“Any man who goes to sea claiming to have no fear is either a liar or a damn fool”. 

I read this in a book once and it stuck with me, being a sailor. Since then I have never once claimed to be fearless in the face of the ocean, knowing deep down that I am, in fact, afraid of it. The raw power that it holds in its depths could destroy me without even realizing it had done so. The ocean is full of beauty and wonder but it must also be respected. A shark which may be swimming beside you as gently as the Angelfish in the coral below could become a raging torrent of hungry teeth; a small cloud on the horizon may build into a gale that knocks your boat out of the sea and onto the rocks; an out of place wave may be marking a shoal waiting to rip the bottom of your boat off and drop you to the seabed below. These are some of the thoughts running through my head as my father, brothers, and I prepare for a many month long trip down to the Bahamas.

I lost sight of myself for a while in the process of dating a girl and didn’t know what to do with my life. I was jumping from wanting to go with my siblings on this trip to wanting to go to school, to not doing anything but pursue the relationship. About two or three months ago I realized that even though I might be in a relationship with someone who does not share even close to the same career interests as I do that I need to go and purse my own dreams instead of following hers. So I hopped on the TearAway adventure. In about a weeks time (as long things go to plan) we will be turning the key in our diesel engine and guiding our bow towards the Erie Canal, and from there to the Hudson, and finally into the great blue that I consider more home than solid land.

I have crossed the Atlantic ocean once before, and loved it. The long nights at the bow of the vessel Argo, watching the stars trace their paths across the sky. The warm days spent catching fish, taking classes, and everyday work that is necessary to keep the vessel running smoothly. The feeling as you look toward land at the edge of the horizon, marking the end of your long voyage, and knowing you just long for it to continue on and the tranquility to never end. We won’t be having any long passages such as that on this trip.

With just over five thousand nautical miles under my belt I am by far the most experienced sailor on the boat, but this trip will be different as each trip away from port is. It will teach me things I haven’t even thought about yet, it will grow me in ways I can’t even imagine, and we will be guiding the vessel to places not yet seen by my eyes, which means that I am as new to this as my father, and brothers, are really.

As we get the boat ready I am working on making lists of what needs to be put on the boat and where, making safety checklists, conjuring a ditch bag, and making a watch chart. Other tasks will be added to that as we get closer and closer to getting TearAway underway. Our engine is almost operational again and we are all in high, if a bit frantic, spirits.

In some ways I shall miss this island and the security I feel of being able to go to my home whenever I need to. Having friends within a half hour. Knowing people on the streets and the community of it all. I will miss my work at the boat club and teaching what I love. I will miss learning, with my friend Josh, random things like windsurfing. I will miss the familiarity of it all. But at the same time I have been itching since I returned from Argo in December to get away and be out of my comfort zone and to be near the ocean again; to be seeing something new each day and to be learning how to do things with new people. I will miss this, but I will love the serenity of it all.

So as we get ready to say goodbye to the people here we know and love we also prepare to embrace a lifestyle which most of us have not yet experienced and which none of us can predict.

Let’s hope the wind and seas stay at our back.

Photos by: Matt Hardy, Sophia Haram, Katie Combaluzier.

Medicine is a very helpful thing. In the medieval days it was passed down mother or father to child and master to apprentice, now there are whole schools dedicated to the cause of teaching this skill. The other day I went and got a stitch for an ugly cut I gave myself while carving something for my Grandpa. As we were driving to the health center my mom remarked to me, “Son, you seem to be bent on testing the healthcare in all the places we go.” I laughed tightly at this, trying to hold in a scream, and thought to myself, “Not everywhere.”

In America I have gone to the hospital for many things. Drinking a coffee cup full of medicine, which nearly stopped my heart, falling off ripsticks, twice, once on the arm and another time one the head. I think I lost a few brain cells. I did get a concussion. In Asia I went insane. We called it the Chicken Apocalypse because our only theory is that I didn’t clean my hands well enough after cleaning a chicken of its guts.

