t see any, so I got pictures of other things like birds, small lizards, flowers, and an old rotting wood boat. As the sun started setting, the “no-see-ums” came out en masse and started eating us alive, so we all jumped into the sanctuary of the Caribbean Sea then into the dinghy to race back to the boat. The following day we fueled up, had lunch with some other cruising friends we met in Nanny Cay, Tom and Linda, and sailed off for Haiti’s Isle a Vache (The Island of Cows).