Kids’ Blog

Spain

by Dorian

When we got to Spain, we went to a town to look for flippers and snorkels.  We found a great place that had flippers, snorkels, sand buckets and spades.  After that, we went to the beach to try them out.  We saw a lot of fish.

The next day, we met up with some of my dad’s friends. They had four kids – all of them BOYS!  We went sailing with them.  While we were sailing, we took turns zooming around in the dinghy.  Later, we went to the beach with them and caught a lot of crabs and put them in one of our buckets.  One of the crabs was quite hairy.

The next day we went to their house which was nearby.  Their house was a 2-storey, stone house that was really fun!  We played in the boys’ rooms for a while and then we went into their pool.  We puffed up a floating whale and played a game where we had to try and stay on the whale without falling off.  In the end, EVERYONE fell off!  We had a very good time playing with them!

On our last day in Spain (until we get to the Canary Islands!), we went to get ice cream at a very fun place!  They let us have half of one flavour and half of another.  I chose half pistachio and half lemon.  The pistachio was my favourite!  Each half scoop was very big! Overall, it was the biggest and best ice cream that I have ever had!

All in all, it was a great time in Spain!

– Dorian (9)

Bay of Biscay whales

by Dorian

When we went to go across the Bay of Biscay, we saw a lot of whales! We think that we saw fin whales (or finback whales).They are the second biggest whales in the world – after the blue whale.  Daddy saw one whale breech. We all saw lots of whales squirt mist. It was really great to see something which we never saw before!

– Dorian (9)

Bay of Biscay (PASSAGE)

Finback whales

Bay of Biscay surprises

by Anneka

Roly-poly stories
I was quite worried about the Bay of Biscay for many reasons. First of all, our last overnight trip was crazy! It was extremely windy and rocky the whole time. It was even too rocky to see many dolphins. Second, there have been songs that say “…the Bay of Biscay swells will knock your head from off your shoulders.” Third, we met a family who told us that this was no joke.

Opposite of the songs
Our version of the Bay of Biscay was not at all windy. There was no wind in sight, not any waves, and it looked totally calm. We motored for sixty hours but it was still fun because we had a swim call! Everyone jumped in the water and splashed about. Not too many people can say they’ve done that.

Whales and dolphins
The one good thing that came from the calmness of the sea was dolphin and whale sightings. We saw lots of wildlife while on this trip. We saw at least one hundred dolphins and at least two whales a day. It was amazing! Whenever we saw a flock of birds on the water this far out at sea, we knew it was for only one thing — fish! And whenever there is fish, there are dolphins! And the fish eat smaller fish, and the smaller fish eat things like krill and plankton, and whales eat krill and plankton. All the wildlife could be seen in one spot!

A surprisingly FLAT Bay of Biscay!
Dolphins – easy to see in the calm water!

Land ho!
We spotted land at about 5:00 in the morning. Even though Chris, mum, and Rob saw the lighthouse before that, my dad and Dorian were the first to shout “Land Ho!” It was the north tip of Spain. It looked like just a tiny sliver on the horizon (and I knew we wouldn’t be there for many hours), but I felt happy to smell the greenness and flowers of the earth. At first, I just felt relieved after five days at sea, but when I set foot on the still ground, I felt a feeling of accomplishment and I was proud to have crossed the Bay of Biscay!

– Anneka (11)

A silly Scilly birthday

by Dorian

I turned nine just before we got to the Isles of Scilly. On that day, we saw a whole pod of dolphins. We think we saw about 75 dolphins!

 

When we got to the Isles of Scilly, we looked around and we found a good ice cream shop to go to for my birthday.

Ice cream with a view!
Messy sister
Yum-yum!

We went to a beach and saw a lot of kids. It was the last day of school for them. They went to the Five Islands School and they were having a fun day at the beach for their last day. One boy was digging a giant hole. He dug so deep that some water was filling it from the bottom!  The kids told us that the P7s always play a prank on the school in the last week. This year, they put the bins on the roof! I think that was a funny prank!

– Dorian (9!)

25 days to go!

by Anneka

I totally freaked out the other day when I found out that there were only 25 days until we leave on our big adventure.  I cannot say that I am nervous about it all, because I am not.  I have to say that I am mostly excited about millions of things: sunny beaches, warm weather, and dolphins!!!  However, I am most excited about spending so much time with my family (and of course having only 4.5 days of school per week instead of 5!).

I am nervous about a few little things because I have never done this before.  Knowing that my parents did a similar trip before I was born makes me feel like they know what’s up.dolphins

I am SO excited about dolphins.  Once we went out and saw a few dolphins swimming about in the front of the boat.  I thought that it was totally the best thing ever!  But my parents told me that during the trip we would see at least triple th
e amount of dolphins right in front of boat, jumping about in the bow waves.  This sounded awesome!

My mum and dad have both shown me pictures of sunny beaches and blue waters.  I said “That looks so cool!  I wish that we could go there!” – and then they told me that we WERE going to go to those places on our trip.  Many people never get a chance to go to places like that. We are going to get to see so many things next year.  I am such a lucky kid!  🙂

– Anneka (10)