That afternoon I had spent time cleaning a chicken of its bowels. A few years before, I had spent time on a chicken farm with some friends. We, being Jonathan and I, gutted quite a few chickens. I don’t think we did as many as fast as we had hoped and my grandpa told me later that it brought to mind a saying, “One boy does work fast because he wants to get back to something he finds fun. With two boys it takes twice as much time to do one thing. With three boys you get nothing done.” Thankfully the other boy who was near my age was a little queasy about doing it, so we did end up getting something done.

Back to the story, I took the time to gut a chicken. That night we enjoyed some very tasty roasted chicken. That night we also watched a usually pleasant young man turn into a crazy killing machine. Almost. I was found twice wandering aimlessly around the house without focusing on the things in front of me. I threw up three times and bashed my head on the wall four. I remember this slightly. Everything is blurry of that time but I remember sitting on the bathroom floor and thinking, “Why is mom in my face and moving her mouth like a fish out of water?” In truth, she was yelling at me. I would go up to a wall and bash my head on it because if felt strange. I didn’t feel any pain when I pinched myself or smashed my head, just a tingling sensation.

Mom and Dad decided it was time to take me to the hospital. Dad had checked the beer supply and wine and all the other alcohol in the house and had found none out of place; so they knew it wasn’t that. As they were dragging me out of the house to the car, which was not ours, our neighbor had decided she would drive us to the hospital because there was no way I could ride a moped to the other side of the island, sound rushed back into my head. Dad was talking with Mom urgently and whenever I would make a noise they would say stuff like, “Shh Baby, it will be ok, were going to the hospital.” I knew right away that I didn’t want anything to do with needles, or doctors prodding me, or asking questions and so, in my delirious state, I attacked them. For a moment it I felt like I was winning, and then all strength left me and I sat down on the bed and started to weep. Did I mention that I had been having nightmares as well that night? I found that out later though.

The hour or so drive felt like seconds. Lights were all around me suddenly and I was walking. A man talked to me and I looked at him for a second and said, “What?” He smiled and said again, “Blureditdifdbg.” “What?” was my response again. His face changed from pleasant to concerned and said the same thing again. This time I was not even able to hear what he said because I was still puzzling over which muscles had to move to make the eyebrows come together like his did. Then a girl came into sight and she and the guy took my hands and arms and lead me down a corridor.

Everywhere I looked there were people lying on beds of white. Strange things would pop out at me, the way the man was breathing, the way the foot of the little girl sitting on the edge of the bed looked. Then I was one of the people on a bed and they had pulled the curtain all around me. A moment later and Dad came in. I saw him through a haze and blinked. Still, he was in a haze. It wasn’t fair, I could not see long distances anyway and now my short distance eyesight was not working. I felt tears run down my face and then a sharp prick. Looking at my arm I saw someone pushing a needle into my arm. All my reflexes said, “Pull away!” But my brain said, “If you do they will do it again and you might break the needle inside your arm and then they will have to cut on you to get it out” Dad reached out what I found out the next day to be his hand, but it looked like a snake and I jerked away from it.  .” I was delirious.

The next few hours passed so fast I don’t remember them really. The next thing I knew clearly was I was lying on my back looking up into a face. It rolled in and out of focus for a moment before turning into Dad. It was night and he had checked on me and woken me. We went back to sleep and around ten hours later we were taking a drive home that took two hours, not five minutes.

Bangkok Hospital, on Phuket, was probably the best hospital we had ever been to in the history of our lives. It was clean, the people there were nice and helpful, if not fast, and all in all it is a good hospital to go to. We never found out what happened to me, but we have decided it was the chicken.

About the concussion, I remember nothing. One minute we were watching a movie, the next I was looking at the roof of a camper. Dad says I got stuck in a loop. It went like this, I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” And he would say, “To the hospital” and I would say, “But why?” And he would say, “Because you may be really hurt.” A minute would pass and I would say, “Dad, where are we going?” I can’t tell you anything about the time there because I do not remember myself.

