The WakaNahannis at Sea: More of St. Martin: Birthdays, Earth Days and Work Days

I cannot believe it is the middle of May already...time flies for sure. We are still in St. Martin trying to get ready to head south for the summer (and hurricane season). There is a lot to do on this island, and we are dawdling with fun stuff and boat projects. Here is a sampling of what we have been up to for the last few weeks:

When we were in St. Martin for the first time in January, we passed by a family's shop selling tourists items and happened to see a young man wearing a t-shirt that said Wavey Boyz. Wavey and I commented to him that it was rare to see a shirt with her name on it. He told us that they have an organization for kids in St. Martin and they give out t-shirts with Wavey Boyz and Wavey Girls. They promised to give Wavey a t-shirt when they could get one printed for her.

Wavey and Big Money Rey in January

Fast forward a few months later. We popped in on the shop a few times, and they had the shirt ready for Wavey with lettering in her favourite colour. Such generous people!

Wavey with Goolie and her new shirt

Wavey with Rey

They also told us that they make a rum punch called Wavey Juice, and Rey had written a song by the same name. We dropped into their shop again and got some Wavey Juice. Of course, Wavey will have to wait until she is of drinking age to try the beverage. In the meantime, John and I will drink it and refill the bottle with her favourite fruit punch.

In our family, a birthday usually means a week of birthday events. It could mean several parties, meals and gifts that come all during the week. Wavey's birthday palooza started out with several movie nights with her friend Malea, including a sleepover on Nahanni V. One movie we watched was Whale Rider, which is set in New Zealand. It was a pretty deep movie for our crew, but a beautiful film, nonetheless. We got to bed late after games and the kids enjoyed playing after Simon cooked up a huge feed of pancakes.

Movie night with Malea

Just before Wavey's birthday on April 21th, we moved the boat from Marigot Bay into the Simpson Bay Lagoon and anchored on the French side (the Lagoon is half French and half Dutch.) This gave us some relief from the ocean swell that often finds its way into Marigot, and also put us closer to the shops on the Dutch side. Our plan was to finally get to some projects we have been wanting to complete. The down side of the Lagoon is that it is not great for swimming off the boat. However, the kids were thrilled to be closer to Explorer Island to run wild with their friends.

On the birthday girl's day, we had a feed of Eggs Benedict and packed our bags to head out for the day. We took a short bus ride to Loterie Farm, which is a nature reserve and sanctuary (loteriefarm.com.) We spent a fabulous day zip lining and dining in the forest. For a full account of Wavey's birthday, please see her post in Wavey's Words.

Down the driveway to Loterie Farms

Zippity Do Da

High ropes

Family photo

Tightrope walking

Tree Lounge

A great day for a great girl!

I guess I used different muscles than everyone else during our day of zipping through the forest. The day after our treetop adventures, I was kinda sore. So, the crew left me to putter on the boat, and they ventured off to Explorer Island to do good deeds. They brought gloves and bags to pick up garbage for Earth Day.

It is tricky business cleaning up the island as kids find numerous uses for the garbage that gets dumped or washed up here regularly. They build forts, boats and other creations with the stuff. However, Simon and Wavey had no problem filling two big garbage bags with trash just from walking the trail that runs around the island. They also collected dozens of beer bottles that they threw into the big recycling bins onshore. It was a drop in the bucket, so to speak, but it felt good to do something positive.

Earth Day (under the garbage bags are tons of beer bottles)

On May 1st, we travelled to Philipsburg with our friends on the sailboat Fantasy to see the parade for the first day of Carnival on the Dutch side. The crew of Nahanni V had never been to a Caribbean carnival before, so it was a new experience for us all. It ran for about four hours through the town at a snail's pace, with LOUD music and wild costumes. When the decibel levels started to overwhelm us all, we retreated to the boardwalk to run on the beach and finally found some ice cream to keep us cool.

Arriving to catch up with the parade that had already started

Amazing pink!

Restroom attached to the floats - not sure how one gets in that little door with all those feathers

Shayla, Wavey, Simon, Teeanna and Caleb from Fantasy

Liam and Mom Shez

Simon and Liam playing on the street

Butterflies

Liam relaxing with an ice cream at the end of the day

Getting a bird's eye view of the parade after about 3 hours

A couple days later, we walked up to the Seaside Nature Park with the kids from Fantasy to see the horses there. It was a bit too pricey for riding, so all five kids volunteered to assist with the horses. The staff were great to let the kids help taking the horses from the field into the stable, and also to help with grooming. It was a great afternoon for this crew of horse lovers!

Horse lovers!

Wavey at work

Wavey, Shayla and Teeanna

Caleb and Wavey

Teeanna and Shayla

Grooming

We have also been doing a heap of school work, and catching up after some missed weeks earlier this winter. The kids have been enjoying a science unit on Biodiversity, which is quite easy to teach given that we are seeing it in action all around us where we live and play. We have got into quite a steady routine and there is lots of good learning happening around here.

When we are not on field trips, the kids' after school hours are spent rowing over to Explorer Island with friends, or sailing around the anchorage. They have made good friends with several kids and have endless ideas of things to build and create.

Departing for Explorer Island

It is amazing to me that we have got any work done with all of our activities, but we are happy to report that the list is getting a teensy bit shorter. I finally started sewing some cockpit cushions, and John is getting lots of tasks accomplished including wiring a new inverter, installing lazy jacks, repairing the jib halyard, and doing some repairs and maintenance.