The Arrival of Friends

Friday, October 15, 2010 

 Morning was spent reading – as usual.

After lunch, we went to pick up John (an original Cherokee boy) and Quincy (his six year old son) who would be joining us for about a week.  Unfortunately, we missed the plane's actual arrival since it was actually on time.  We had been expecting it to be late.  After all, they were flying Air Marshall Islands (AMI pronounced AMY), which is often referred to as Air Maybe. 

I was delighted to receive their gifts of green beans, carrots, asparagus, and sweet potatoes, as well as some other necessities like oatmeal, triscuits, powdered milk, and pancake mix.

We all hung out and chatted on the boat for a while.  Then in late afternoon, we went to shore to swim with the kids for the last time for a few weeks.  It was fun to see one of the mothers come out to use the kayak and stand up paddle board.  We all swam together until after sunset – over two hours.  Quincy had a lot of fun playing with the kids, especially Sullivan. 

We said our goodbyes and told them that we would probably see them in November.  As we were leaving, Beethleen asked if we could bring back a mosquito net since she said it is often hard to sleep due to all the mosquitoes.  We had given her Dad a mosquito net on our last trip to Jeh – he lives apart from the rest of the family in a separate hut.  Hopefully we can order more nets to deliver to them.  Then she asked if we could bring a volleyball and a volleyball net for the school. 

We paddled back to the boat in almost darkness.  After the kayaks and SUP were hauled up on deck, Quincy and I found phosphorescence on the SUP board.  Even though I am quite a few years older than Quincy, we both found it super cool.  We even put it on our fingers and our fingers were glowing.  Then when we wiped our fingers back on the board, wherever we dragged our fingers lit up like a glowstick. 

We all took salt water showers.  Quincy showed that he can adapt to boat life quite well.  He was a little scared to jump in the water (in the dark) to rinse, but once I jumped in, he did too.

We ended the day with a dinner of homemade whole wheat tortillas, beans, rice, cheese & the last of the dogtooth.