The latest hospital run is probably the stupidest. One day I was out working on a spoon for my grandpa. I stupidly held it in the wrong position and it sheathed itself in my hand. It bled, I nearly fainted, and we got a stitch in it. Not much of a story. It is a little strange, I can see other people’s blood and not think any different about it, but if I see any of my own in any great quantity then I feel like fainting.

So, if ever you are in Phuket Thailand I would suggest taking a trip to the emergency room just for the fun of being in one of the best hospitals in the world!

            “Grenade!!!” The call sounded from the other side of the beach. I heard a stick whistle when it flipped through the air, catching the wind in a little hole in its side and creating a small noise. Then, with a puff of fine, multi-colored sand, a stick dropped to the ground within seven feet of me. I leapt to my feet, forsaking my safe haven of sticks and sand, and took a flying leap through the air towards the object of death. In the back of my head a voice whispered , “Five, four, three,” but I had already landed on the object and had it in my hand and it was swinging through the air again. A sound smashed against my ears and my mind processed it into Elisha’s voice, “BANG!!! DEAD!!!” I dropped to the ground with the stick still in my hands.  I lay on the ground counting to twenty, ten because of the bullet Elisha shot at me and ten for the grenade. Then, all of the sudden I leapt to my feet and pushed off the ground. I landed on the ground, in the little safe haven of sticks and sand, in a spray of damp dirt. I heard a bang from the mouth of Ezra and leaped to my feet, lifting the stick gun in my hand I shot and yelled, “BANG!!! You’re dead!” He pretended to fall over backward dead. I ducked down again as Elisha jumped to his feet with gun in hand. I picked up a stick from a pile to my left and held it ready, as soon as Elisha was down behind his base again I brought my arm back and stood up and threw it with as much strength as I could. It landed right in their base and I yelled, “Flash bomb!!” They both ducked beneath their arms but they were to late. They both closed their eyes and started to count to five. I lunged forward and to the side, and ran with all my speed. Five seconds passed and they opened their eyes and looked for me at my base. By then I was already at their sides only twenty feet away. I heard Ezra say, “I think he is behind his base and getting ready to throw a grenade. Get ready.” Then I said, “Hands up you two hooligans!” they jumped and brought their guns up to train on my head, but they were already dead. I rushed back to my safe haven and leapt in again. Just then Hannah’s voice rang down from up on the hill. We all looked and she said, “Time to go. Come on.” We got up and, while Elisha and Ezra decided weather or not to bring guns with them, I ran up the hill and after Hannah.

Half an hour later I had my earphones in and we were speeding down the road while Josh Garrels calmed my racing pulse. I looked out the window and watched as tree after tree wiped bye. When we were near the coast I saw lots of trees that had bent inland from all the wind that had blown on them. Sparrow’s swooped and dove in their endless dance. Blue flowers framed by green were brought into my vision and were swept away again. The water sparkled and gleamed as we drove along its side. So far New Zealand has been the best place on this trip even better than Asia.

It was a beautiful day. The sun beat down on our backs and a slight wind whipped around our faces. A dead snake lay on the side of the road where it had gotten hit by a car. Dogs barked and ran around us as we walked by their property and we walked slightly faster then before.

“It’s so dead when it’s not market day.” Elisha comments on the market square.

Ten minutes later we left the streets and entered a restaurant called Mamamia. A Thai lady approached us and asked if we wished to sit outside or in. We chose to sit outside. We exited the musty indoors of the restaurant and breathed in the warm, tropical air of the ocean and looked out over the deep blue ocean. The waves were a quite big this time. Almost big enough to body surf on. We only had a second to register before we were pushed into plastic chairs. A waitress came around and placed menus in our hands.

Usually the waiters only give you two minutes and then come to ask what you want. So I scanned the menu as fast as possible and finally chose one that looked good. It was Pad Thai Chicken. I would order it again if we went but it was not my favorite thing in the world.

