What do the kids do? 05.19S 122.23W

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Fri 31 May 2013 21:19
Today we got an e-mail from our neighbourghs here in the Pacific, it is Almacanter only 200 miles away from us that askes if Andreas plays on some kind of game system?
 
Here is my answer:
Hallo Neighbourgs (I think it is an h missing here)
 
   thank you for your long letter! Yes the kids are a lot of joy as well, when you feel gloomy in the early morning after a bad watch, they come up the steps to the cockpit and look at you with eyes filled of expectations, they might even look at the waves and exclaim:- Wow today they are much bigger! Come Andreas lets get the cars out!
And then they jump down and start to have car races where the cars run uphill or downhill.The ocean decides.
Then there are moments when they are like monkeys that fight all the time and you have to keep calm, look at them and ask:- Shall we read something?
You where asking if Andreas plays with a system, I guess that means like Lego or Playmobile etc?
Yes he builds a lot in Lego, in fact they both do. And no matter what you want as a parent, Erika builds small houses, cafés etc. Andreas builds rockets, cars and weapons.
They do mix things with each other and Lego can suddenly become food in a game where Andreas is supposed to be a cat and Erika the owner. That is a lot of fun for them, but not for us, because that cat needs a house, somewhere to play etc. So when we have 3 meter waves we have to both balance ourselves to get to the bathroom AND climb or crawl past a series of obstacles built by small human beings. Then as the whole boat looks like a madhouse, the cat goes crazy and starts to become a tiger and the game is lost and the kids cry in the ruins of their little world. And that's usually when the impeller or something else gives up and you have to get the tools out, open the engine room, or even better, thats when the waterpump in the shower freaks out...
Oh you ask maybe if he plays on a computer game? Now Im reading your question again and I might not understand it.
Well he plays on the iPad, til yesterday they had an hour per day. Andreas has been playing some kind of Mindcraft, wich I  thought was a game where you build stuff. But suddenly Andreas found out a way to shoot everything down instead. The problem with that is that there is no border between the game and the real world. He runs around shooting and shouting and the boat is just to small to handle that (well not the boat, it's us). Erika plays a game called the Tram, its about a girl that makes graffity and then has to run away from a guard and collects money. She has no problem keeping game and reality apart.
Now we will go down to one hour gametime a week, thank you.
(I'm going to post this answer on the blog, thanks for asking)
 
Today the waves have picked up a lot, it is very uncomfortable to work on board. This is not the wavetrain that we are running away from, this one comes from NE and is about 3 meters, banging into another smaller train from the opposite. As they do the water splasher right upwards and sometimes we get Pooped (you rember the explanation? Water in the cockpit)
But sometimes you get more than water in the cockpit...
As Ellinor was reading for the kids before going to bed she got hit by an octopus that came flying through the air into her hair.
She smelled fish!
One beautyful thing about these "agressive" waves is that the look like the alps, very sharp going up steep. Well when they do that agains the sun, they are lit from behind and  fascinating blue color is shining for a second.
Today we are running the watermaker all day to be filled up with water since we do not know how hard it will be to do things in the coming seastate.
The watermaker needs a constant supply of water and if we are rolling to one side air can come into the system.
 
Dinner yesterday: Pizza and Coca Cola
Lunch today: Home made fishballs in lobster sauce with rice and ratatui
Dinner: who knows....