Savannah

Savannah Sails - the final chapter

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 22:21:00 +0000

So this is it, the final chapter… Savannah has officially been SOLD. We are ecstatic after a year of waiting, reducing the price, getting our hopes up, being disappointed, being patient, reducing the price again… you get the picture. Selling a boat is not for the faint of heart. At the same time, I have tears in my eyes typing this. The Savannah book has been closed.

While parts of this transition have been way easier than it should have been, I think from a cruising perspective, being in limbo has been the worst. Any time we go to make a big decision – should we move? Should we buy Andy a new truck? Should we buy a house? – it’s always…”well if the boat would sell…..” And then when one of us has a bad day, there’s “we can always hop back on the boat” and then we spend hours trying to figure out how we could actually make that work.

We wish the new owner fair winds and hope maybe we get to see her again some day… wouldn’t that be funny? (Jake swears he’s going to buy her back when he gets older)

A funny story, we finally decided to bite the bullet and put a contract on a house (more on that in a minute). The VERY NEXT MORNING, I wake up to an email from our broker in Malaysia saying we had finally sold Savannah. How’s that for timing?

After much deliberation we have decided to move away from the ocean and move closer to my family in GA. Assuming all goes through on the house, we’ll be living an hour or so away on a beautiful river (of course we had to have water somewhere), 7+ acres of land, and wait for it…. two wineries less than 5 miles away. Other than the wineries though, we’re out in the sticks. It seems the one thing about cruising that stuck with all of us is isolation, we’re good with it and most of the family prefers it (the male portion).

I know I haven’t written in forever and really didn’t live up to my promise of keeping everyone up to date on the day to day happenings of re-entering society, but once you’re here on land, you suddenly realize you don’t really have a whole lot to tell and you second guess why anyone would want to read about your silly little life anyway.

I did take a few key things away from this experience:

Our outlook on life has been changed forever. We had a few obstacles thrown at us this year that would have sent me into a depression 6 years ago. Now, I just had a few good cries, put my big girl pants on and went about fixing things. In the end, it could always be worse and I truly believe everything happens for a reason. We are, on the whole, much more positive people (not that I think we were really all that negative to start with).
I realize this will be a revelation that contradicts itself… I really do like stuff. And I really have a hard time buying new stuff. I love pretty things, love decorating, love shopping and am really sad about some of the stuff I got rid of years ago (yes, I do remember). But I cannot for the life of me bring myself to pay 2016 prices and I feel as guilty as the day is long when I see myself starting to collect things. It sucks the pretty right out of those things. This one is going to take a while to recover from.
Finally, my kid is amazing and I owe most of it to the cruising life style. He’s adaptable, he’s smart, mature, witty, and extremely well behaved. Some of that was hard work on our part, but such a large part can be attributed to the diverse environment he has been raised in and the wonderful people we met along the way.
Finally, Finally, My husband is also awesome, for the record, but I think everyone new that….

Andy and I do, truly realize how blessed we are and are looking forward to this next phase in life. Thank you all for following us, whether it was over years, or just a few months. You made our days at sea shorter and boosted our egos more than once. I’m sure the prayers we got carried us further than we know. And thanks to all of those cruisers that came before us (and kept blogs so I could be convinced to leave) and will come after us (please keep a blog so I can read it!). It’s getting less and less free out there and the risks are just different than they were 20 years ago, or even when we started. But there’s still so much to see and experience. It’s our turn now to see and experience home. Wish us luck.

Savannah out.

Still adjusting??? Summer in Florida

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:03:00 +0000

We try to go to the beach every week, reminds us how
lucky we still are.

It’s been awhile since we posted. Lots of things have happened and lots of stuff still happening… I’ve changed jobs, Jake has started school, and Andy has started his job search after being a much needed stay at home dad all summer.

Lots of stuff has been wonderful…we see my family relatively often. I have an iPhone and can text my best friend whenever I want. I can even push that stupid handset button and hear her voice every once in a while! I can order a pizza with nothing but an emoji, and believe it or not, I know what an emoji is!

Blowing out his candles on the specially requested (and
very delicious, strawberry cake made my mother.

Jake just celebrated his 10^th birthday. I cannot believe he is 10 years old. We left San Diego when he was 4 ½ and now I have a double digit kid. Wow. I don’t know how much of it is because of us, his experience traveling with us, genetics, or just plain luck, but Andy and I have the best kid ever. As many changes as we’ve gone through in the last six months, that little guy just rolls with the punches. We try to take his lead even when not all in the 1^st world is what we had hoped for…

Savannah hasn’t sold yet, so there’s that. We now have bills and lots of “stuff.” Anyone who’s been to our house will laugh at that as we have one room that is completely empty and with the exception of Jake’s bedroom, all the bedrooms are just that, rooms with beds in them. Our clothes are in those big tupperware like containers on the floor. So when I say “lots of stuff,” that’s by cruiser standards… But repurchasing your entire house…just think that through…

The psychological part has been harder than I thought. I feel lost sometimes. I sit at my desk and think, really? My days are filled with powerpoints, project plans and conference calls. Really? I still get overwhelmed at the store…particularly with fashion. I don’t know if the fashion trends these days are just really bad or if I was off the grid so long, I just can’t get back in. I used to like shopping for clothes…now I just get overwhelmed. I work from home now so I don’t feel quite as lost as I wear my “boat” clothes all day and don’t have to fix my hair or wear makeup. In that way, my tension is released…I don’t have to figure out what to wear or if I look “cute” today. Andy doesn’t care and truth be told, is still hanging on to a few of those short/t-shirt combos that probably should have stayed in Malaysia!

Jake has taken up Taekwondo...like father, like son

I find myself trying not to judge people on their choices, which is very hard. The things people complain about blow my mind, but at the same time, I find myself falling into old habit as well, always in a rush and trying to do everything myself (The bagel place down the street from us is THE slowest business in the US, and why can’t I just leave the towels folded the way Andy does them? Nevermind they don’t look pretty in the cabinet and its different with every load.). Andy’s missing the diving, the boat driving, all the critters and truth be told, all that whining about boats breaking down and pressure with being totally responsible for us… he misses all that and more. He likes being Captain. Some days I think if we could figure it out, we would be back on the boat quicker than American Airlines could get us there….

I'm not sure how long I'll keep updating the but do know I'm not ready to stop just yet. If you're still reading, I'll still write...

Continuing our re-integration into "Normal" life

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 19:26:00 +0000

Jake, engaged in his "required" summer reading while
camping with Andy.

So what happens after we buy cars, rent homes and find jobs? Jake goes to school of course!

That was a question I got quite often..."Will you keep homeschooling Jake or will he go to school?" While I would truly love to continue homeschooling, I think given our circumstances, it's in everyone's best interest for us to give the public school system here in Florida a shot. That process has been a real eye-opener for me.

In talking to other cruising families that have made the transition back to land, I was under the impression that it would be a fairly easy process. I don't know if FL is just different or what, but it has been a royal pain in our butts to get things started.

Our first step was to get Jake registered. Sounds easy enough...fill out some forms, get some shots, well visit, etc. (Incidentally, all those shots Jake got before we left have left him so vaccinated that 6 years later, he's still good). There's one thing that put a kink in things. Jake's birthday is in September. He's that 9 year old that can either go in the fourth grade and be the oldest kid in class, or go in the fifth grade and be the youngest kid in the class. Andy and I have spent many hours discussing this and feel that the fourth grade is where he needs to be. He's never been in a formal school and doesn't know the ins and outs of that whole routine. While he's ahead in many areas and would probably do well in the fifth grade, there are some key areas where I feel he would just get frustrated and needs further instruction (anyone that went to school with me will find it no surprise that writing is not my kid's favorite subject). And while I hate to even imply that he's not been "socialized" (indeed he's one of the most social kids I know), the fact is, he has way more experience with adults than kids and I think it will take him some time to get used to the types of interactions he'll have with kids his age.

I communicate all of this to the registrar. They didn't want to take my word for it. They were worried he might be bored. OK, so that' s new one...I thought sure recommending he go in the lower grade would get me out of any extensive process. Not so....She informed me that I needed to create a "portfolio" for Jake. She explained that I needed to provide samples of his work, a summary of his situation, details about what he knows, what he doesn't know, his learning style and numerous other items. I stressed a bit about this, but did think it was a good idea and if they insisted on assessing him for the fifth grade, this would be a good way to do it.

Imagine my surprise when I get an email from the assistant principal asking me what day is good for Jake to come take his "tests." Huh? Tests? Who said anything about tests? It turns out they wanted to test him in reading, writing, math, science and language arts. In one week. Have I mentioned that Jake has NEVER sat for a standardized test before?

The next week was a huge stress fest...Long story short, after a few tests and a little boy in tears, they decided I was right and he should go into the fourth grade (For the record - Jake would want me to tell you this - he did REALLY well in reading....proud, proud mama). I tried hard not to get Jake stressed out because of my feelings but I don't think I was very successful. But if you get right down to it, it was a test for me...did I do him justice? Did I do my best so that he can do his best? Should I have been more strict? Less "field trips," more "structure?" I hate to fail on my own...but I really hate to fail my kid. In the end, I still feel confident of our decisions and I think the result is exactly what we hoped for...it just could have been easier to get there.

I'm only sharing this to help prepare any others for the whole re-entry process...I know he's smart, I know why they wanted to test him, I get it...I just didn't think it was a good idea.

But now he's all ready to go. We have new school clothes, lunch box, supplies, etc. He's excited (sort of) about making new friends and learning from someone besides his dad and me. And I'm excited for him. I loved elementary school. I loved riding the bus. I loved playing with my friends. And I loved my teachers. I hope it's the same for him.