After lunch mom left us and went to get her massage and us kids and dad started down the beach. We were at the place where we learned how to kite surf when we heard whooping and yelling. Suddenly Elisha takes off and I look where he is going and see some friends of ours on the beach. Their kids, ages five and six, are running towards us.

In moments my brothers had put their stuff on a chair and were building sand castles on the beach. Hannah and I waded into the clear, wavy water to join the adults. The water was cool as it swirled around my feet. Waves crashed against us and I almost fell over.

Once we had gotten out to the adults we started to talk about this and that and for a while we just floated there. Without notice a ball comes flying into our midst and sprays us all with water. Elisha, who was a little ways away, burst into laughter that only he can bring. A clear, ringing laugh that brings joy to every person that hears it. We tossed the ball back and forth (making sure to splash Elisha with it) until it started raining. Then we threw it onto the shore so that the little boys could play with it.

The rain only lasted ten minutes or so and then it was all sunny again. My mom had come back from the massage place and had walked down the crowded beach. A few minutes later my father followed. The rest of my family and friends had waded out of the beautiful water and were basking in the sun while the dogs barked and the car horns blared in the distance.

I got up and went up the beach to sit on a beach chair. I lost since of time for a while as I thought about this and that. But then Ezra asked me to go home with him. I said no but Hannah said she would. She had school. I could see my dad and mom making there way towards us. Hannah packed up and left with Ezra. I could see that everyone else were getting ready to go so I just got my stuff ready and waited for mom and dad. When they got to me dad told me he was going home to but mom was going to stay. So I left with dad.

With the ocean air blowing in my hair and with the sun beating down on me and with my head finally clear and light I walked hand in hand with dad down the road and back to my house that I share with the best family a boy my age could hope for. 

We were up at seven again. Well, actually, I was up a few hours before hand because my brother Elisha woke me up.

We had a breakfast of fries, boiled eggs, hot dogs (gross!!), soup, pancakes and fruit. Everything was cold.

Soon though, we were all done and ready to go. A tour bus came to pick us up at our hotel and we all hopped in. It was not crowded at all thank goodness. My victory was short lived. Soon three girls and one couple climbed in and I got put in the middle of a three-person seat.

Did you ever sit in the middle of two strangers in a bus that is taking turns as fast as it can? It is sort of hard not to bump into one of them.

The tour guide turned around and told us her name and that it was a two-hour drive to the Perfume Pagoda. 

“This is going to be a long ride,” I thought to myself.

We drove past rice paddies and through dense jungle at 80 MPH at least on a road that, in America, would have a speed limit of 40 MPH at most. If it even existed!!!

One time we came to a place in the road that was mostly potholes. We were shaken up a lot.

One of the girls who I was sure was German fell asleep. The other did not. I sat there and tried not to bump into anyone.

Finally we came to a stop. But it was not our destination. It was a tourist attraction. I thought it was cool. There were four people sewing really cool pictures onto fabric.

Everyone stretched and then the tour guide got us back in the car and we drove on. 

The bus twisted and turned around the road dodging scooters and other cars, passing rice paddies and duck farms, rolling through the woods and then roaring past rivers to come to a stop at a large “stream” as our guide said. It was a river.

We got out, used the bathrooms and got into some boats that were waiting for us down at the rivers edge.

As we were rowed up the river our guide told us about all the beauty in the jungle and how it was romantic it was .

“I do not think that word means what you think it means” I whispered to mom, who silently laughed.

After an hour of rowing we watched as the other boat that held the other people on the tour nosed into the bank of the river. We were all out of the small boat in an instant.

“This place is called the Perfume Pagoda. Why does it not smell good?” Ezra asked.

In broken English the tour guide answered, “Because we are not in the cave”

We first went and had lunch at a little restaurant and then I asked the German lady (who I found out was from Belgium) if I could go with her and her friends to walk up the mountain. Mom, Dad, Hannah and Ezra took the tram because Hannah and Ezra had blisters and Elisha came with the girls and I.

