Lighthouse visit

Today we climbed the lighthouse at Cape Lookout. It was fun and we could see really far. We also got to touch and hear about a whole cart full of animal parts like turtle skulls, baleen, and different shells.

 

Conrad's first blog post

This is a blog post by Conrad, who is six, about our trip to the Miami Metro Zoo. He typed it and took some of the animal pictures himself.





Yesterday we went to the zoo. After lunch me and my brother climbed the giant rock and jumped off. It was fun. My brother said it was scary. I climbed the high part. There is even a little cave.



It was weird. The cranes legs bend forward. [Saddle bill crane.]



The zoo was fun now it was time to go.

Treasure hunting with friends

Our friends who live nearby came to visit and introduced us to geocaching. We had heard about it but had never tried it before.  We had so much fun. We took the dinghy to the jungle-park across the way and found a cache with a travel bug that we will drop off in the Bahamas. Then we found two more really creative caches along the river. We look forward to finding more as we sail around.

Pet spiders

 

We are not buying any pets right now because we are not sure what the various customs regulations will be for bringing animals into other countries. So the boys are making due with natural pets. They have captured two pet spiders named "Spidey" and "Web." The two ginormous ones in the picture are not the ones in their jar, thank goodness. They have been capturing ants to feed their pet spiders and have been researching the various types of spiders and their characteristics. Life aboard our boat is not for the squeamish.

Mark and Conrad navigating

They are not really navigating yet, but someday they will. Also, Conrad is very excited about being old enough to do watches. In preparation he is working on improving his night vision by eating more carrots. He is also making a list of the snacks he will need while on watch.

Right now, we are taking advantage of the decent internet connection to do some computer based learning.

For a video tour of the boat, hop over to www.svperry.com to see the boys talking about life aboard for kids (as Conrad says, "It's a hard life").

Gung hay fat choy (Happy New Year)

Today we made paper lanterns and dragon masks to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Mom is of Korean descent, not Chinese, but Korea also uses the same moon calendar. Most people from Korea have a regular birthday and a "moon" birthday. Then we watched "Pocahontas".

Field trip

The Museum of Discovery and Science rivals any of the children's museums in Chicago. It has lots of hands on exhibits (there must be more kid-friendly flight simulators than anywhere else in the world). There is a big climbing maze, some live animals and insects, and a thrilling fake air boat ride through the Everglades with wind and mist. There is an IMAX theater where we saw coral reefs in 3D. There was an orange picking exhibit where we spent 2 hours (it is a lot cooler than it sounds). And the best part is that it was almost totally empty.

Watering the manatees

The pictures are from Brookfield zoo in November. The sea otter kept coming up to Conrad and playing with him through the glass (we think), trying to bite him. We haven't been to the zoo since then but we have seen lots of animals.

Today we sprayed the hose into the water near a manatee and it came over to lay on its back and drink from the hose. It was big--maybe 8 feet long--and had one of the propeller scars on its back from being hit by a boat motor. It really liked having the water run over its body, especially its belly. It hung around for a long time, even after we turned off the hose. Unfortunately, we didn't get any pictures because it was already dark.

Yay--bikes!

We saw a raised bridge up close. The
bridges open a lot to let boats through

We finished loading everything from our moving pod into the boat. Almost everything fit, including Mark and Conrad's bikes, which they rode along the New River Walk. They remembered how to ride. Re-learning how to stop took a few tries. Tomorrow we will be taking several boxes to Goodwill, mostly filled with stuff that came with the boat. There were a lot of pillows on the boat. And candles.

 

"Take a picture of me pulling my face. Now let me see!"

Goodbye to friends

A page from Mark's goodbye book. Conrad kind
 of looks like he's strangling  Mark, doesn't he?

Mark and Conrad's last day at school was Friday. The teachers at Mark's school put together the traditional goodbye book with drawings from his classmates. One example, "I will miss you Mark. I hope you come Wednesday and Tuesday for a visit." Others were also specific about what days he should come. It was very sweet.

Conrad brought goody bags for his classmates and Mom was the Secret Reader (the clue that gave her away was that she likes to eat spaghetti and pickles for breakfast; no, she is not expecting).

He will really miss his best friend Nolan. There will be trade-offs with this boat thing, for sure.