Getting into a Rhythm

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Wed 14 Apr 2010 03:51
As we settle into a summer routine, it is important to get a daily regular
rhythm with the boys, so they settle and make good progress on education. It
is important over the next few months that we establish the home school
routine each day, so Sean feels like this is normal.
We have for the last 2 weeks here got into a rhythm of:
Early morning before it is too hot:
Sean does : Violin
Numbers
Letters
This is about 1 to 1 1/2 hours which is the extent of his concentration.

At this time I take Alex for a walk to feed the deer and look at Macoro
birds, at this time I am doing colors and vocab.

We do either Craft or a Science activity (like tomorrow we will build a wind
vane, today we did Ice Bergs in the pool with ice).
Then they play in the pool.
In the late afternoon we do other activities like fishing, bird watching
(tomorrow Sean I will go canoeing in the mangroves trying to catch fish).
We do a sport like bike riding, flying kites, swimming or sailing in the
dinghy.
In the evening Sean gets on his computer and does some of Kindergarten
activity programs we have which take him through numbers, logic, and word
association, and he enjoys the challenge, and he is learning significantly,
and most of all he is keen to engage.
With all of these activities becoming normal, as we not travelling each day,
we hope to establish momentum, booth boys are moving along fast, but with us
cruising the excuses are there.
When we do South America we need to keep it going, which will be
interesting.
I am trying to knock down the list of tasks and doing well, and with boat
clean on the inside and organized it is pleasure to be in. Today I spent a
couple of hours washing the salt off the windows of cockpit, and then the
port hole stainless, I need to finish this tomorrow. With them been clean it
will be nice when the rains come as this will apply freshwater cleaning each
day, which helps to the cleaning needed after months and 1000s of miles.
You cannot imagine the destruction by the sun and salt does, that is why the
boat cover is key and we will keep up even while we are away.
The locals tell us April is the hottest month here as we do not have the
rains to cool things off, but if you stay out of the sun we do get a regular
breeze through the day which keeps things livable.
The discussions on the dock are all about what people are doing over the
summer, as most are staying here, we hear of costs and less friendly places
south, which means we like it here, and we will anchor and visit the places
south but not leave our boat. Most cruisers are planning trips back to US,
or inland leaving their boat at anchor, but we will have population of 20 +
boats which we all work together to keep watch and open up the boats
regularly. The part I like is the swapping of ideas, improvements to boats,
or discussions of where people have been or going. This is how we are
planning the next 6 months of travelling. But we are also meeting some great
people, who we will enjoy meeting up with as we go south after the wet
season.
To morrow we want start exploring the Estuary.