We started our walk up the mountain.

It was easy at first. Then it got harder and the stairs got really bad.

The girl that I had asked to go with (because my family was not going) called a five-minute break.

I was too happy for that.

When we started again it took only a few minutes before we stopped again. But this was for a different reason.

We were walking along when out of the corner of my eye is glimpsed I small movement and then I heard a loud screech. A monkey jumped at me! I admit I jumped pretty high. All right, maybe really high. But that was startling!!! I thought for sure it was going to come after me. But when I looked back I saw it was chained to a tree.

“That was scary!” I said

We took some pictures and went on. It was not long till we saw another. This one we gave a little food. I don’t think it could see very well though because his eyes were weird looking.

We continued.

The guide had told us not to turn left or right but when we came to a place that there was no forward path we had no idea what to do. We chose the one that looked like it would be the right one.

We had walked a mile when we saw a poster and I said, “I hope that does not say that we went the wrong way.”

It turns out it did not.

We finally made it to the top and descended into the cool cave.

Our family and our guide were there and they waited till we had a tour of the cave. Then they went back into the trolley and we walked back down.

I had noticed at the bottom that the cost for going up on the trolley was less than it was going down. I think that is because people would walk up and then decide it was too much and trolley down. That’s my theory.

As we walked down there were people trying to make us buy their goods. One of the people sold our tour guide (who had walked down with us) a bag of fruits. We gave some to the monkeys.

It took less time to get down then to get up and when we got to the bottom we all said, “Yes! We made it!”

We looked at another little temple and then got back in the boats and went back to the car.

I fell to sleep on the way back as did the girl I climbed with and her two friends. Luckily I did not have to sit in the same seat. I was moved one seat over and put by the window.

We reached our hotel and I had to climb over two people to get out of the car. It was a little difficult. Then I had to wait a minute or two before the guide was able to open the door.

We went into our hotel and Elisha turned on the TV and I emailed my friends.

In an hour we went out for dinner then came home and went to bed.

It was a very wonderful day.

We saw temples, we climbed mountains, a monkey jumped at me, and we met new people.

We slept hard all through the night.

I was sure that is what the geckoes were singing that that morning as Ezra woke me up.

“It’s still dark!” I complained to no one in particular.

“Get up! We have a bus ride to catch!” Ezra said.

I climbed out of my bed. I had just been having three dreams at once. I liked them all. As I pulled back into myself I saw on my iPod that it was it was five in the morning.

Mom and dad had already had us pack our bags so that was simple. Did I tell you we were off to Vietnam? We’re also going to go to Cambodia and Louse.

Anyway, we all got a breakfast of coffee cake, yogurt, and hardboiled eggs.

We had to take a tour bus to get to the real bus station first. Our driver was already at our door and waiting. We grabbed all of our gear and bustled out the door. It was still dark and yet it was already getting to be hot.

I am not much of a heat person. It makes me feel bad. My comfort zone is seventy degrees and down. Eighty too ninety is ok. Anything higher is not my thing. I deal with it though. Everyone else loves it.

We put to big backpacks in the back and grabbed our other smaller bags and held them with us. We all had our own seats, which we liked.

It took us twenty minuets to get to the bus station and then we waited another twenty minuets or so for our bus. Finally it came. We boarded and found our seats. We were in the top front of the bus.

At first we moved very slowly through the city until we came out and into the countryside. The mountains grew slowly in the distance until we were suddenly among them, twisting and turning, struggling up long hills and then speeding down on the other side.  I kept wondering what sort of hidden magics and wonders there were up those mountains. These mountains were mere hills compared to some we had passed on our tour of northern Thailand.

Hannah and I fell to sleep on one another and slept for more than an hour. Ezra and Elisha played games on their iPods.

Mom had apparently been taking pictures of us sleeping because when we woke up she showed us some of them.