Here are some pics from a camping trip Andy and Jake went on recently....

We traded our crocs for alligators.

Catching tadpoles

They brought a whole cooler of these home to release in our
pond out back. They thought we needed bullfrogs.

Our Favorite Places

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Fri, 22 May 2015 21:05:00 +0000

Jake and all the local kids on Savannah.
Raroia, Tuamotus, 2011

Everywhere we go, the top question is "What was your favorite place?" What a hard question! Sixteen countries, more islands than we can count, beaches, caves, desert, sharks, crocs. I say again, what a hard question!

But we have an answer...we have three answers. For the most part Andy and I both agree that the Tuamotus, Micronesia, and Borneo were our favorites. It's the order in which we would rank them that we differ. A brief description of why we think they're our favorites. If you want to relive it with us, just click on the links to go to our previous blogs (don't forget to click on 'older posts' if you want to see the full experience).

Tuamotus
Very hard to get to and extremely isolated, this is the place for lonely loners who love the water (i.e. Andy McKaskle)! The diving was great, the people were friendly and for us, the weather was gorgeous. The Tuamotus is a group of 90something atolls in the middle of the South Pacific ocean, technically part of French Polynesia. We spent six weeks exploring only four atolls and had we not been running out of basic provisions like flour, rice, milk and beer (yes, beer was considered a basic provision), the captain would have stayed much longer (well, that whole visa thing would have been tricky, but you get the point). Jake got to participate in the French Polynesian games at a local school in Raroia and Andy got some of the best shark pictures of his career in South Fakarava and Tahanea. This was pretty early in our trip so I have to say I was still adjusting to the life. While I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I had yet to be inducted into the hermit club, so I was desperately seeking girl time, grocery stores and civilization.

Micronesia
Most people we talked to outside of our little cruising life had no idea where Micronesia was. I often described it as "half way between Hawaii and Japan." Micronesia is what people think of when they think of the South Pacific (although it's not in the South Pacific at all). Small islands, clear water, beautiful reefs, and locals who still fish for their food, pound out their taro and collect their own water. I wrote several blog posts on our experiences there, so I won't repeat it all, but our time in Micronesia changed our outlook on life forever (we're still wondering why we didn't accept that plot of land in Yap). And by this time, I was a full fledged member of the hermit club and was thoroughly enjoying the isolation provided by the remoteness of these beautiful islands.

Borneo
Having just visited the Philippines, we were acclimated somewhat to the SE Asian way of life, but our visit to Borneo was our first introduction in to the melting pot of cultures that exist in this part of the world. Malaysians, Indians, and Chinese... Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus, all living in harmony (somewhat). And the food.... wow, the food. But most of all, we enjoyed all of the eco-type activities available up and down the west coast. Our favorite inland trip was visiting the Deer Caves but our favorite excursion was our 60 mile trip up the Rajang river. The only downside to Borneo was the lack of clear, swimmable water (crocodiles were pretty much everywhere due to all the rivers). But the beautiful landscape and people more than made up for that.

So there you have it...our favorite places.

Life after Savannah

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 14:44:00 +0000

We’ve officially been on land almost six weeks now (Andy only 3) and I have to say it’s been a whirlwind. Things that were supposed to be hard have turned out to be easy and things that were supposed to be easy have turned out to be more difficult than I expected. Let me explain…

One of the things I looked forward to most was having whatever I wanted at my fingertips. Would you like to have some blueberries this morning? Why of course, no problem. Would you like ice in your tea? Duh… no problem. Oh, you need to run to the store real quick? Sure hop in my car. Laundry? Just push a button. What I did not anticipate is the anxiety I would get with all of these things so readily available. Mom sent me to the store to get her some olive oil and some Tide pods. There were no less than 10 brands of olive oil and 5 different types of Tide pods. Now I knew there would be variety, but I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to make a decision. These situations happened several times a day…literally. One time, I just walked out of the store empty handed…couldn’t pull it off. Catching up with friends and family has been harder than I expected as well. Everyone is so darn busy….slow down people!

Now the big stuff…buying a car, getting a job, finding a home….piece of cake. We applied for a loan online, picked up a big honkin’ check at the bank two hours later, stopped at a dealership, test drove the first car we looked at, and another two hours later we drove off with it. And I’m still happy with that decision. I don’t want to make light of the big decisions and appear like I haven’t done any work here, but getting a job was even a bit too easy. I have a great friend who was looking out for me and as soon as I checked my email after landing from our 36 hour marathon trip home, I had a job lead. Three weeks later, I had a job. And a good one! I like to think I earned that one, but boy did I throw some big “thank you’s” upstairs! With a car and a job, the only thing left to do was find a place to live. In true Andy and Monica style (don’t think too hard about anything or you might get stuck…remember the olive oil?), we hopped in the car, drove to Jacksonville and rented a house. And that’s how we find ourselves, six weeks after landing back on American soil, sitting in Saint Augustine, Florida staring at each other with big eyes saying “what the….? How did we get here?”

For all of those cruisers out there who worry about your exit plan, drop the worry…it’ll all work out. The only thing we did that I am truly thankful for is we made the decision to come home BEFORE we were actually completely out of money. That allowed us some freedom in buying the things we needed to get re-started (furniture, plates, towels, can openers…whatever) without being a burden on anyone else.

How are we adjusting mentally? Pretty good, I think. The quickness of it all has kept us from having time to dwell on everything too much. We’ve been in Florida 3 days and Jake has already played kickball in the street with the neighborhood kids, caught his first freshwater fish in the pond behind our house and had a playdate across the street with some random kids he introduced himself to. Andy has discovered that ice comes right out of the refrigerator door on demand and doesn’t really need to think about anything else. I have re-discovered malls and all that goes with them. We’re adjusting just fine.

As for Savannah…she’s in good hands with our broker in Langkawi and is officially on the market. For anyone interested, here is the link to Yachtworld with all the information and details.

Savannah for Sale

We did get a chance to have some fun in Atlanta the short time we were there and I have some great pictures on my fancy dancy new iPhone (another really stressful purchase) but I can’t get them off…so I’ll keep trying and post them later.

Packing up and Coming home.

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Mon, 23 Mar 2015 23:07:00 +0000

I had a follower not too long ago ask me to continue blogging as long as we were more or less closing things out, as not many people do that and the information as to how to "quit" just isn't out there. I thought that was a good idea so here goes...my first post on the details of packing up and going home.

There are so many things that need to be done and so many emotions that goes with each one. I tried/am trying to tackle the whole thing like a job. Make a list, cross them off one by one. No tears, no emotions, just get it done. Yeah, right.

The first one we tackled was finding a broker. I started the process months ago and had decided on one, then we went with another, then we changed our minds again...blah blah. The point being, making the decision to sell your boat (home) and leave it in the hands of a total stranger, trusting that they will do what you've agreed to do is a very hard thing. It's a bit different than selling a house, at least it is for us. We'll be half way around the world with no one to turn to if things go awry. It's not just the usual price, commission and marketing questions to worry about. It's location of where you leave your boat; do you trust the locals, will it be more likely to be shown in one place vs. the other, what's the cost of the marina/yard, do you haul out or leave it in the water. The answer is different for everyone of course, but the decision process and the emotions tied to it are probably pretty similar. We've finally landed in Rebak marina and feel pretty comfortable with the final decision. We'll see what happens. We may be eating crow in a few months.

The next item on our list was packing up. Where does one find packing materials? Do you ship by air or sea? Who ships it for you? What's that gonna cost us? Luckily for me, we had a friend who unfortunately had to sell their boat in Malaysia a few years ago and they were kind enough to share their information, which allowed us to skip a few research steps in the shipping department. Every person that came by would look at all of our boxes and ask us why we had so much stuff. The cruising community prides itself in being minimalists and never being tied down, owning too much, etc. In reality, about half the boats out there are just like us (probably more if I took a formal poll). They have a lot of STUFF. Not nearly what we had on land, but my goodness, how in the world we fit all those things in that little boat, I'll never know. I think it might be a new skill to put on my resume. Our water line went up well over a foot. We ended up with 20 boxes and a table top (not the tabletop we were attached to, the one we tried to replace it with but couldn't ever quite get it finished. In the end, I kind of like it too so I decided to ship it home). We had to pull up to the dock (we were in the anchorage) and offload the boxes for the shipping company to pick up. All I can say about that is yuck, yuck, yuck. What could have been a pretty emotional process though turned out to be not so bad. It was hot, a few things were comical, and all in all, it was nice to get the ball rolling finally.

Our motto that day was "There's no turning back now, it's all over but the crying." It's funny, the whole crying thing. It hits you out of nowhere. I'm not a huge crier (Andy might laugh at that, but that's because he's a man and once a year is too much), but my eyes would well up out of the blue when I thought about leaving. When I would look around the boat and it was empty, I would be relieved one minute and the next I was grabbing a tissue. I thought I had it all together until we put our suitcases in the dinghy and started pulling away. What did me in was watching Jake. He was trying so hard to suck it up and just deal with it, but he couldn't take his eyes off Savannah. "It's the last time we're going to see her," yep. He stood up in the dinghy and tried to watch her as far as he could before we got out of sight. My heart broke for him.

Coming out from customs in Atlanta's International Airport.
That's my dad to the left.

