More Bahamas

Long Island Bahamas

We took a side trip to Long Island.

Bahamas

Hola Amigos! I miss all of you, however I have been having a super duper time! From snorkeling to hanging out at the beach with my new cruising friends the fun never ends. I'll start with my new friends: AnnMarie,Brian,Brady,David,Sam,Chris,and Josh. It's really fun to actually have kids my age! The weather of course is ah-maz-ing. I can't remember a day yet that I have had to stay on the boat all day. Of course, I don't think my parents could keep me cooped up in our boat all day. I've been snorkeling on the reefs and seen some lion fish. So far, no one has been stung or pricked by the lion fish. They are an invasive species. The barracuda sightings are minimum surprisingly I've seen more sea turtles than barracudas. The sea turtles are everywhere, one swam right under me when I was on the reef. Did you you know when sea turtles have their heads above water they look like upside down pineapples!? Weird! Let me tell you one thing its short and simple. Hermit crabs pinch really hard when they get on your foot! I can't believe how dark a tan I have since I've been here. I've only worn my bathing suit and shorts most of the day. Okay I just need to say it: I CAN'T BELIEVE ON CHRISTMAS MORNING I WENT SWIMMING OUTSIDE AND THE WATER WAS WARM!!!!!! Well that's it for you chick-a-Dee's. Adios amigos and thanks for reading my blog. Later Gators and have a good uh... whatever the next holiday is! ; ) Geneva

Update from Erin - Well as you know we are in the Bahamas, Mon! We have been to some really cool, neat places! When we were in Shroud Cay, there was a little place up a little mangrove stream that we went up in our dingys. At the end of the stream, we made it to the ocean. It was there you could look out to a pool and it had really strong currents like a washing machine. When we tried to swim from one beach to the other the currents would take you away to the ocean where there was like 1 foot of water and where you would have to walk back to shore!
The first place we went was Chub Cay. There was a house there, if you walked to the upstairs it was house and downstairs it was a restaurant with only little tables and the bathroom also had a shower. That is how much of a house it was. Have you ever heard of the James Bond movie Thunder ball?? We went to Thunder ball cave!!!! It was soooo cool. It was an underwater cave that a bunch of fish followed us in and we fed them. Mark jumped from a hole in the top of the cave. It had to have been a 20 foot drop. There were holes underwater we would swim though. (I lost my fin a couple of times from the cave walls knocking it off). When we were at Wadrick Wells, there were blow holes on the top of the hills. When the tide came up they would blow and the wind coming up would be strong enough to take your hat off!
We did our normal Christmas Caroling through the anchorage. We had 3 dingies full of kids and went from boat to boat singing. We also decorated the boat with lights. We made a Christmas tree that went up the mast. It was great.

Florida - Getting ready for the Bahamas

This is a post by... Geneva!: Thank you, Thank you very much! a lot has happened over the last week or so where to begin....
Yea! We are finally in Florida and I'm in a bathing suit! This is the first time in Sandridge history that I, Geneva Anne Sandridge, is in a bathing suit for Thanksgiving and hopefully Christmas. I also want to say.. Happy Thanksgiving! well at least belated. For Thanksgiving we had fun but not as fun as seeing our cousins. Actually I think it was equal to the fun with our cousins and family. We had two Thanksgiving meals. One with friends Brian and Linda at their great home and a huge pot luck dinner at Vero Beach with around 150 people. Last year they had so much left overs they gave it to the homeless shelter! But they probably didn't have a lot this year now that the Sandridge family has been here! Any way, I was really glad we got to meet up with Brian and Linda. Let me tell you if I wanted to live in Florida that is probably the best house to buy!! They also graciously lent us their car to go to the zoo and cooked a phenomenal Thanksgiving type dinner! My favorite part was feeding the birds. Except when one pooped on my head, that was nasty. :) When we rafted at Vero beach it was the only place that sold bathing suits because it's, wait for it, "winter" isn't that's weird!? I mean it was like 80 degrees outside and they had UGG boots and parkas in the stores!! Also, we saw our friends Bird on a Wire for the last time today until February!! :( This is also our last post until who knows? ) So I just want to say a few things.... I'll miss you guys, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Happy Valentines day and all the other holidays between here and when we are back! Puppy Dog Chow! Peace.