The bus came rolling to a stop at a market/bus stop. Everyone piled out and we started to look around when the bus driver told us to come with him. We walked for not even a minute when we came to a bus restaurant.  The man told us to sit down and then people came out with plates filled with rice and other foods and we sat down at a table occupied by Thai people.  Mom and dad went to sit at another table and left us to be embarrassed. Some how or another we made it through the meal. We left the restaurant and went to the bathrooms where Ezra took another hour. Or at least it felt that way to me. We all got a coke or a fanta and popcorn and jumped back on the bus for the last time.

Ezra and Hannah switched spots. I was not to enthusiastic about that. 

Ezra thought it would be a wonderful idea to go to the bathroom and came back smelling like smelling like, will, like a bathroom. It was a small unclean bathroom in a fast moving bus that was rocking violently. Use your emanation.

We got to our hotel after dark and got three rooms in a small hotel.

While we were getting our clothing out of the bag we found a millon ants in it! We still don’t know why they were there. I guess they were just hitching a ride.

We all fell asleep within moments of our heads hitting the pillows.

Actually they aren’t that bad. Once you get past the legs. They tickle your tongue and are a little crunchy.

I did not care for them that much but there must be someone who does, because in Oaxaca, Mexico, they have three foot high buckets full of them, with women in the back of the stalls frying more.

For those of you who have tried grasshoppers, you know you won’t eat another in your life. For those of you who have not, just go out into your back yard, catch some, squish the guts out, fry them, add chile and lime, and eat up! Who knows? You might like them! I only got one down with a straight face. I was going to bring them back to the states with me to show my friends that I had really eaten them, but they got picked up at the border. They still don’t believe me.

TERMITES

Termites are good. They taste like mint and they have the crunch of a carrot. Hannah and I eat them a lot, if we find them.

The first place we had them is in Belize where I got bit by an ant that was huge. But that’s another story for another time.

Termites live in wood, mostly. They infest trees and they build huge nests out of mud with mud tubes that spiral down the trunk all the way to the ground and help to protect them. They also build mud cities on the ground. All we had to do, though, was to poke a hole in the mud tube and wait until a termite came out. Then we could pick it up, and toss it back. We had to make sure that we had killed completely because if we didn’t it could bite you on the way down.

When my family and I were in Tobacco Caye, Belize, I was playing volley ball with some men and women that lived there. Hannah was sitting up in a tree eating termites by the dozen when a little girl asked her what she was doing. Hannah told her and the girl climbed up to join her where she was lounging and Hannah showed her how to eat them. Then while Hannah was showing off she did not kill one completely and it bit her tongue and her throat on the way down.

I laughed as she told me later that day. She was not happy; I had not shown enough pity.  She said that she maintained what little “dignity” she had at that point and excused herself to leave the little girl to eat the termites and went to the hotel and made sure she was not to hurt.

CARP

One day while at my grandparents house in Canada my brothers set out on an expedition to catch a carp.

“The size of China!” as Ezra put it.

Nether my dad, my grandpa, or myself put and any real faith in them actually getting one.

My grandpa took his blood bait out of the freezer and put some in a ziplock bag and gave it to Ezra. Elisha asked if it tasted good. They filled a bag of snacks and got fishing poles, cane poles, oars, life jackets and took off.

My grandpa made a rowboat for us and I have taken day trips to go fishing or just to row all around the huge bay. One time I rowed straight across to deliver a dog towel a person had left behind. It was a long row and I got a cup of tea out of it. Not that I had wanted to get something out of it, I just wanted to say I had done it. I was pretty proud of myself because that was the longest full row I had ever completed. It was a couple of miles without a break.

Anyway, they took off and I went to the basement to do school, yes, even I do school, no matter how much I protest.

After about two hours I came up again and went to find grandpa.

“Are they back yet?” I asked.

“No, I highly doubt that they will get anything anyway. Once their snacks run out they will be back here in an instant,” my grandpa said.

At that moment the door flew open wildly and Ezra came storming in, tracking mud.