It's amazing what 10,000 miles can do for one's mood. Once we landed in the good ole US of A, Jake started looking forward and with the exception of one little moment, he hasn't looked back. I'm taking his lead and just pretending it's not happening and living our life one day at a time (if it happens on the other side of the world, did it really happen?). The obvious positive of it all is that we're back with our family here in the states. Chick-fil-a is just as I remember it, as is Target. The Bass Pro Shop here in GA is a bit smaller than the ones Jake was used to in OK and VA, but they had what he wanted all the same. Dishwashers and washing machines are just as magical as I had imagined. All is going well.

I think that's probably enough throwing up on everyone for now (I don't even have cute pics to make my rambling easier to handle). More to come...buying our first smart phone, finding a job (you mean I can't wear flip flops to the office?), Andy comes home (he's still with the boat), buying a car (I need a car?), etc.

And we're back in the water!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 04:56:00 +0000

I never thought this day would come but for the love of Pete (and some understanding immigration officials in Malaysia) we are finally back in Telaga. After an uneventful launch from G&T we discovered our anchor windlass (with the new $800 motor) needed replacing. We discovered this when it decided to quit working at 10:30 at night with the moon not yet risen. Anywhoo…nothing a well placed mooring ball and a reliable credit card won’t fix (can you get a credit line increase without a job????). Our trip was uneventful except for the strange emotions passing throughout the boat. Knowing this was our last “cruise” together was bittersweet. Thailand, not being our favorite place in the world, was a weird way to end it. But I think we did our best and thanks to some McKaskle style provisioning and a goofy kid on board, we pushed through just fine.

So today we checked in to Malaysia (some day I’ll tell the story why that was a big deal) and tried to rent a car to do all the work horse type things we need to do, but no cars were available so we decided to be tourists instead. We took a taxi (too much walking in Phuket made us quick to jump in the car) to the Oriental Village not too far from the anchorage and we did all the silly things we put off last time. We rode the skycar up the hill to a beautiful view of the anchorage and marina and well, all of Langkawi. We experienced a silly 6D film that had us riding a roller coaster through the desert. Jake got to fulfill his dreams of running with the hamsters by zipping himself up in a plastic ball and running around a pond. Don’t ask me the draw, but I’m glad he did it because I haven’t laughed that hard in awhile. And finally, we rode the paciderms (aka Elephants!).

A great view of our anchorage
and the marina. Andy tried to show where Savannah is.

I had high hopes as did the rest of the crew, but in the end, I felt sorry for the poor old elephant. He looked run down and rode hard. We took an extremely expensive 10 minute stroll through the “trail” and enjoyed the view from above and the whole novelty of it. But in the end, it didn’t hold a candle to our 5 minute ($7) trot with the camels in Australia. To be fair, we’ve been blessed with a lot of time with elephants…we used to live near and were very good friends with the elephant trainer in Norfolk, VA. So we’re not new to the gentle giants. But I kind of felt like I should apologize to the old guy for making him walk in circles for our enjoyment. But we did “ride an elephant in Malaysia” so CHECK on that box.

Speaking of boxes, tomorrow we pick up our first round (and hopefully ‘only’ round) of boxes to begin sending our stuff back to the US. I don’t know if we’re sad or excited or anxious or just want to get the damn thing over with. At any rate, it’s going to start tomorrow and be done in a few days. In the meantime, Jake has met a few new friends and been enjoying the beach close by. It’s cool being a cruising kid… a few kids come by in a dinghy, they say hi, you jump in, you tell your parents “we’ll be on channel 8” and off you go. Andy and I actually circled the anchorage tonight wondering which boat he actually went to. I think they’re now calling this “free range parenting” at home. You don’t know how long I’ve been trying to fit that into a blog.

I hope you all enjoy the pics. We did. More to come soon…packing out, shipping out, flying out and heading to the marina for the final listing. Stay tuned.

Some pics of Jake for the grandparents and some updated pics of Savannah with her new lipstick on.

New Trampoline, wood, and fresh deck paint.

More new paint.

and more paint...

Shiny new transmission, the reason for all the woe.

New upholstery.

Grasshoppers...it's what's for dinner.

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 01:34:00 +0000

One of the best things about Thailand is its food. Everywhere you go, things are fresh, spicy, and just down right delicious. The curries are amazing, the seafood is cooked perfectly, the veggies are fresh from the market. For cruisers, the grocery stores carry everything anyone could ever want….fresh local food, imported meats, a variety of cheeses, seafood, you name it. Out of all these choices, guess what Jake wanted for dinner? Grasshoppers. To be fair, the freezer he was making his choice from had much grosser things – water bugs anyone? Or perhaps you would like to split a giant toad with your partner (complete with head)? If you’ve been reading this blog for very long, you know we indulge his inner Bear Grylls and buy these nasty things from time to time. So that’s how we found ourselves having oysters and grasshopper po-boys for dinner tonight (I’m guessing folks in Louisiana aren’t cringing as much as the rest of you guys).

The oysters here in the Makro market come in the little round plastic tubs for 30 Baht per tub (about $1 USD) and they’re extremely fresh, so we eat them quite often. The grasshoppers on the other hand were closer to 425 baht per kilo and of course you can’t get anything less than a kilo. Jake has been asking for them every time we go to the store (although I’m not sure why…he had them fresh in OK and thought they were disgusting). Since we were already going to have the oil hot tonight for the oysters, we relented and spent the $15 USD or so on the frozen grasshoppers (and I balk when Andy buys a ribbye at $15/pound).

fried grasshoppers don't make a very pretty picture, but you get
the idea.

When Andy opened the bag, we had to open the door to the little bungalow here to keep from gagging. But he trudged on….into the oil they went. So there was our table set…baguette, coleslaw, fried oysters, and big plate of fried grasshoppers, eyes and all. Guess who didn’t like the grasshoppers? Of course he didn’t! He never likes these things…when will we learn? Guess who cleaned their plate? Yep…Andy and I…crunchy with a little bit of a smoky, burnt taste. Not bad. I hear that we can’t sustain our eating habits at the rate this world is procreating and we’ll all be eating bugs in a few years anyway. We thought we would just get a leg up on everyone. Cheers!

Hauled out in Thailand

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Sat, 07 Feb 2015 02:30:00 +0000

Here we are about to come out of the water (pulled
by a tractor attached to a large cable).

We’ve been hauled out now for almost a month and with the exception of waiting on a new transmission, things seem to be going pretty well. Before we came to Thailand, we did a lot of research on boat yards both here and in Malaysia. We heard nothing but horror stories about Thailand – things taking twice as long as quoted, twice (or three times) the amount quoted, and even so much as holding your boat hostage until you pay more money – so we put a fair amount of effort into trying to find a yard in Malaysia. Unfortunately, no one would respond to our emails and phone calls. We decided that wasn’t a good sign and could be an indication as to how they ran their yard. We had an appointment with a yard in Satun, Thailand (at the recommendation of a fellow cruiser) but then we met up with a couple that tipped us off to G&T. Owned by Gerry and Toi (hence the ‘G&T’), it’s located in Phuket, just south of Apo Marina and specializes in catamarans, mainly because there is a huge mud flat that you have to cross at high tide. We only had a meter under us when we hauled. We emailed Toi and immediately got a response so we decided to go for it.

Halfway through powerwashing...dirty, dirty, dirty

So far, I’m impressed. Immediately after we were out of the water, the guys went to work on the pressure washer and we met with Toi with our list of things we needed. She’s a project manager type and got to work right away on lining up people for our needs. We had an upholsterer and woodworker show up the same day and an appointment with a mechanic within the hour. She directed us towards someone who would make us a new trampoline and immediately ordered our bottom paint.

The primer is on...looks better already.

More primer for the front deck. Jake likes the red. He thinks
we should paint the whole boat that color.

Engine, sans transmission. Still waiting.

A few weeks later and everything is pretty much finished with the exception of our transmission. It took a week for the guy to show up and another week for him to tell us we needed new parts. It took us nearly another week to find anyone who would call us back, only to find out it’s cheaper to get a whole new transmission than 6 tiny little parts. So here we sit, waiting on a part to get from Holland to the US (MA to be exact…aren’t they snowed in?) and then from the US to Langkawi and then finally here to Thailand. I have nothing good to say so I’ll just move on.

The only other bad experience we had was with the woodworker. We had two fairly small projects – replacing the middle strip on our front deck (10 planks of hardwood) and a new table top (we’re quite attached to ours and want to take it home as a keepsake). They quoted us 16,000 baht (over $500 USD) for the 10 planks and 16,000 baht for the table top (we didn’t even ask for legs!). We said no and Gerry took Andy to a local wood shop. We ended up getting the 10 planks for 3,000 baht ($100 USD). Later, we found out they had tried to snow over some other folks as well. They ordered (and charged them for) teak cabinets and they showed up painted. When they made them take the paint off, they found out it wasn’t teak at all. Oops…. So I say, if you’re in Phuket and looking for a woodworker, avoid Nai – I believe their shop is near Yachthaven Marina (for full disclosure, our friends seemed happy with their work...I think they were just here too long and expectations fell). As for the table…we found a really cool piece of wood for 450 baht ($15 USD) and we’re sanding and refinishing it now. I think it’s going to look really nice.

As for any other review…I’ll post them on my notes over in the Cruising Notes section so as not to bore the general population.

Other good things about G&T…they have “bungalows” for you if you don’t want to stay on your boat. Bungalows is in quotes because it’s actually a small trailer, but they’re pretty nice…clean, air conditioning, satellite tv, bed, and hot showers. There’s also a small fridge, hotplate (that burns everything) and sink for washing dishes. We’re actually feeling quite spoiled. Jake said he could live here for a year. I think we’ve raised a son with low expectations for his living space…we should be ok when we get home! Andy sleeps on the boat at night because the mattress here is killing his back, but he’s certainly enjoying the tv and air conditioning.