Hey ya’ll!! It is Erin! I have to tell any one and everyone reading this that I will be in the Bahamas. Yea! We will only get Internet in some places.We will not update the blog very often, so sorry readers. I had to tell you that so you did not think that we fell off the face of the earth. We could but I am thinking not. This morning we had to part with our friends which we have been traveling with for a month now. It was a very sad event. We hope to see them again in a few months. Well anyway lets talk about happy things. We had such a great time with them. We would watch movies and play games all the time. We had a great time with them. We also got to see some of my dad and mom’s good friends, Brian and Linda. They brought us to their house. When you would walk in the front door there was a swimming pool that had a hot tub that drained into the pool by a little waterfall. They also gave us the best home cooked meal I have ever had. We also got to go to the zoo. We also fed the birds. They would sit on your back, your hand and your head, it was really cool. One bird sat on me and would not get off even when I ran out of food. It would nibble on my finger. It would go over to Geneva and nibble on her finger and always come back to me. I guess my finger tasted good.

We spent Thanksgiving at Vero Beach with about 150 other boats going south. It was great, we had a lot of food and a lot of people. Jack and Kris from our Marina came to visit and take us to lunch. It was great to see them, they bought Geneva and me chocolate peanut butter cream pie. Well that’s my update. You will get some soon so don’t be sad, smile!

Beaufort, SC, Jeklyll Island, Florida

Update From Erin: You know how it is supposed to be warm in Florida? Who ever said that and put the palm trees there was never in Florida. It is so cold here. In the morning you can see your breath. Although it is still warm enough for the warm blooded mammals. We have seen a lot of dolphins. They don't come all the way out of the water though. I wish they did. I only get to see the top fin.

I went kayaking in Beaufort, NC. When I was done, I tied it off. But the knot at the kayak end did not stay on. It fell off and now we are down one kayak (spelled back words is kayak). We also joined with our two cousins and grandparents. Mark the oldest one, with lots of black curly hair was taking pictures (like always) and stepped on an ant hill. This was no ordinary ant hill, it was a fire ant hill. He looked down to see the fire ants biting him and took pictures. Now he has marks from where they bit him. Now Mark has marks! We went to Jekyll Island, Georgia. On that island there had been a person named Hyde. Is that creepy or what? They also had a swimming pool. I had to go swimming of course! To make the story short, I jumped in and right back out. We met other kids on a boat named 'Bird on a Wire'. Their names are Kristen and Annie. The older one is Annie and the younger one is Kristen. We had a few sleepovers and taught them to rider our rip sticks. On Jekyll Island we also got to see the millionaire's club. It was where rich people spent their time in the winter. This was before ww2. Well that's all for now folks!

This is a post by Geneva: Hey y'all we have had the most... umm... I don't know what words to use but oh well! Anyway we have finaly met new people to travel with yay! But the amazing thing is they have kids and a dog (of course named Rudder) so double yay for that! Their names are Annie(12) and Kristen(9). We got to teach them how to Ripstik and let me tell you. They learned faster then me. But its nice to get to travel with someone to Florida. Oh, by the way did I tel you they are from Canada! Aww and we were just there for the North Channel! Oh well... Beaufort, SC was an exciting place. We made it just in time for the Veterans parade. We also got to meet up with my parents' friends the Costigans. I think they are going to travel with us to the Bahamas for Christmas, so thats awesome. They have a Catameran and three kids. Brady(13), Brian(9), and Annmarie(12). Soooo thats really all I can think of thats been super exciting except we got to explore this awsome island and I stepped on a cactus(it hurt), saw dolphins, a dead bird, a run over armidillo(how nice). And my message for school? Kids stay in school! Later Peeps! Peace! : )