“Grandpa! Gabe! We got one! We did not get it with the poles but sneaked up on it while it was on the top of the water sleeping and netted it!” he yelled and then kicked off his shoes and ran up the stairs to tell Dad.

For a moment Grandpa and I just stood there.

“Grandmas going to kill him if she finds that mud on the ground when she gets back,” I observed.

“I’ll make him clean the mud up later.”

Then we looked at each other and went outside to see Elisha standing there with net in hand and a big carp in the bottom of it.

“Nice going boys!” grandpa had said, “Now go put it on a stringer and Gabe and I will clean it later, after I am done with work. Gabe? Can you help them?”

“Ok,” I said

We trekked down to the water and I put it on a stringer. It was heavy. When we put I back in it swam down to the length of its line

That evening Ezra and I went to the water and brought it back up the the fish to the shed where there was a trailer that we use to gut the fish on. Grandpa got his knives and we cleaned it.

When Grandma, Mom, and Hannah got back we had them cook it up and we all tried some. I almost spat it back out. By the second bite I was ready to get the boys to eat it all, so I did not have to, and to make them know not to ever get one again. Grandpa was with me on that one.

Instead we ate the bass Hannah and I had caught that week.

We liked the bass.

When we go there we like to get the bass but sometimes we get a garr or a pike. Those aren’t that bad. I don’t like the garr as much as the pike or bass though.

So the moral is: don’t eat grasshoppers, eat termites, don’t eat carp!

“This is heavy.” I grunted as I shouldered my scuba tank onto my back.

“Here, let me help you,” our instructor said. His name is Boo.

We were about a mile from the island Tobacco Caye. Hannah and I were taking classes on how to scuba dive and this was our last day. I had read the book that gives you an out line on how to go diving and then we had jumped in to the warm tropical water of Belize. Tobacco Caye, I think, is a heaven on earth. It is a very small island that is about five miles from the mainland. There are other islands that surround it. It is a ten minute walk from one end to the other and is populated by maybe sixty people, or less.

At any rate, there we were, out in the water on a nice sunny day. The last day of the class. Probably the last day for a while. In fact, it was almost a year before we came back.

I looked over to where Hannah was struggling to get her tank on as well and smiled to myself, wondering if I looked that silly.

Finally I was ready and I got onto the side of the boat and then sat there until Hannah was ready and on the other side. After a minute of waiting she pulled herself up and onto the side and gave me the thumbs up. We both held our masks to our faces and rolled off the side of the boat.

The bubbles rose around me as the water swallowed my body with a soft splash. I unrolled and came to the top of the water and swam around the back to get to Hannah. Our instructor and the other people on the boat all splashed in. We swam to Boo and he gave us the thumbs down. Which meant we were going down.

Hannah and I both sank slowly side by side. Bubbles from our mouths danced to the top.

Then we touched down. The ocean bottom was only soft sand so (if there were no stinger rays or eagle rays lying on the bottom) we could stand there for a moment and get used to the pressuer. Boo and the others all settled down on the ocean bottom and checked that everyone was okay.

A huge turtle swam by and we looked at it and I wondered how old it was.

I started a little bit when a school of large barracuda, their teeth glinting, drifted by on the current. One stopped and looked at us for a minute before joining his school again.

Finally our instructor signaled us to follow him. Hannah and I came willingly.

We swam and swam before we found the coral reefs. They were teeming with fish, big and small, more barracuda and sun fish. Stingrays drifted by and red tailed snappers that stared at us suspiciously.

I checked my depth gauge and found that I was at forty feet deep. Then I saw it. A huge fish swam by! I tried to point it out to Hannah but she had seen something else and was trying to show me. My fish swam away before Hannah saw, so, a little disappointed, I looked at what Hannah was pointing at. I almost jumped out of my skin. Right there, ten feet or so from me and Hannah, was a stingray that was at least thirty feet long! Or at least that is what my teacher said. I thought it was more like ninety.

Boo swam down to the ray and grabbed the end of the tail and the ray took off without us. Not that I wanted to go riding on a stingray! Boo let go after a moment and swam back and grinned.