It’s not all perfect. Thai time is in effect which means that every appointment or conversation happens at least an hour past what time you expect it to happen, or even a day or two. Internet sucks, so I have to either stand on the other side of the boat yard in one particular spot (in the hot sun) with my iPad in my hand, or walk up the street to the internet café. We’re not really close to anything so we have to borrow someone’s truck or rent a car or walk (that actually hasn’t been much of an issue for things we need, but it’s kept our touring down quite a bit). While the materials here are cheap, if you’re dealing with someone who specializes in yachts, you can bet they’re going to stick it to you. I’m pretty sure we’re getting screwed on at least two items, but there’s really nothing you can do about it when it’s the only option you have. But whenever we get frustrated, we just look at our neighbor and see all the issues he’s having and count our blessings.

In general, living in a boatyard sucks, but it doesn’t suck so bad here. With that said, we’re all ready to get back on board and back in the water. Counting down the days… "After" pics to follow!

Big News...and a little bit of nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 01:40:00 +0000

Savannah at anchor in one of our favorite places
in Palau

When we sold our house, all of our stuff and bought Savannah, it was the hardest, scariest and most exciting thing we’ve ever done. After 10 years of planning and saving, w were finally realizing our goal of a five-year cruise around the world. Looking back, I guess we were kind of naïve on the timeline…after all, it is a great big world. Anyway, I agreed to six months in Mexico to see if I could, indeed live on a tiny boat with my husband and son 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Six months turned into a year and soon enough we found ourselves crossing the big scary ocean to tropical islands far away. At some point, Savannah became home and our little life of traveling from place to place via the ocean became normal. When asked how long we would sail, we quit quoting our five-year plan and instead said “when one of us isn’t having fun or we run out of money.”

The morning we left San Diego.

3 days later, our approach to Isla Guadalupe

Fast forward five years and we find ourselves only half way around the world. We’ve traveled to 16 different countries visiting some of the most remote places in existence and crossed the largest ocean in the world. We have seen and done some amazing things. While it’s not always an easy life, for the most part, we’re still happy and having fun. However, after many long hours of discussion and doing some math, the sad fact is that we have finally run out of money. It’s something we knew would happen one day, we just hoped it would be later and we’d be closer to home. We could probably get to South Africa, but then we’d be stuck without many appealing options. We’ve both stopped and worked before and while we could do that again, we don’t want to be separated again for so long (or in Andy’s case, get shot at). In reality, with the travel involved and living expenses, we really don’t ever save as much as planned and it ends up just being a long time apart.

Our first bonfire in Mexico

Pirates in La Cruz, Mexico

Crossing the equator for the first time

Island kids (and Jake) in the Tuamotos

Jake, participating in the French Polynesian games
at a school in the Tuamotos

In our effort to pretend to be responsible adults and avoid that ever growing population of people receiving gov’t assistance (Andy says we have a taste for fine cheddar, not gov’t cheese! Which may be part of the problem…), we have come to the very hard and sad reality that we need to put Savannah on the market here in Malaysia and go back to the United States to take a break. We’ll get jobs and settle down somewhere on the south east coast while we save up for our next adventure.

It’s been a hard couple of months. Jake “refused to allow it” when we first told him and there have been tears all around. But just like in the beginning, this is the hardest, scariest and most exciting thing we’ve done. They say the two happiest days of your life (aside from marriage and children, of course) is the day you buy your boat and the day you sell it. We’re trying to focus on the good things about selling, like being back with family, dishwashers, washing machines, The Big Green Egg, and Chick-fil-a!

I believe this was in the Mortlocks in Micronesia

Christmas celebration in Lamotrek, Micronesia with the locals.

Our first anchorage after arriving in the Philippines

I’m sure this won’t be my last post on the subject, but I’m going to try and not dwell on it all too much. There’s no point. In the meantime, we’re on the hard here in Thailand getting her all fixed up (being reminded of what BOAT stands for….Break Out Another Thousand) In between working on Savannah, we’ll try to squeeze in a little more fun before we actually list her. It’ll be a few weeks before it all happens so don’t abandon us just yet…I promise lots of honest, if not exciting posts on the trials and tribulations of wrapping things up.

Feeding giraffes in the Philippines

Amazing vacation in Australia

Sailing to Thailand

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Fri, 02 Jan 2015 09:35:00 +0000

We've been on the go for the past few weeks and now find ourselves back in Langkawi getting ready to go again. We had to return to Malaysia to reset our Thailand visas and now we'll head north to haul out and give Savannah some new powder and paint so she feels pretty again.

I have so much to say but lack the motivation so I'm going to leave you with some pictures from our trip. Andy finally got to get in the water again so there's a few treats from him. The other pictures are of the absolute chaos Thailand calls tourism. We have never in our life experienced the sheer volume of bikinis, speedos and boats.

From our family to yours, we hope the New Year brings you health and happiness!

You wonder how the ferry flipped over and killed 400 people?
This is how.

These people were all snorkeling in the same spot behind their
tour boat....not sure what they were looking at as there was no
coral....hmmm..

I wonder what the US Coast Guard would say about this.

You just can't get the feel of this without the
"boom chicka boom boom" ...it's just
not the same.

Merry Christmas from Savannah!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 03:41:00 +0000

One of the many alleys here in Koh Phi Phi. Rows and rows
of shops and restaurants.

Our first week in Thailand has been pretty fun. We’ve hopped from island to island and have landed in Koh Phi Phi Don for Christmas (Remember the movie “Beach” with Leonardo DeCaprio?…this is where they filmed it). The boys have been playing non-stop and we have a big dinner planned for tonight (Christmas Eve) with a few of the boats here. In some ways it's hard to believe we're in Thailand. It's not like most of the tourists where they got off a plane and the scenery has suddenly changed drastically...we've slowly eased our way into SE Asia and Thailand doesn't look so different from Malaysia. The biggest change is that there are very few muslims and way more tourists and hippy backpackers.

Posing with the monkey.

As much fun as we're having, it’s the first Christmas on that boat that doesn’t really feel like Christmas. The anchorage is a bit rocky with all of the boats zipping by and the evenings are filled with “boom chick a boom boom” coming from the shore non-stop until 2 in the morning. And I have to say I’m a bit home sick. It’s been a lot of Decembers away from home…I was telling Andy how pathetic I am…sitting in an anchorage in one of the most popular beaches in Thailand having trouble being happy. So, I’m adjusting my attitude today and getting into the spirit. I called my mom, wrapped presents and now we’re cooking up a storm (at least Andy is).

So here’s to all of our friends and family wherever you may be, wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the crew of Savannah…all the way from Thailand! I'll leave you with some pictures from the aptly named Monkey Beach! BAD Monkeys!

Making good use of the stick...shooing the
monkey away. They get a bit aggressive at times.

Mama monkey, winding down after a long day of harassing tourists.

Boys, boys, boys

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 05:07:00 +0000

The last few weeks have had their ups and downs on Savannah, but today I’m going to focus on the ups… I cannot explain how happy it makes me to see Jake playing with these two wonderful kids on Love Song. Despite it being a threesome, something that rarely worked in my circle of friends growing up, they get along great and never tire of each other. It’s also fun to hear Jake talk to Morgan about dinosaurs. Jake thought he was the authority on all things prehistoric and well…now he’s learning a few things.

Andy and I took them to the War Museum in Penang and stopped by a “Snake Temple” on our way back to the marina. Both were fun, but strange in their own way. First, the museum was also dubbed a paintball park. And it had a ton of what we thought were leftover decorations from Halloween….still not sure if some of them are decorations or part of the recreated scenes. The area was a fort built by the English way back when (don’t you love my historic details?) and long ago deserted. It sat for 60 years being looted and growing over. A private party bought the land and decided to restore the old bunkers, walls and tunnels as much as possible. They did a pretty good job with that, but it’s a little weird walking around old tunnels and fort walls and then seeing a miniature model of a tank. The boys enjoyed running around shooting each other and climbing out escape hatches….something that would NEVER be allowed at home for fear of a law suit (crawl through a dark tunnel, then climb straight up an old metal rung 9 meter ladder to the outside). From a museum perspective, it was just ok, but it was perfect for a few boys to let off some energy.

This was the exit for the escape hatch.

There is a danger sign here that says don't enter, but it didn't say anything
about exiting. The lady at the front desk was the one to tell us to do it.

As for the “Snake Temple.” The deceiving thing here was the word temple. It’s a temple all right, but it’s way more touristy than religious. We lectured the boys about showing respect and keeping their voices down, etc. and then we walked in to find about 20 people snapping photos and waiting in line to pay their RM30 (about $10 USD) to hold a python. There were snakes all over the place, but some of them were so lethargic (full?) that the boys weren’t really convinced they were real.

Note the snakes on the branches where the kids are looking.

Not sure exactly what this face is supposed to be.

Now we’re here in Langkawi, on the hook in Telaga Harbor. This is a huge cruiser hangout simply because of the duty free status and the proximity to Thailand. Andy and I aren’t quite sure what the draw is yet, but it’s growing on us. The highlight is still watching the boys play all day, only now they have a whole beach to run around on. It looks like it will be Jake’s first Christmas in years with more than just mom and dad and some other old people. We’re all excited.

I managed to get my paddle board out again and even found
someone to paddle me around!

Sunset in Kuah, Langkawi

Happy Thanksgiving from Penang, Malaysia!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 09:27:00 +0000

I hope this post finds everyone fat and full of turkey, ham and whatever else you like to gorge on at Thanksgiving.

