For example if I am approached by one of my children bearing a cut my first reaction, depending on the decibel level of the scream, is to see if there is enough blood spurting out of said cut to make a mess all over the boat. My second reaction is to tell said child to shut the hole in his face before my eardrums break and let me look at it. I am usually rather un-nerved at this point and am not really very gentle as I poke and prod the cut to see if it needs stitches or a band-aid. Either way I dump some alchohol on it clean it with a swab and bandage it up while at the same time telling the child to stop screaming. Splinters are handled with the tip of my pocket knife and alcohol (just like my dad used to do with such afection for me when I was a wee lad.)
Clothing and hygene… I prefer it if they wear one pair of shorts for the week so I don’t have to do as much laundry… T-shirts are wearable until they no longer pass the “sniff-test” and I generally discourage the wearing of any shirts by the boys unless we are going shopping. Teeth are brushed every night or when I notice that they are a shade of yellow that proves to me that the child has been lying to me all week and not brushing them at night when they were told. Showers… what? They have been swimming every afternoon! What kind of dirt can stick to that pruny body? No really I make them shower… when the hair on their head sticks up and cannot be moved without breaking it off… time for shampoo.
Haircuts… moving on…
My wife softens all of that and fixes all the little messes I make out of our offspring by gently cleaning wounded fingers, using a sterile needle to softly prod a splinter from its hiding place, encouraging soapy showers and shampoo, changing shirts and shorts almost every day (we do still live on a boat people!) checking to make sure the teeth are clean after the kid has spent 20 minutes making faces at himself in the head mirror with the water running and still has a dry toothbrush.
Her humor and infectous laugh and big beautiful smile and the sparkle in her sea blue eyes keep me grining from ear to ear. She has been my very best friend for more than 20 years now, she shares my dreams and heartaches and this whole idea that the kids and I could live without her for a couple of months was ludicrous! We won’t make that mistake again mark my words!
Grenada is a beautiful island and the Port Louis Marina was a great place to stay for a very reasonable rate. I would recommend it to anyone. We had a great time with new friends on Ubuntu, EmilyAnne took French lessons, the kids swam the pool almost dry and I had a place to get into the habit of morning running. We actually had a great time for these weeks but again… we would much rather be with Becky.
I will try to send her a couple of updates as we sail and feel free to send us messages on the Iridium phone (they are free) also I will update the spot about every 6 hours so you can track us as we sail by clicking the little “spot” word on our blog page.
God Bless,
Captain Tofer
