Tag Archives: sailing with kids

Shenanigans on Shawnigan 01/27/2016

A day or week on Shawnigan with all its shenanigans anchored in Bahia Tenacatita:

We usually wake up with the sun, which lately occurs around 7:30 am. We seem to drag getting out of bed until 8:00 am. Tenacatita is a great anchorage for swimming, so I’ve been going for a swim first thing. Christian is left in charge of breakfast, coffee and getting the kids started with boat school.

I hop in the water with just my suit and a rash guard to keep the jelly stings to a minimum. Lately I’ve been using my mask and snorkel instead of cap and goggles in order to admire the underwater scene more as I swim along and keep and eye out for sharks. I also enjoy being able to get my heart rate up and breath whenever I want. Sometimes I prefer cap and goggles to get me into a more meditative swim. I notice that when I swim with cap and goggles I hold my breath with a meditative rhythm, with obvious benifits as well. Yesterday, I swam over a school of 9 Southern Stingrays as well as multiple large Jacks and various other beautiful colored fish. My morning swim averages about 45 minutes.

I make sure to return to the boat in time to catch “the net”. The Net is the morning VHF radio check in that occurs in popular cruising ports. Six days a week people alternate who takes the Net Controller roll. The last 5 days that we spent in Tenacatita the Net Controller position has been filled by various kids on boats. Nina did it twice! The Net is usually over by 9:30 and the kids are well into boat school. If there are other kid boats around like Tenacatita has been, our girls like to start school early, before Christian and I are out of bed, so that they can be ready to play by lunch time. Math and English and art are in the daily lesson plan. Science, history, foreign language and music are placed in on different days during the week. We have the kids alternate weeks on helping cook meals and they each have various boat cleaning duties that are completed before play time with other boat kids.

Christian gets out for his time alone/exercise sometime after his coffee and breakfast. Tenacatita is lacking in surfing opportunities, so he’s been going free diving and spear fishing. One day he helped lead a class on knots for a group boat schooling lesson. He’s also been our coconut retriever. Coco frio is a favorite on our boat, especially a fresh picked one on a hot sunny day on the beach. What a rough life.

We anchored in Tenacatita a few weeks ago, went to Barra Navidad for a week then returned to Tenacatita after hearing about all the kid boats that were reportedly anchored. Sure enough there were four other kid boats when we arrived and at one point a total of 13 kids! We also had a day were we counted 46 boats in the anchorage. Fun times! And thanks to the Mayor and his wife (Robert and Virginia Gleser), there are activities and raft ups to bring the boating community together.

We met many wonderful sailors and a few that have already circumnavigated the world. One in particular just finished a 25 year circumnavigation, a couple named Doreen and Michael Ferguson on SV St. Leger. Another couple, Monica and Jack, on junk rigged SV Bella Via turned out to know Christian’s dad Gene Lauducci. Gene had repaired their sails about 30 years ago when they sailed through Sausalito. They had so many great stories to share about Christian’s dad. I mentioned before “The Mayor” Robert and Virginia Gleser. They also have a interesting story and a few books written (Harmony on the High Seas, and Tie-dye!, the How to Book)I was happy to have an extensive conversation with Virginia about “The Farm“, with which they helped form and worked closely with Ina May Gaskin, the midwife guru! Virginia wrote books about the farm as well as sailing. The couple also make beautiful tie-dyed pieces that they sell. One day, Virginia had a tie-dye workshop on the beach. The kids loved it. The sailing community can make the world seem small sometimes. We met a John and Donna on SV Carmanah (aka “The Tin Man). Turns out that he was the swim coach in Bainbridge Island and remembers my older cousin Joy Archer in the swim team. He also know Joy’s daughter Shayla, as she is quite a swimmer as well. Upon making the connection, John stated, “I see family resemblance! And watching you swim out in the anchorage, swimming must run in the family genes as well!” Small world!

Other than that, we made daily trips to the beach and dinghy rides up the mangroves and a group trip to La Manzanilla to re-provision and hike to a water hole. That pretty much sums up our time in Bahia Tenacatita. We’re now back in Barra de Navidad, where wifi is more abundant and street tamales and tacos are amazing. Hopefully we can add a little more surf activity to our agenda.

Tie Dye with Virginia Gleser

Virginia and William from SV Agamére

Knot tying class:

Casey on Chae Mi teaching knots

SV Banyon girls

Nina learning through leading

Tenacatita The Mayor’s Dinghy Raft Up

Wild Rumpus, Agamere, Shawnigan

Kiwi 3

Bocce ball with coconuts

Full moon over Tenacatita

Santa Cruz Island and Santa Catalina Island

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Sunday, October 11, we sailed out to Pelican Bay on Santa Cruz Island. Along the sail we spotted a Mola Mola leaping out of the water. It was amazing! When we first arrived at Pelican, there were 7 other boats. A little crowded, but manageable with bow and stern anchor. It was Colombus Day on Monday, so everyone left by the next afternoon. In the mean time, we boatschooled, snorkeled, boatschooled, and norkeled more. We were on Island time now!

Much to our surprise our new sailing family friends, SV Agamére, on our big sister boat (Stevens 47), arrived that Monday afternoon. The kids were so excited to be reunited with their buddies that they had met in Morro Bay. We were also excited to have other adults to converse with.

We basically just boatschooled, snorkeled and practiced our free diving. The water temp was near 70-72 while we were there. A perfect environment for the kids to get comfortable in the water again. Nina’s PR last year was 23 feet, she set a new PR of 32 feet! Ellamae is now diving down around 10 feet as well. Taj hasn’t braved the water yet, but he loves paddling around in his kayak. We anchor the kayak near were we snorkel, giving him a little freedom to paddle around.

From Pelican, we buddy boated with Agamére over to Little Scorpion Anchorage, where we ended up having a potluck together, cooking five fish that we collectively caught that day for fish tacos. It was a fish medley; 1 Kelp Bass, 1 Black Rock Cod, 2 Tree Fish Cod, and 1 Sierra. Christian caught the Bass and one Tree Fish with his spear gun. I caught one tree fish and the Black Rock Cod with a pole spear. The Sierra was caught by SV Agamére. Needless to say, dinner was amazing and we managed to fit all 10 of us comfortably on their boat.

The next day after snorkeling with seals and many other fish in Scorpion Bay, we sailed over to Smugglers Cove for even more snorkeling in 40+ visability!

On Thursday we sailed to Lovers Cove on Catalina, also know as Isthmus or Two Harbors. We anchored in 60 feet of water and again the visability was about 40 feet and water temp about 73F . The Marine Science Center on the Island reported temps getting up to 80F!

Friday’s field trip for boatshooling included a hike to USC’s Wrigly Marine Science Center for a tour of the fish tanks and detailed talk on all the sea creatures of Catalina.

First day of boat schooling

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We were going to wait until tomorrow to start (today was suppose to be teacher meeting day between Christian and I), but the girls just could not wait! The two lessons today included picking an animal in nature, drawing it, and then a report to work on over the next few days. Animal of choice, the Clark’s Grebe. The second , math. Both girls were so eager to do math! Makes teaching easy. Loving this.