We finally made it to Penang after days of motoring with a few hair raising experiences thrown in to make things interesting (a tug boat almost ran us over in the middle of the night on the one night we decided to keep sailing). We anchored outside of the Straits Quay Marina because that's where Jake's friends are staying. This place is swanky. It's right up there with any waterfront town marina in the states, complete with nice restaurants, a mall and a pretty decent grocery store. Our expectations were exceeded. As were Jake's... He picked right back up with his friends Morgan and Wyatt like they had just seen each other yesterday (when in fact, it's been three years). They've had sleep overs, play dates, gotten some taste of freedom (staying alone!), and he's now spent a day at their school with them. All in less than a week. One of the unexpected outcomes of this has been a positive one...my little 6 am wake up call is now delayed to at least 7:30... poor thing is so tired he can't get out of bed! Awesome.

It was a cloudy day, but this was one of the views from
Penang Hill. You can't see the actual city behind all that.

We've managed to do a little touring as well. We bought a 24 hour ticket on a double decker tour bus where you hop and on and off at all the different stops around town. We rode a crazy train up to the top of Penang Hill, climbed a gazillion steps to the top of a temple (what's with Malaysia and all their stairs?), and stopped at Fort Conwallis for a little history lesson. The next day we used our last few hours on our ticket to hit the Butterfly farm...very, very cool.

We were lucky enough to be there when they
were releasing some butterflies.

We were able to enjoy our Thanksgiving here in Malaysia at a nice hotel nearby with a special "Thanksgiving" Buffet. I'm not entirely sure it resembled turkey day, but there was plenty of food and it was huge hit for our group. The boys spent most of their time at the chocolate fountain... I have to say it was a strange experience for me. Good, but different. First off, we have never, in my entire life, gone out to eat at a restaurant on Thanksgiving (at least not that I can remember). I did cook brunch and make Andy a pecan pie but other than that, I got off relatively easy in the cooking department. Secondly, it was truly an international experience. Our group alone had fewer Americans than Aussies. When I looked around the restaurant I saw Chinese, Malaysian, Australian, British, and a few other nationalities I couldn't quite place.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit behind on pictures so the Thanksgiving ones and the boy's pics will have to come later....until then, enjoy!

We're a LONG way from home!

This was about half way up...

Finally made it to the top!

Wouldn't want to meet him in a back alley!

In the middle of all this extravagance...Jake found a place to
rest his tired dogs.

Our budding photog...not too bad...

The Malacca Straights

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 23:45:00 +0000

(Apologies for lack of pics...I will post them when we get some internet)

We're on our way through the famous Malacca Straights, known for its piracy and being the busiest shipping channel in the world. No sweat…we got this.

We're day hopping up to a little island called Penang on the west coast of Malaysia. Here, Jake will have a long awaited reunion with some of his friends from Majuro and we'll get to have a proper Thanksgiving with some other Americans. Fortunately, the weather is benign (so far) and even though we're burning diesel, it's not such a bad trip.

The days are a bit monotonous with the droll of the motor, dishes, cooking, dishes, cooking, movies, droll of the motor, etc. But everyone is happy enough. Jake was able to finally do his dinosaur dig, a present he got for his birthday. He made a huge mess, but we now have a baby triceratops skeleton to add to our display.

After Tioman we made our way down to Johor Bahru to get fuel and stock up on some groceries. Jake was lucky enough to meet a little Australian girl on another boat in the marina. They spent two complete days playing - water balloons, slip and slide, playing in the rain. It was a much needed moral booster for Jake.

Probably the most exciting part of our last week was coming around Singapore. At one point we counted over 120 ships and that was without really trying hard. On shore was just as many tall buildings as far as the eye could see. To our port side was Indonesia. So much to look at. Andy and I spent the day with our head on a swivel, trying not to get run over. We look like a little bitty life raft bobbing out here around all of these massive ships.

Singapore, as we were passing by.

Some fish traps to watch out for.

We decided to give way to this guy.

An oyster farm at the entrance of Senibong Marina.

Now we're anchored in front of the Admiral Marina in Port Dickson. We went ashore to drop off some trash and try to meet up with some other boats we know (with no success) and we once again observed a strange phenomenon here in Malaysia. There are many buildings and structures in this country that were once quite grand. The problem is there is no concept of maintenance. Many marinas have been built and then left to ruin only to be rebuilt 5-10 years later, then left to ruin again, and continue the cycle. We see beautiful hotels from the water and then when we pick up the binoculars and look closer, they're really old, forgotten structures in desperate need of a paint job. It seems such a waste of time and money…but a cycle not soon to be broken.

A few more days and we'll arrive in Penang and hopefully break our own little cycle of monotony.

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Stop the Shark Finning!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 06:28:00 +0000

Jake's latest writing assignment was to write a persuasive paper. He chose a topic he's very passionate about, shark finning. We saw a good bit of it in Mexico (including the sharks washing up on the beach) and some here in SE Asia as well (more the selling of the soup than actually seeing the finning occur). He said he had to get the word out and asked me to publish this for him. Feel free to share...

Shark Finning

By: Jake (9 years old)

I hate shark finning. An estimated 70 million sharks are killed each year and over a third are killed just for their fins. People use their fins for soup.

First, if we keep killing the sharks they will all be gone. Killing the sharks stops the immune system of the ocean. Sick fish will not be eaten and they will pollute the ocean.

Second, it is cruel to the sharks. Fishermen just cut off their fins and throw them back in the water and leave them to drown. Stop killing the sharks!

Sailing SE Asia

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 08:54:00 +0000

Sailing SE Asia is a myth. Motoring SE Asia is more like it. It doesn’t matter what the weather says or what direction we’re going, we can’t seem to fill these sails. If the forecast says the winds are coming from the south and we change our course accordingly, they come from the north. If we anchor with protection from the north, they turn and come from the south. If we unzip the sail bag and shake out the main, they die all together. We have traveled about 2500 miles since we left Palau, give or take a few hundred, and I would venture to say we’ve motored or motor/sailed 85% of the time. Maybe it’s the time of year we’re here, maybe it’s that we’re so close to the equator and we have the ITCZ to deal with. I’m sure it’s those things as well as a few others that contribute to it. But knowing the reasons don’t make it any more fun. It’s hot. There’s no wind. It’s hot and not windy. Ugh.

The lemonade to be made here is with the price of fuel. With all of the oil production around here, the cost of fuel is crazy low so the pain of burning so much diesel is eased slightly.

The patterns lately seem to be no wind in the day and crazy wind at night. Of course we’re trying to day hop to avoid the heavy traffic at night and the fisherman, so we’ve already screwed the pooch with the sailing thing. Our ability to guess the wind direction at night hasn’t been too good either…we’re hoping we do better tonight and we actually get to sleep. We’ve got a spot picked out with protection from the North, East and West. Let’s hope we got it right this time.

Editor’s note….sitting at anchor right now with a south wind coming in… just a little break…that’s all we’re asking for.

Happy Halloween from Tioman Island!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 09:59:00 +0000

I’ve been very neglectful in updating the blog lately. I don’t know if I have been too busy or just not very motivated. Either way, there’s a good bit to tell.

We finally left Kuching. We took a day or two to leave the river and get our sea legs back and then we made the 4 day trek across the South China Sea to Tioman Island. For the first time ever, I was the only one on the boat not sick. Andy caught some sort of bug just as we left Kuching that put him down for a day or two and Jake got dehydrated and just a bit seasick. I had on my trusty patch and ended up actually reading a few books on the passage…something normally unheard of. I didn’t come out completely unscathed though. A nasty side effect of this patch is blurred vision. A small price to pay for keeping my food down, in my opinion.

This little guy did most of the crossing with us. Unfortunately, I
found him belly up in the cabin on one of my night watches (I swear
I did not step on him!)

These are the kinds of things you have to watch out for around here.
This actually marks a fish trap.

Tioman Island is a small island on the east coast of peninsula Malaysia that was touted as “one of the most beautiful islands in the world” in some publication years ago, a phrase they use on all of their advertisements. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it sure was a welcome change from the crocodile infested rivers we’ve called home for the last few months.

It’s a pretty common stopover for cruisers heading across the sea both ways as its one of the three duty free islands in Malaysia. Duty Free = cheap beer/wine/booze. It’s also got pretty good snorkeling, decent beaches (although they appear to be filled with sandflies), and a genuine laid back atmosphere. It’s not yet overrun with tourists, but has enough to bring in a few good restaurants and give locals a reason to tolerate some of our western ways. But not all… you see it’s mostly muslim and while they do capitalize on the tourism, there are some things they just can’t give way to. For example, Andy and I saw the most unique sign (for our western ways) at the local shopping center. You know those signs with pictures and then the circle and slash through it to say ‘no this’ or ‘no that?’ We saw one with four pictures on it…

If you went to a beach in Florida and saw those signs, I’m pretty sure most people would go home! We got a kick out of it as it’s another reminder of how our cultures are so different. I told Andy, I’m too old to prance around town in a bikini anymore, I can’t afford the calories of the ice cream, and well, we prefer to drink our alcohol and smooch in the privacy of our own home. So we’re good….no issues here.

