Dominica (14th February - 24 th February 2009) by Ella

We sailed to Dominica, a very poor island. We stayed here for two weeks because we loved it so much. We would row to the beach every day in the morning for a little swim, the water was hot. It was great there too as there was a rope swing on the coconut tree and we could swim over the water, Jack fell in once!

In the afternoons we would normally have school , but sometimes we would take a tour like the Indian river. The Indian river water was murky because it had been raining so much, in Dominica they call the rain, sunshine liquid, the mud from the bottom of the river came to the top and made it murky. Sometimes the barracuda came and swam into the river from the sea to eat the baby fish. Occasionally we saw a splash or heard a bang because the baby fish were jumping to get away from the barracuda's sharp teeth. We saw many birds, two types of egret, snowy egrets and cattle egrets, they are called cattle egrets because they eat the cow's flies and they are not as white as the snowy ones. We also saw green herons, hummingbirds and parrots flying in the tree tops. I loved seeing the iguanas in the trees but they were very difficult to spot, they looked old and dinosaur like. The trees in the Indian river were old and twisted and on each side they nearly touched each other over the river making it look spooky in some places. The roots on these trees were special they were called buttress roots reaching out into the water and lots of crabs lived there.

In the evenings in Dominica we had lots of BBQ's, I loved eating the sausages, chicken and burgers. We would row back to Brimble in the dark, making sure we had a torch so we could see where we were going. If it was not too late we would play cards, we play a game called Rummy that Big Jack taught us in Spain, or if it was very late we would go straight to bed...

We were all sad to leave Dominica, but we did manage to stay for the first day of the Carnival and were happy about that too.

Martinique by Jacobus

I was really excited to be going to a French island because we were running out of food and goodies and Ella and I wanted to get some Haribo sweets. We also really wanted to haul out Brimble so that we could paint her bottom, there are lots of goose barnucles stuck to her and this makes Brimble sail slower, I had even chosen the clothes that I was going to wear for painting in.

There was a problem though because everything was shut, they were all on strike, I do not know why they were on strike, even the teachers were! There were lots of children in the park everyday because the school had been closed for nearly four weeks, that was good for me because then I had friends to play with in the park and on the beach.

I did like sailing to the area where there had been a huge volcanic explosion lots of years ago. We walked in the town called St Pierre and saw lots of broken walls and many of them were black from the heat from the lava. We saw new houses that used some of the old walls, it looked weird.

Ella and I had so much fun on Brimble here because we used her as a climbing frame, but Daddy not was not very happy!

Martinique by Ella

It was horrible and that is the end of that!

St Lucia by Jacobus

Something very funny happened to me in St Lucia, I got covered in mud! We went to a volcano near the tall Pitons, where we could see the gas coming out of the earth and the mud boiling from all the heat. There was a terrible smell there like rotten eggs, but really it was sulphur from the earth being heated up, I did not like, it was horrible. As we were leaving we decided to go to the mud pool and see if we would swim. Daddy was first in the pool and said that I would not be able to bear it because it was hot, I went in before Ella and it was boiling hot, it was hotter than a bath and I have not had one since Barbados. It was as hot as can be and when I got used to it, it was lovely. I even swam under water in it! A local man called me out and he covered me in mud, it felt weird and I liked it, it was hot but it cooled down quite quickly. He said it would make me 10 years younger, that means I cannot be born yet! It was great and I loved it, I did not want to leave, but we were on a tour of the island and there was still much to see.

St Lucia by Ella 31 Jan - 11 Feb

Along the coast of St Lucia the wind was not too strong and Daddy said we could be towed behind Brimble in the dinghy, I had wanted to do this for ages, I was so happy because I never thought Daddy would let us. We had to get from Brimble to Poppy while the boats were moving, it was so hard, I almost fell over board, but I was wearing my life jacket so I was not worried. Being towed in the dinghy was great, Jack sat at the front of the boat, I went to sit next to him and the dinghy began to flood with water as the bow was going under the waves, I did not realise until my bum was soaked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was really bumpy and not so bumpy. We were being towed at over 4 knots, which was quite fast! I loved it and hope to do it again! It was a good job Daddy brought us back in when he did because the wind really picked up and it might have been dangerous, it was so exciting!

St Vincent by Jacobus

I really wanted to come here because it was were the Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed and I wanted to take photos for my friend Luca in England, he loves the film! I thought the set was really good but I was disappointed that they had not looked after the sets and some of it had broken into the sea, but it was still exciting. I could see the pontoon where Jack Sparrow arrives and his boat sinks and where he swung away and said “This was the time when you nearly caught Captain Jack Sparrow!” It would have been fantastic if we had the DVD of the film here with us and we could have looked at the set and then seen it on the film, I am looking forward to coming home to watch it again and say, “I was there!”

St Vincent by Ella 30-31 January

We arrived in St Vincent when it was pouring down with rain, the first thing I noticed was the rock where the three dead men were hung and Jack Sparrow took off his hat to pray from the film Pirates of the Caribbean, I was flabbergasted to see it and especially as I saw it first and pointed it out to everyone, even Dad was excited too.

When we had finally moored up, it felt like hours on end, I was desperate to get into the water, when Grandma Sue from the next boat came out and said she thought we should not swim as she had been stung over 72 times by tiny jellyfish in just over half an hour, I thought “Oh no!” We decided if we could not swim then we should go ashore and see a waterfall, as we arrived at the waterfall it was a big disappointment because the waterfall was so tiny and the water was not clear at all, the water looked more murky than England! As we left the water fall we noticed a nutmeg tree and decided to pick some. The nutmegs were so high up we could not reach them, not even Daddy and he is rather tall, so we were just about to go when I spotted another tree with nutmegs as close to the ground as half a meter. We picked a few nutmegs, I was very surprised when we opened them up, the first ones were not ready but when we found one that was ready it was covered in a bright red lines, it was very unusual. We only stayed one night, but that was OK.