Adventures of a Tribe

Mothers Day

Posted on May 11, 2015

Mothers Day was wonderful. It was an emotional one for everyone, realizing that the way we have always celebrated mothers day with our entire family in tact, is coming to an end. It’s an interesting battle for me, as I try to be brave. I know it’s upsetting to my parents if they see me cry, so I put on a brave face and converse with more of a matter of fact tone when it comes to discussing funeral arrangements, legal documents and last wishes, but I’m just aching inside and all I want to do is bury my face in my Fathers chest and sob. What ends up happening is that I use my happy face and humor, and then have moments alone of a darn good cry.

I’m not very good at this.

Family joined us yesterday. We cooked, laughed, played, cried and ate.

The morning began with us all walking across to church together.

Isn’t there a saying, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth?’ In this case, the meal was delicious and all the cooks were welcome and so helpful.

We always love it when the guitars come out.  We have some amazing talent in our family. This photo is of two of my nephews and their finance’s.

Aunty Liz (Daddy’s sister), who has arrived from Australia, was such a good sport and took the multitudes in stride. She’s as crazy as the rest of us, and is as always, so fun to be around.

The Panama crew had a good day too.Stormy skies and gale force winds are keeping them at anchor at Isla de Providencia. No other vessels have come in to anchor since the weather became crazy, and no vessels have left.  The storm is expected to continue all week.  The question is, are we going to make it out of there in time to get to Florida, provision, and get back to Panama before hurricane season.  A consideration is to head back to our marina when the weather permits, and sail to Florida in November when hurricane season has passed.  Danny is pro at watching the weather patterns, and I have complete faith in his and Judes decision concerning that.

Jude took this good one of Captain Handsome himself.

Danny told me a funny story.  Yesterday he took the outboard engine off the dingy and called a man in town who fixes them.  He told Danny to get a dinghy ride with someone to the dock and he’d come pick him and the engine up to go work on it. Well, a large Colombian man on a motorcycle showed up and told Danny, who is build like an Indian Chief, to hop on and ride bitch, with the engine across his lap between him and Mr Colombia.  They rode this way for a couple miles.  I would have given anything to be there and photograph the biking couple!

While there, he asked Danny to jump on his bike and ride back and get the fuel tank for the engine.  He did this, waved his arms on the dock till one of the boats at anchorage saw him, picked him up in their dinghy and gave him a ride to the boat to get the gas filled container. Once reaching the dock once more, Danny had to ride the motorcycle with one hand, on what was no doubt pot hole filled roads, the other hand holding on to the fuel tank. After a little time and $15, the engine was fixed and all is well. I wish all engine work cost that little!

During this time, Hannah’s newly made friends who are other cruising kids at the anchorage, swung by Tanda Malaika in their dinghy and asked her to come to the beach with them.  After that they invited her to a movie night on one of the boats.  She had a blast with them and it helped ease the feeling of missing her siblings for a little while. She was impressed how even the 9 year old who was present was such a ninja at handling the dinghy.

Another day is done and life is good.  I am grateful to live in such a beautiful world, surrounded by family and friends that I love so much.