There was one major difference in our ways that we thought might cause more of a stir for some of the crew. There is no Halloween here. Jake’s grandparents sent him the greatest costume and he has almost worn it out getting ready for Halloween. He loves to dress up…it’s actually a daily thing. It doesn’t matter what…dinosaur, dragon king (his own creation), pirate, Obi wan Kanobe. His costume this year…vampire bat (and very appropriate I might add – there are THOUSANDS of fruit bats just outside the marina here). Surprisingly though, the idea of no trick or treating didn’t cause that big of a disappointment. Jake decided that we would make a haunted house on the boat. And at the end, I would hide his candy and he would find it. He even “visioned” us sitting in a circle around the pumpkin telling ghost stories. Simple enough. So we spent all week making decorations, carving pumpkins and planning how to scare “the poop” out of each other. At the end of the night, he declared it one of his “top 3” Halloweens. I’m not sure he remembers them before age 6, but we’ll let that slide.

Our little vampire bat!

He wouldn't smile because he was trying to look scary.

Andy and I were talking about how lucky we were to have a kid that can adapt so easily to whatever is thrown at him. I don’t know how much of it is lifestyle and how much of it is just personality, but I do think living on a boat and making do with what you have contributes greatly. Our next challenge will be Thanksgiving and Christmas. I asked Jake what he wanted for Christmas. He said instead of writing Santa a letter this year, he was just going to let him decid what he should bring Jake. With no commercials, advertisements or catalogs to look at, I do believe my 9 year old has run out of things to ask for!

We’ll spend a few more days here and then we’re off towards the mainland. Lots to do…visit Singapore, meet up with old cruising friends in Penang, high tail it to Thailand to haul out (along with a thousand other boats)…I’m tired already thinking about it.

Our final days in OZ

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Sun, 12 Oct 2014 04:45:00 +0000

I guess I’d better finish this up before I forget what we did…. The final installment of “What I did on my summer vacation.”

Kings Canyon was supposed to be a pretty big hike. You hike 6+ km around the rim of the canyon, involving some very steep stairs right in the beginning and no shade whatsoever. The other option was a 2km hike through the center of the canyon in the shade. The little guy, only 2 days out from receiving second degree burns on his foot, and a little sore from the long trek the day before, opted for the short walk. I can’t say this mom was too disappointed. After we finished the short hike, we decided instead of sitting around for another hour and a half waiting on the group, we would go at the big hike from the end. We put on our fly nets (these suckers are aggressive and abundant - up your nose, in your ear, in your eye) and searched for the trail. Supposedly, the climb wasn’t as steep and the views were excellent. 2000 stairs and 30 minutes later, we were at the top! Jake was a trooper…I think he felt like he had been tricked a little bit. But the views were well worth it. We sat for a little bit resting and listening to the guides as they came by. We learned that it was the Australians that introduced Eucalyptus to California and provided so much fuel for those nasty fires! They did apologize...

Lunch was at a big campground, complete with playground. Here’s where exciting event #2 happened for Jake. He was playing with this little girl from Canada on the monkey bars and they were taking turns seeing how far each of them could jump and grab the bars. I was watching but was trying to be the mom that let her kid take some chances (I’ve been criticized once or twice for being a little uptight in that department). Her brother comes along and the boys start daring each other….well, one thing led to another that led to Jake taking a giant leap across the bars. He got it with one hand but the momentum sent him sailing through the air only to land smack dab on top of his arm as he hit the ground. I thought for sure he had broken it. After another visit to Dr. Daddy, we deemed he had just bruised it, maybe sprained it at the worst and he was wrapped up in a makeshift sling and given a little dose of “suck it up” and “you know you don’t have to take every dare given to you, right?”

He sports his injuries well, I think.

Our drive to our campsite this day, was when we started making use of the 4WD portion of our bus. Geesh, we bumped and turned and bobbed and shook….Jake passed out cold on my lap. The campsite was at a pub so for the first time, everyone partook in a little drinking. It went a long way in loosening up our group. Everyone was extremely nice, but not very outgoing. I won’t even say they weren’t friendly, because they were…we just weren’t getting the “fun” vibes from very many people. After traveling so much and then going on this trip, I see one reason people think American’s are obnoxious. We’re friendly. We force people to talk to us…even if they don’t want to. I think we might have been a little guilty of that a few times. Jake slept right through the steak dinner (arguably the best dinner we had on the trip) and straight into the morning (his only night sleeping in a tent). When he woke up, the poor guy had a trail of bug bites going all the way across his bum. He itched for days.

Day 4 is a blur to me. We did a really nice hike and a swim in a gorge that was so cold, it literally took my breath away. Other than that, I remember thinking I was just about done with the outback. We camped out in the middle of no where with no water (outside what we brought with us) or toilets or anything – all sleeping in swags – and had the most peaceful night yet.

I thought we took the polar plunge. I have never swam in
such cold water in my life.

Katie, preparing our dinner the last night on her make shift
counterspace.

Showing off our fly nets. I lifted mine up in a moment of
vanity.

These are the swags we've been talking about. That's Jake in the
front.

Night sky.

Our last day, we got to stop at an aboriginal community and take a little tour as well as paint some of our own artwork. This was a lot more interesting than I had hoped and would rank right up there at the top for me. Our guide was “cheeky” (a new Australian word, I’m still working out the exact meaning of), a little superstitious (ok, a lot), and very open and honest. We got to do a little cultural exchange as she asked me if America is really as dangerous as it looks on tv (she watches a lot of COPS). She was shocked that we eat deer and didn’t believe me when I told her I thought it was more tender than kangaroo. Apparently, I had not had kangaroo prepared properly…no doubt she was right.

This week had us spending a lot of time contemplating how the aboriginals were treated by the Aussies...very similar to our Native Americans in the States. Andy and I changed our opinions many times and in the end, never really came up with a solid stance. It's all so complicated, and is never what it appears... I was hoping to educate or enlighten or at least force my opinion on you, but in the end, I walked away as confused as I ever was. If nothing else, at least I'm more educated on the topic and have some new things to think about.

The handprints on the wall there were from early "artists,"
according to our guide. I think...

Jake, showing off his Komodo dragon (I know, not
indigenous to Australia, but inspiring none the less).

Those circles are supposed to be watering holes. Jake thinks
I went a little overboard with the dot painting technique.
"Sometimes less is more, Mommy."

As we plopped back down into our hotel beds that evening, we all agreed that this was definitely an experience to be remembered forever. If you can believe it, our tiny little family actually got closer. Jake showed some extreme toughness and the ability to make lemonade out of a mess-ton of lemons.

We were happy to land back in Kuching and get back to Savannah, but we all agreed we wish we could have seen more. It was kind of like a foreigner coming to the United States for 10 days and seeing the Grand Canyon. It’s Grand, but it’s only a tiny piece of what’s available.

Unfortunately, we were met with tiny little rat turds all over the boat….I bet you can guess what I’ll write about next time…

Australian Outback Safari - Day 1-2

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Wed, 08 Oct 2014 09:27:00 +0000

Our bus...taken later on our trip.

We were picked up from our hotel promptly at 5:45 to start our Outback tour. Our bus was a fairly new, air-conditioned, 4WD vehicle seating about 15-16 people with a trailer attached to it to carry all of our bags, camping gear and food. We would be switching campsites every night and making some pretty long drives between sites, so it was nice not to have to sit with our bags everywhere we went. Our guide was Katie, a perky thing from New Zealand that would prove to be one of the highlights of the trip. We were only the second people to be picked up and everyone was still pretty sleepy, so it would be much later before we really got to know the rest of our group.

Our first major stop was going to be at Ayers Rock, or Uluru as the indigenous would like for everyone to call it. A little blurb from the brochure... "Uluru stands an imposing 348 metres above the surrounding desert and has a circumference of 9.4km. It measures 3.6 km long and 2.4 km wide oriented in an east-west direction. Rather like an iceberg, there is more of Uluru under the ground than above it which really brings home the enormity of it. "

I read somewhere that you can actually see it from space. The biggest rock in the world. Anyway, it was 3 hours away so we broke up the time with a few stops. The most memorable being the camel farm. Jake and I had decided long ago that we wanted to ride one of the many camels in the Outback (until recently, I had no idea they even had camels. But apparently, they're abundant...left over from WWII days). We giggled the whole time...Jake would have loved to have done the whole safari on the camel. It was just a short ride (think pony ride at the fair), but well worth the effort (and $13).

As we drove our first few hours we were all cranning our necks out the window to see what Australia looked like. The first time one of us spoke, it was Andy. "This looks exactly like west Texas."

"I thought it was very similar to Oklahoma myself," was my reply. "hmmmm....." It reminded me of our 21 day crossing to the Marquesas only to pull up to an island that looked exactly like Mexico (at least from one side).

So we were thrilled to finally arrive at Uluru and see the big red rock, which did not look like west Texas at all. But before we could see the big rock, we stopped at our campsite to eat lunch, unload and get a little briefing. That was when we had our first "incident." We were just about to start to eat when we heard Jake waling. We looked over and he was hopping around with one of his feet covered in ash. The kid had stepped in a fire pit, used the night before and covered up in ash. It wasn't smoldering but I have to say it was the most proper fire pit I have ever seen, complete with bricks around it and I still, for the life of me cannot believe he didn't know what it was (which is what he said). A long story short, he ended up with first and second degree burns on his little foot. Andy and I aside from being worried, of course, were just sure this was the end to our very expensive vacation. With the help of some medical supplies, Dr. Andy fixed him up. We took the wait and see approach. After a hard hour or two (a lot of crying and wriggling), the ibuprofin kicked in and the initial shock started to wear off. Just in time for our tour of Uluru. We took a fairly short walking tour and learned all about the significance of the rock to the Aborigines, along with some of their creation stories. At the end, Jake actually liked the stories better than the rock. We finished up just in time for a sunset viewing, complete with champagne.

