art on the beach

Wednesday was a quiet day with no real plans except to keep the kids entertained. Our kids invited the "Dolphin" kids over to swing off the spinnaker pole into the water. The splashing attracted kids from other boats and pretty soon a party materialized on our side deck. We had made plans to go to the hotel restaurant for an early pizza dinner. We got cleaned up and into shore around 5:15, only to find out that they only serve pizza at lunch and the restaurant doesn't open for dinner until 7. It's so disappointing to think I don't have to fix dinner and then have to. So in typical cruiser fashion, we organized an impromptu potluck and had a really nice dinner on 3T. 3T is a 60 foot ketch that was rumored to have belonged to Walter Kronkite once upon a time. It's very nice and roomy. They are a Norwegian family who bought the boat in America and set sail from the east coast. Their girls are 6 & 8, so Ellie is really enjoying them. Eva has a masters degree in fine arts and is sharing her talents with the kids. On Thursday morning she held an art class on the beach for all the kids. Eleven kids participated in a 2 hour session of learning and painting. She showed them some Monets and explained about color and brush strokes. The subject was a bouquet of the beautiful red hibiscus that grow everywhere here. Each kid was given black, white, blue, red and yellow paint to mix into whatever colors they want. She gave them all pointers and then critiqued each work in a very positive way. Imagine 11 kids under the age of 10 all quiet for over an hour. It was great, except for the chain sawing going on at a nearby house.

Later in the afternoon, we returned to the village about 8 miles north and finished up some banking and errands. Then we moved back to the middle anchorage on Friday to finish seeing some sights that we missed the first time. Jorja, an Australian kid boat is here and Dolphins and Ocean Breezes will join us today. The beach is terrific. It's the sight of a hotel that was wiped out in a cyclone in the late 90's. Only the pool and a shell of the restaurant are left. A caretaker protects the land and is very kind to cruisers. The land is planted with bananas, papaya, star fruit, oranges and beautiful flowers. He offered us as much as we wanted and gave us a tour up to a lookout. The arrangement of bird of paradise flowers I picked is spectacular. I haven't had fresh flowers the whole trip. His grandfather used to own all the land in the valley, but some was sold off to the hotel. Now he and his cousin own about half of the area.

We plan to finish up our sight seeing here today and sail with Dolphins and Ocean Breezes to the next island soon.

-kellie