Enjoying the sun

 

      I just had to do a couple of pictures on here today--partly because I seem to forget to post pictures, and mostly because these just epitomize my kids and how they have adjusted to boat life already!

Levi decided it was too nice a day to be cooped up inside
even if he did have math work still to finish!

And Rachael decided to grab one of her
books and follow suit.

    

      This is one of those days that make me glad to live on a boat, especially after those stormy days we had last week! It also frankly makes me long for the days ahead when we will be in warmer waters, not tied to a dock, but hopefully bobbing at anchor. We're hoping for that to happen in about a year and a half, but it all depends on work and how much we can put into the cruising kitty in the interim. 

     I'm beginning to wonder what I can do to step up my writing and blogging game to help contribute so Joe doesn't feel like the burden of earning is all on him. I know I don't have a ton of readers yet, but for those are reading this, I would love any suggestions on improving readability, aside from the obvious of writing more often! :)

We survived!

     Yes, I feel like that is an appropriate title! The Northwest received two big windstorms this past week--one that hit Thursday morning and one yesterday (Sunday). You can read a bit about the one Thursday here. That one was crazy for us mainly because we somehow were not prepared for it. We heard about high winds coming to the Seattle area, but somehow we missed the memo that it was coming to our area as well. As it was, Joe and I were awake periodically from about 1 am to 4 am, when one of our docklines broke because of the storm surge!

Here comes number three!

    Storm number three for the week is settling in around here. Figures, since my parents are coming to visit this weekend... The one upshot is that it gives me an excuse to not drag the--um, what can I nicely call it? That lovely device that cleans out our holding tank? Anyway, it's too windy for me to have any desire to haul that thing over here and suck out the tank.
     In the meantime, these windstorms are doing one thing--helping us get used to this rock n roll life known as living on a boat. Kyrie does do some rocking in this wind, but nothing like some of the other boats. It's amazing to me how quickly this has become normal. I remember other times being out on Shiva and after we hit dry land again, it felt like everything was moving. Not anymore! Even now, looking out the windows and seeing how everything is moving doesn't bother me. As a matter of fact, I'm sitting here on my bed, watching all the boats bouncing up and down, knowing Kyrie is doing the same thing and I feel fine! In the past, I have had some seasickness to deal with, and that made me nervous, going into living on a boat. I'm sure there will still be plenty of options while underway somewhere for the queasiness to set in, but I'm glad my system is off to a good start adjusting. The kids all seem to be dealing with the motion fine, and even Desi, who frankly I was the most worried about, doesn't seem to mind!
       Hopefully this storm will blow itself out soon. I'll have to go double check the dock lines, just to make sure they haven't loosened at all.

Beach day and a science lesson!

     It's supposed to rain all the rest of this week, but this morning was decent, although cold, so the kids and I headed out to the head of Semiahmoo Spit to play on the beach. Playing on the beach around here is like playing on the beach at Auke Rec, for all my Juneau friends. It's a rock beach, covered in stones of all sizes, rubbed smooth by the waves, shells in all manner of condition, including our find of the day!

     Rachael had been scouring the beach for shells while Levi threw rocks in the water and I tried to keep Megan from sucking on the rocks she was looking at. She found a bunch of crab pieces and kept bringing them to me to hold on to. Then she discovered a whole crab!

  

The first crab Rachael found

Still life of beach finds

     This little girl of mine is fearless when it comes to stuff found on the ground. She is the one who rescues worms from the pavement and returns them to the grass. She found the rolly-polly on the bridge out to the beach and wanted to pick it up. And she had zero problems picking up what turned out to be a dead crab. I sat in amazement as she stared at it on the beach for a moment, before using a stick to flip it over to make sure it was really dead. Once she had flipped it back and forth a few times and was satisfied, she picked it up and brought it to me so I could see it too.

      Rachael set it down long enough for me to take the picture of the crab with some of the other shells we found, and then, to my surprise, she picked it up and carted that dead crab with her all over the beach! She decided to see if it would float in the water, which it did. She admonished her brother not to throw rocks near her and the crab because she didn't want it to get broken. Between handing rocks to Megan for her to look at, watching Levi throw rocks as far as he could in the water (and hoping the ducks had the sense to stay far away!) and watching Rachael play with the crab, I had an rather amusing time this morning!

      When it was time to leave, we made one more discovery--another crab body waved at us from under a big log. No surprise, Rachael ran over and picked that one up as well. We all looked at both crabs, comparing the sizes of the claws. Levi asked if we could look up crabs on the internet when we got back home. Hello science lesson! 

These are Dungeness crabs that Rachael found. The abdominal flap tells us the sex of each one. In this picture, the male is on the left, with the narrow abdominal flap, while the female on the right has a wider flap.

     I asked Levi to write something after he read about Dungeness crabs and here is exactly what he wrote:

   "We were at the beach today when Rachael found a Dungeness crab and here is something interesting about the crab. Female crabs molt right before she mates with a male. After that they prepare to have babies. The female crab lays eggs, but they remain unhatched for a few months, attached under her stomach."