New Bern layover

Within the time that I wrote on the blog last and now, we have been in North Carolina. Our two cousins, Mark and Brendon have joined us on our grandparents boat. My grandparents are also travelling with us. We got to stay two weeks at my grandparents house in North Carolina. It was cold there. Well, cold for North Carolina. It was 32 degrees!!!!!! We had some friends down near where my grandparents lived and they drove us to a military base camp with a beach to search for shark teeth. There were a lot of shark teeth. We hope to be in South Carolina soon. Including South Carolina, I have been to 7 states in the U.S. Plus I got to go to Canada! We are now on the tip of Myrtle Beach. Having fun and hope you are too. My dad and mom got to see people that they had traveled with 20 years ago. They talked to them and I got to play with there dog.
Erin out.

This is a post by Geneva: Hey! Sorry I haven't been writing lately but I have a lot to tell all of you Where to start..... oh I know! We went to the one and only Camp LeJeune!!! Yay!!! Folks, this Marine base is huge when you get there the only thing you here is BOOOMMM, hey look at the that Tank crossing the road! Hey look at the beautiful..... beaches?! Yes its true they have beaches. We figured that out when Al and Jean graciously took us there and found shark teeth! It's was so cool because since the beaches are closed to the public there are shark teeth everywhere! Of course we would have walked by all of them if the lovely Sue hadn't shown us what they looked like (little black, pointy,triangular rocks). I got at least 30. Also during that week we saw Al and Jean at their lovely house (I love your house!!) with of course Aurora their dog! We got to see Mark and Sue in the awesome, quaint, rockin' f.r.o.g room house!! Now I'm not going to brag or anything but this is how you should live..... IN THE BAHAMAS and ANY PLACE WARM!! You know how up North everyone has those brick houses or a brown house.... well these Southern people know how to live! Bright pink bases, red roofs, 5 story, wrap around porches..... I think I can get used to this! See you later Alligators! Now you say "After while Crocodile!"

Washington DC

Hi from Erin! We are now in Washington DC. There is a lot to see and do. I don’t think that we could see everything here. It would be impossible. We have gone to a lot of places like the Air and Space Museum. It was very neat. There were a lot of things to see. We saw the first rocket to go to the moon. They had it in a plastic thing so you could not take pieces of it home. We rode Air Force plane simulators. They were fun. You would feel like you were in an actual plane. You could go upside-down and sideways. It was the most amazing thing ever. You could get seasick.

There were a lot of facts on World War 2 and all the monuments. We also went to the spy museum. That was really good. We got an under cover name that a spy had actually used. They showed how to pick locks and what kind of gadgets they used, like the shoe phone. They also had the brief case recorder and the tie camera. They had a American Seal carved out of wood for a senator, given to him by Russian school children. It had been bugged and the Senator didn't know it. It sat in the senator's office for 32 years. This happened in the 1940’s.

We went in the Capital building when the 700$ billion bail out was happening. We watched our taxes burn with the helicopters that carry the president places. The helicopters have to fly right above the river because they can not fly near the near the airport on one side of the river. So they fly down the river right over our boat. They have to fly below 500 feet, so they are very loud. Nice wake up call though. I guess that the president likes to do his work early. We went to the Natural History Museum today; we got to see some beautiful gems, diamonds, and the new ocean exhibit. We also saw the butterfly exhibit. A butterfly landed on my hat and would not get off so I named her Kelly.
Now going back about a week, we were in Baltimore, Maryland. That was a really neat place. We went to the Aquarium. It was huge. We saw the dolphin show. The dolphins were amazing they could do so many tricks. They had a lot of fish. We got to see them feed the sting rays. We got to see them feed the sharks too, that was cool.

We also met my dad’s friend, Brian and had dinner at his apartment and play Wii.

The Baltimore Harbor also had a trapeze training school in the park next to us. We watched the final exams every night to see who could do a flip from on bar to the other. It was pretty exciting. Well that all for now folks!