Our teacher looked at his air gage and asked to see ours. We were all running low. I asked how long we had been down and he signed thirty minutes.

We went looking for the other people and found them looking at a school of small fish. We told them we were going back up and to join us when they were ready and they said, “Ok,”

We began the assent.

Thirty feet, twenty five, twenty, fifteen. Time to halt. We have to wait at fifteen feet for our blood to get used to the pressure or else it will start to bubble and it will get really sore and bad.

After five minutes we start going up again and finally reach the top. We waved our hands so that the boat driver would see us. He drove over and helped us aboard where we took off our tanks and our wet suits and waited until the others came up.

That day we went twice. Hannah was not feeling good for the second dive so we left her at home.

It was a good day.

We got our licenses and then slept the rest of the day.

Hey, what can I say? It’s hard work!

If ever you go to Belize look up Tobacco Caye. Lana’s on the reef is where we stayed.

Fresh food: shrimp, fish, conch shells and lots more.

Not to mention the giant moray eel in the cove! That thing is at least ten feet! Not kidding!

And no we do not eat those.

“We get to go to a waterfall?” Ezra asks for the tenth time that day. “Yes Ezra. Mrs. Gabell and her family are taking us. Now don’t ask again please. Dad is trying to drive.”

Mrs. Gabell has one child who is four years old. He is really cute. The first time we met at his school he was really shy. But when we got to his house he got his legos out and let Elisha and Ezra play with them and then rode his scooter around and squirted ants with a water gun.

First we got the food for the picnic that we were going to have at the falls. 

What are fish kabobs? Fish on a stick. Grilled to perfection and then filled with a leaf that I don’t recognize but that tastes like lemon. We call it lemon leaf.

We got up one morning to find out that Dad and Mom were going to take us to an elephant camp!

So we all got in our car, one of us had to ride in the trunk, and drove 8 km to the camp. We drove past two other elephant camps before we found Thom’s.

They have four elephants and they are all females. One of them has tusks and was super big compared to the others. Elisha and I rode that one. Elephants have very bristly hair and it rubs against your legs and hurts a lot! They are also very smart. They play soccer, they paint, they swim and lots more!

We got to feed and play with the elephants before we left to go on the trail.

The people who take care of the elephants chopped up banana leaves and stalks and gave them to us to give to the elephants. One elephant picked Ezra up to get a piece! And then the trainers taught us how to get the elephants to swing us around. After a while one of the elephants started to toss us towards the banana leaves to make us get her some food!!! It was a lot of fun.

Finally the guides told us to get on the elephants. Mine and Elisha’s guide told the elephant to put his leg up and then told us to hold the bottom of the ear. We did and the elephant helped by lifting his leg to boost us up to his back were we scrambled up to the middle of his back. Elisha had it good, he got the neck. I got the back bone. It was a painful ride for me.

We went through fields and woods till we reached a little river. The guide told us to take off the blanket that they had put on each elephant and then the elephant waded out into the water. The elephants lay down in the water and we got off. The first exciting thing that happened was that the elephants pooped! It was gross, but a small price for what happened next.

The guides told me to get on an elephants back and so I did. Then one of the guides said something in thai and the elephant started shaking his head. I was flung off into the water pretty quickly needless to say! When I came up coughing and sputtering  I found I was being laughed at, and then I looked around and saw Ezra and Hannah both doing the same thing I had just failed at. I laughed too. Hannah and Dad were the best of us all. Ezra thought he was, but he was not. Elisha and I both knew we were the worst. We tried though. Mom thinks she may have cracked a rib while doing that.

After half an hour or so we got on our elephants again and rode back to the camp. When we got there we had lunch and fed the elephants again, watched the videos that a lady who worked at the camp had taken of us and laughed at ourselves. Then we played soccer with the elephants again.

When we were done we soaked in a hot spring to get the elephant stuff off of us.

It was the best day of the trip.