My new friends by Ella 24/11/08

My new friends are nine and seven and their names are Josie and Clemmie. I first met them in Porto Santo and played with them on the beach and on their boat. They waved me off when I set sail from Madeira to Tenerife and then I have waved them off from here when they set sail for La Gomera and we have a date to meet in Barbados for Christmas.

They are really nice and fun to play with, we draw, blow pens, DS, listen to story books, play imaginative games, usually about dogs, talk and read. The best thing we did though was that they invited me for a sleepover on their boat called Starblazer. I slept in their cabin, their boat is much much bigger than Brimble. I would rather sleep on Starblazer than Brimble because they have duvets and not sleeping bags and their beds are much bigger and they have two heads with showers in them! Jo and Jim, the parents were on Brimble, drinking and having a good time while we watched the St Trinians, we used the VHF to talk to Brimble when we realised that I had forgotten to bring the Pringles and my DS. Then they also asked us to switch off the oven so that the dinner would not be burnt. It felt fun to be able to talk to Mum and Dad on the VHF, we felt grown up!

Arriving in Tenerife by Ella 4/11/08

It was really exciting to see land for the first time after such a long sail, so what we say is 'Land ahoy, where so? Fine on the starboard bow. Friend or foe? Foe! Sound battle stations!'

When we arrived, Bestefar had already been in Tenerife for a day. Seeing him was such fun as we had not seen him for a month maybe, since Spain. He had bought lots of goodies with him, like two boxes of chocolates and many books to read. I have become a bookworm on this trip and read whenever I can. Thank you to everyone who sent stuff with Bestefar, it felt like Christmas.

When Bestefar came the best thing we did was to hire a car and go to the highest peak, it was a volcano crater, that was over 3000 meters, it even had snow on it, here in this hot heat, that was such a surprise to us and we felt cold up there, we had to wear jumpers for the first time in ages in the middle of the day. We were so high up we were above the clouds, it was like being on an aeroplane but even better.

Bestefar took us to a Morrocon resturant for dinner one night, the food was fantastic, I had chicken on a spit and it even came with chips. The surprise of the evening was that a lady came out and started belly dancing! It was good, she wore a two piece dress, a bra and a long skirt, she kept coming up to me and smiling, it was fun.



When Bestefar left we all felt lonely again, Jack ran after the coach that Bestefar was on and as soon as the coach was out of sight he burst into tears. My new friends and I have been laughing at the company name of the coaches, they are called TITSA.

Jacks Video Night

One of my favourite things at Tenerife was when I met new friends, I have been playing on their boat lots and lots, they are called James, Martin, Peter and their older sister Michelle, she is twelve years old: they come from Belfast in Ireland (– thought you would like to know this Charlie!) I rowed over to their boat because to walk there would take too long and I told them do you want to come to my boat for a film, the choices were, Cars, St Trinians, Back to the Future and Herbie goes bananas. The boys all chose St Trinians.

They arrived at 3 o’clock, Daddy made pancakes for everyone with Ella’s help. Ella was helping because she had already had her treat of a sleepover, so she was not included in this and was my servant. The pancakes were delicious and I only had two though! I think my friends really enjoyed it. Daddy made us popcorn too and we ate lots and lots. Ella was ready to leave the boat when we settled down to watch the film, but I said she could stay, I think she was pleased.
The computer went on top of the engine so that everyone could see the screen, in the fore peak lying down to watch the film were Martin and I, Peter was underneath us in the space under the bunk. Ella, Michelle and James were in the main part of the boat called the saloon. There was no room for Mummy and Daddy down below so they sat outside in the cock pit doing something else. I really enjoyed it and we had even more nibbles to eat and things to drink.

Naming the Dinghy by Jack (18.11.08)

We do not have a name for our dinghy and you need to have one to stop other people taking it away, like stealing. Everyone in our family chose a name they liked for the dinghy, the four choices were: Nettle, Stinger, Flash and Poppy. We all voted for our favourite name but could not vote for the name we had created. The name with the most votes was Poppy, it was my choice. I felt fantastic and proud.

Daddy, Ella and I found a shop that made sticky letters and Ella chose the style of writing that she liked for Poppy. We came back to the boat, pumped up the dinghy and then we put the name on the dinghy. We put on two names to make it more difficult to take them off for anyone to steal it. We did not call the dinghy Brimble like lots of boats do because Mummy had read somewhere that when you take the dinghy ashore people can see who is not on their boat because the same name is on the dinghy and then someone could row out to our boat and steal from it, so that is why we have a dinghy now called POPPY.