One of the blisters on Jake's foot.

Thousands of people come here every year to climb Uluru.

Lots of signs trying to convince people they don't want to
climb the rock.

Our guide, Katie, explaining "the kitchen."
A small cave where women used to do their
work.

I'll explain the goofy hats later.

Our first night was spent sleeping under the stars in a swag. It's kind of like a zip up sock for your sleeping back, but has a mattress and pillow. My first thought was that they were a little over rated (highly touted on the website, as well as by the guide and other reviewers online). It was a little clostraphobic and I thought the bathrooms were too far away for my nightly stroll (but at least we had bathrooms). I'm feel like a tool saying that I'm spoiled with the night stars out on the ocean, so even that was a bit less dramatic than I was hoping for. With all of that said, we were still having a good time and extremely thankful that Jake's foot was turning out ok.

Day 2 started way earlier than I would have liked (5:00 am) to view the sunrise over Uluru. I stayed back at camp looking for a misplaced camera, but Andy said I didn't miss much. I guess we're a little jaded living on the boat - stars, sunsets, sunrises...it takes a lot to impress this bunch.

We were soon headed off to hike the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta. This was a pretty lengthy hike. I was worried about the little guy, but he hung in the full 5.whatever kilometers with barely a wimper. As a matter of fact, he ran ahead a bit to chat up our guide throughout the hike on varying subjects, but mostly dinosaurs. She liked kids and whether she new it or not, by appearing interested, she was instigating a weeklong friendship with Mr. Know it All (she later dubbed him her "google").

To be honest, most of the week was hiking, driving and camping so the significance of the various rocks and mountains sort of ran together in my head. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

If you look really close, you can see a kangaroo in the middle
of the picture. Jake got to check his "kangaroo" box.

After a few more stops and another long drive, we ended up at our campsite for the night. This was one of the most remote places we would go. We saw some dingos (even a baby), some wild camels and horses, and got to try out our first "bush shower." Apparently, you light a fire to heat up the water and shower in a 3 sided structure while looking out into the wilderness. We skipped the fire as it wasn't that cool of an evening, but enjoyed the whole outback-ness of it all. I haven't mentioned the food yet. While breakfast and lunch were somewhat redundant, the campfire dinners were awesome. This night was the first night Katie, our guide made the traditional "damper" bread over the fire. Absolutely delicious (we were lucky enough to get it every night afterwards).

Another "Where's Waldo." See the baby dingo?

I chose to sleep in the tent at this particular campsite while Andy and Jake stayed in the swags. Unfortunately, I had to get up in the middle of the night again and make another long trek to the bathroom. My biggest reason for complaining is because I'm a scaredy cat. I just new something was going to sting me, bite me, or jump on me (the bathroom was three sided to). I got back to my tent just in time to hear a pack of dingos start howling. They howled and howled and got closer and closer. I've never been so glad to be back in bed.

A chipper 6:00 am wake up call had us up and moving getting ready for our next day's hike...Kings Canyon.

Some random pictures from some of our various stops between major sites...

Jake took this picture. Cool little thing on one of our lunch stops.
We're arguing over wether it's a perentie or a goanna.

Funny little Emu.

A salt lake that was way more interesting than I thought
it would be.

Jake gathered some salt for his dinner.

Hopefully I'm leaving you full of suspense, like your favorite soap opera. If not, you're probably at least glad that I'm done for the day....only one more post left to wrap up this self proclaimed epic tale...

G'day Mate!

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:59:00 +0000

Warning: The next few posts will be about our Australia trip. There are so many pictures and stories we want to share with our families, but I’m afraid we’ll lose everyone else if I post them all here at once. So hopefully, you won’t find this too tedious. We had a fantastic time and just want to share that with those who give a crap….. Enjoy (if you give a crap).

As I said in my last post, according to Jake, the only reason he came sailing with us was to “go to Australia.” He wanted to see a Kangaroo. As we made the decision to go downwind from the Marshall Islands, we pretty much made the decision not to sail to Australia. At some point you get too far west and the only options to sail there are not very comfortable (some will disagree, but I would place bets that they haven’t heaved over the rail as much as I have). So we made the decision to fly to Australia. Andy was there 20 years ago, but I had never been and well, of course Jake was up for it. It took weeks to decide what to do. We finally decided, if our budget and time only allowed for a few weeks, we were going to do what we would consider the “Australian” thing…we were going to the Outback. So we signed ourselves up for a 5 day, 4 night camping Safari.

Getting to the Outback from Kuching is not as easy or as cheap as many led us to believe. To save a little money, we decided to spend a night in Darwin (I know that sounds counter productive, but planning our own flight connections proved to save us thousands of dollars, even with the extra hotel rooms). Our flight landed at 4:15….in the morning. Since our hotel room wasn’t ready (some old bloke still sleeping there, no doubt), we waited for sunrise in the restaurant and then went for a walk about.

Our first impressions and realization that we weren’t in SE Asia anymore was the sheer number of white people. We had actually grown quite comfortable being in the minority and not speaking the language. You get to hide in the background knowing no one is talking to you and you get to pretend to be anonymous all the time. Once we arrived in Australia, everyone was speaking English and you had to actually pay attention, because well, they’re friendly and they actually talk to you. “G’day Mate!” “No worries Mate!” “Where are ya from Mate?” These Mates were all talked out in the first day! We were also taken aback when told to put our seat belts on..."seat belts? what's that?"

So back to the walk about…we only had a day in Darwin, so we did a nice sunrise walk on the Esplanade and as soon as the pubs started serving pints, we bellied up to the waterfront bars and wondered what it would have been like to sail our boat into the harbor. In the end, we decided it would have been bloody expensive and a pain in the arse! Happy to be passing through (we spent $200 in the first 3 hours with our taxi ride, breakfast and the aforementioned pints).

Seriously...the biggest paella I've ever seen.

So I can see this will get lengthy if I tell every opinion we had, so I’ll skip ahead to our trip to the Mindil Beach Market. Apparently, this is a very Darwin thing to do and we happen to be there on the right day of the week. It wasn’t too far from our hotel so we walked to the beach and marveled at all the food stalls, artwork, and entertainment. We even saw a velvet Elvis, I kid you not. We ate our way through the stalls….oysters, paella (take a look a the picture…incredible), lamb kabobs, grilled fish, and of course ice cream. We watched the sun set and made our way back to the hotel room. After an early morning wake up call to the tune of a fire alarm, we made sure we were on our 7:00 flight to Alice Springs. One day closer to the Outback….

They're pretty darn proud of their croc catching skills...
I have to say Jake was impressed.

Other items impressed Andy...bloated frogs holding liquor bottles.

Alice Springs was much bigger than we had expected but you could tell we had crossed some sort of climate, terrain, and cultural line. Our hotel was kind enough to check us in early and we promptly took advantage of the air condition and cushy beds.

We spent a day and a half touring the city before our “adventure” began. We spent some time at the reptile museum where we got a sneak peak of some of the creatures we would be seeing throughout the week. Jake and I got to hold a python – probably the highlight of the museum – and we saw some of the coolest lizards we’d ever come across. When we made it back to our hotel, we were met with a peacock…yep. I have no idea why the Doubletree has a peacock strutting his stuff around the grounds, but they do. Pretty neat. We ordered Dominos for dinner (because we could…haven’t seen Dominos in years out on the boat), and turned in early in anticipation of our 5:00 wake up call (this would prove to be a trend throughout the week). Stay tuned….

One of the many venomous snakes in Australia.

Another "can kill ya" snake.

These were supposed to be everywhere, but wouldn't you know
we picked the one place in Australia where they're hard to find.
Kind of like the Kangaroo (not kidding...more on that later.)

The bearded dragon. We actually saw one of these in the wild
later in the week.

Thorny devil...saw one of these in the wild as well.

Not so rare for us as we're sitting in a croc infested river in Kuching,
but cool none the less.

Jake's newest snuggle buddy...it's on the list for
"when we get a house, can I have a pet?"

Not to be outdone by my son....

Wonderful lunch complete with kangaroo pizza...only $74!
What a bargain!

Don't ask...I don't know....

Another vacation?

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 01:16:00 +0000

Climbing rocks to make his mom
'freak out'

Most people think of our lifestyle as a constant vacation - beaches, cocktails, adventures - and I can see how they think that when our blog is really the only view into our lives they have. But our blog for us, is like going to a family reunion and telling people about your kids, job, life, etc. You tell the things they might be interested in and you try to show your family in the best of light. While I do occasionally tell some embarrassing stories and have been known to go on a rant, most of the time, I'm just trying to keep the family up to date on the fun things we get to do. Our normal life includes school (complete with the same complaining 'normal' kids do), dishes, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, fixing things, cleaning, exercising, etc. Normal stuff. All without air condition, 100 miles away from the equator. When we stay in one place for a while, like we've done in Kuching, these things get to be more mundane than normal. This explains why the sudden onset of trips for us like the Mulu Caves and Jakarta.

Last week we took a mini-vacation (although Jake would disagree - he had a complete week of school) and left the dock to go to some islands around here to celebrate Jake's birthday. He was able to run around on the beaches, have bonfires and actually get to swim in waters free of crocodiles! One of the islands we went to is a marine protected area...specifically protecting turtles. There are rangers there that patrol the beach every night looking for turtles laying their eggs. They tag the turtles, then dig up their eggs and move them to a protected hatchery. When the eggs hatch, they release the turtles back into the water. Jake found a nest full of eggs and ran to get the rangers, thinking they had missed one. It turns out, this turtle laid its eggs below the high tide mark and they basically drowned. It also looked like they hadn't been fertilized, according to the experts. So the rangers let Jake dig them up and get a hands on experience without harming anything. They said the turtles lay an average of 80 eggs at a time. This nest had 107!

Birthday dinner - gnocchi with shrimp and blue cheese sauce.

An unexpected trip for me back to the states really paid off
for Jake...birthday loot!

The requested birthday "cake" - homemade pumpkin pie (as
in from a real pumpkin)....I swear I thought I was cooking
for Thanksgiving.

River dolphins!

Jake, trying to chisel out some 'samples' for later research.

Our final 'break' (for a while) from real life comes this week in the form of an Outback Safari in Australia! We are super excited and a bit nervous if I'm honest. It's a camping trip in Central Australia. We've paid thousands of dollars to sleep under the stars (again, no air conditioning...when we will think these things through?)...I'll let you know when we get back if that was a good idea or not. We're heading out of here with a positive attitude and lots of bug spray. Jake says the only reason he came sailing with us was to go to Australia and see a kangaroo (yeah, he actually said that)....so, in order to keep the mutiny down, off we go. Stand by...there's bound to be a good story or two coming out of this.

Watching some longboat races on the Kuching waterfront
with our friends Lee and Richard.

More exploring in Borneo

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:20:00 +0000

Anytime we spend a long time in one place, things start to get a little like ground hog day. This past week, we decided to spice it up a bit and rent a car. For a pretty pricey 70 Ringgit/day (about $23 US) we got ourselves the worst rental car we’ve ever had. It’s a shoebox with 4 bald tires, a broken speedometer and gas gage. The passenger window won’t roll down and it takes at least 4 tries to crank it up. The latest issue with it is that somehow it’s gotten infested with ants. But that just gives Jake something to do while we drive around.

Our first stop was Matang Nat’l Park and the rehabilitation center. Andy and Jake had already been there, but I was dying to see the Orangutans and I wasn’t disappointed. We saw an adult teaching a baby how to climb a tree (part of their “school”) and then we saw two babies playing with a sheet while the mama watched. They were pulling it up over their heads, rolling around and wrestling with each other. Occasionally, the mama would grab the sheet and put it over her head. Very cute to watch. The funniest part of the day however, was when the “bad monkey,” as Jake liked to call him, threw poo at Andy. Technically, I guess he threw poo at all of us, but Andy was lucky enough to get hit….twice. The monkey was quite frisky and didn’t stop with the poo. He threw banana peels, watermelon rinds, mango skins and papaya….all at Andy. Jake and I got a big kick out of that.

The next day we decided to head out to Bako National Park and go for a hike to try and see the Proboscis Monkeys. We underestimated the terrain and found our flip-flops to be a bit of a hindrance, but we managed. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any monkeys, but we did see a snake and a bearded hog. The hog was about the funniest looking thing we’ve seen yet. It has this huge long snout (with a beard), then it’s eyes are about halfway down, then the forehead just keeps going. Add to that, it has really long legs...not very pig-like.

These naughty little monkeys like to steal
your snacks.

He still fits on my lap...almost :(

Some other ways we’ve tried to beat the ground hog day feeling…we saw a local ballet depicting one of the Iban legends from the jungle, we’ve taken to having nerf gun wars at the marina when all the workers go home, and we’ve spent a lot of time with our friends Richard and Lee on s/v Before. Jake has even taken up jogging in the mornings with me and we’ve managed to convince Andy to join us as well. I can’t lay up in bed when I have a little guy wiggling my toes asking me to go run with him….the best motivator.

This weekend we’re flying to Jakarta to see an old friend of Andy’s and relax a bit (all this fun is tiring). It’s serving a dual purpose in as much as Jake and Andy need to renew their visa’s for Malaysia as well. When we come back, the most exciting thing of all…Jake turns 9!

Mulu Caves, Borneo

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 03:41:00 +0000

Deer Cave

Deer cave, located in Mulu, Malaysia on the island of Borneo, has the largest cave passage in the world. You can fit a Boeing 747 in there (no lie). We first learned about it on the Planet Earth series when Jake was little more than 3 years old. Back then, even with the plans of cruising so clearly laid out in our heads, Borneo seemed so far away and so exotic. It wasn’t even on our radar. We’ve seen that documentary more times than I can count, but over the past few years, Borneo didn’t seem so far away. In fact, it was only a few hundred miles.

Once we arrived in Malaysia, it was a no brainer making a decision on what land travel to do here. We headed to Mulu Caves. The first bit of excitement was Jake’s first ride on a “propeller plane.” The only way to get to Mulu is by plane, so we took the short hop from Kuching to Mulu Saturday morning. We were immediately wisked away to our hotel for a quick check in. We were pleasantly surprised as the hotel is in the process of being upgraded to a Marriott, so all of the rooms and facilities have been recently renovated, to include air conditioning, satellite TV, marble tile in the bathroom and down comforters on the king size bed!!! Woo hoo!

Our greeter person (no idea what her official title was but her job was to get us from one place to another), caught us a ride to the National Park for a VERY quick tour of the headquarters and some lunch. From there, we met our guide Lucas (and were fortunate enough to have him all to ourselves, not mixed in with hoards of other people) and our adventure began. We figured out we walked about 4 miles that first afternoon. It included a long jungle walk and touring of two caves, Lang Cave and Deer Cave. Both were spectacular. I thought Lang Cave had better formations, but the massive size of Deer Cave impressed everyone. Jake’s favorite part was the huge amounts of roaches eating the guana mountains (aka bat poop) that covered the cave floors. He insisted we take pictures so he could send them back to Gigi (his grandmother) to freak her out. The downside to the day was the long bout of rain we had in the afternoon. Apparently, bats don’t like to go out and eat in the rain, so we weren’t able to see the mass exodus of bats at sunset like we had hoped. And we had to walk the mile and a half back to the main headquarters soaking wet.

View from the trail we took back to Deer Cave

There was a nice walk way the whole way through the park.

Critters...

more critters.....

Jake says they called these "smelly worms" but I'm not too sure
about that. The strings you see hanging are long strands of mucus
used to catch flying insects for the worms to eat.

Inside one of the caves.

The second day started early with a half hour long boat ride to the Wind Cave and Clearwater cave. The Wind cave was by far my favorite as it had the intricate formations and just looked more like the images I had in my head (only better). Clearwater cave was cool in as much as it had a river flowing through it. Not so cool was the 900-1000 steps we had to climb – I’m not exaggerating AT ALL.

We were done with our tours by noon and headed back to the hotel. All of our legs were shaking from all the walking and stair climbing we did so we just vegged out the rest of the afternoon. We booked an extra day at the hotel just to relax, so Monday was spent by the pool and in the room soaking up the air conditioning and catching up on the news.

It was a cozy ride up the river.

The underground river in Clearwater Cave.

Note the satellite dish on the left side of the porch...

We arrived back to Savannah yesterday all relaxed. Now we have to restock our fridge and get some of this stinky laundry taken care of. It’s nice to be home, but oh was that a great vacation. Borneo still seems exotic and I know it really is far away, but now we’re lucky enough to have checked that box.

Crocs and Orangutans…more fun in Kuching

noreply@blogger.com (The Crew of Savannah) — Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:02:00 +0000

One of the biggest questions I get here at home is “So, do you guys just hang out in the water all day and drink beer?” (or some version of that). The answer this year is “No, we’re up a muddy river with crocodiles and when we’re in blue water there are box jellies….but yes, we do drink beer.” For all those people who don’t believe me (the non swimming part, no the beer part), I thought it would be fun to post this for you…

Remember when I came back to the states last year and Jake and Andy came across this little fellow in Palau?

This year I come back to the states and they come across this little fellow swimming in the marina…

That's about 10 feet long if you were wondering. Not even Andy will go swimming with that thing.

Since I’ve been home, Jake and Andy have been holding down the Savannah fort doing school, fixing things and trying not to melt away from all the heat. They did manage to fit some fun in there, though. They’ve bought some remote control helicopters and have spent hours and hours flying those things around. They spent a day going to the cat museum (Kuching means cat so the city is full of everything cats), although I don’t think Jake was too impressed. And just the other day, they went to see the orangutans at the nearby rehabilitation center. According to Ranger Rick (yes, Ranger Rick is a legitimate source, especially when I have one in my hand right now.), most of these little guys were taken from their moms when they were babies and sold as pets and now people don’t want them anymore. Others were displaced as the rainforest gets cut down all over Borneo. Many have been released back out into the wild and this time of year is apparently fruiting season. This means those animals don’t need to come back to the center for feeding. So when Andy and Jake went, they mostly saw babies that were still in captivity. They also saw sun bears and porcupines. Guess what impressed Jake the most? Porcupines. Yep, porcupines.

Me, my adorable niece (see a resemblance?), brother, dad,
sister-in-law, and growing way to fast nephew. Oh,
and dog, Wrigley.

Here in the states, my dad has been getting better and my trip is winding down. We celebrated dad’s 71 birthday, I’ve gotten to visit a few college friends and I’ve loaded up my suitcase with all those things we thought we weren’t going to get this year (new clothes, videos, cups, cool birthday gifts for Jake, etc.).

I’m glad to be heading home next week, although sorry to leave my family here. Andy saved the cave trip for me so a week after I get back we’ll be heading to the Mulu caves for a little R&R (don’t roll your eyes at me…I’ll have you know we work hard and are all in need of a vacation – I’m pretty sure I’m typing this with a straight face.).

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes for dad…keep ‘em up, he has a long row to hoe.