Christmas Break!
Christmas break is usually the most fun of them all! It’s longer, and its cooler outside so we are
able to spend more time out in the sun without getting burnt and having to
lather ourselves in sunscreen. Always
putting on sunscreen is not a favorite so we tend to go out in direct playful
sun while the chance of burning is not as bad.
We really haven’t gone to the beach much during the winter because its
too cold – as horrible as it sounds to most northerners- yes it feels too
cold. However on this day we did indulge
on Zeelandia beach, this is before Christmas, with a couple of Todd’s friends
from school. Saad and Mohammad Mansour. Mohammad, Mansour as everyone calls him, is actually a professor at the University, a super smart and nice
guy from Egypt. We’ve hung out on a few different occasions. Todd went to Zeelandia beach a couple days
back and started digging a flat piece of sand that the ocean had started to
create. Todd just made it a lot better,
giving himself a nasty case of tendentious in his wrist, and we went out there
to ride the water. It was a great
afternoon of skim boarding, playing and throwing a ball around.
Courtney, Katie & Sarah
Katie
Todd
Courtney
Mansour and Katie playing some catch
Saad
Me, Okay it wasn't that bad!
Mansour
Todd started cleaning the beams at the beginning of the
Christmas term break but ended up having to stop because he has shoveled too
much sand – The tendentious! Its tedious work!
Thanks to some proactive friends we had a fire cookout on
Zeelandia beach. I’ve had this idea in
mind for a long time, along with may other things in my head, but have never
acted on it. I would get too stressed
out about the thought of putting it together, crazy I know. But the Hunters had gathered the same idea
and pulled through with us being one of the beneficiaries. It was a nice time to be out on the beach at
night, go for a night time walk, kids running and playing, and the best part
being able to go out by the water on a moonless night and seeing the millions
of stars in a different sky than the one at home; a different constellations
with half of the big dipper below the horizon at this time. A really beautiful site!
Courdy is squatting down there trying to roast her hotdog at the really hot fire! Daddy makes great fires!
Katie is sitting on the log between Hayley and Brit.
We made a list of a few different things we wanted to do on
our Christmas break and visiting Chocolate, the little kitten who’s life we
saved when we first got to the island, was on the list. Last year Courtney and I went to go see her
at Kingswell Resort, the place that took her in, and she was big and cute and
looked like a little wile cat. It was
really fun watching her run around and play and be happy just to be alive! We all wanted to see her again but it was sad
to hear that she had run away, or something happened to her, just 3 months
before so we didn’t get to see her. I
was sad but we saw these HUGE dog that live there instead. We’ve seen then before but every time you see
them they just seem crazy big. The kid’s
thought that was great until they started ‘liking’ the kids too much, and one
of them really liked poor little Katie.
She was taking pictures of them with her DS and it tried to get her and
Katie unknowingly took a picture of herself terrified with this crazy dog after
her. She looked at the picture in the
car after and just laughed and laughed.
We all had a look and burst out laughing. At least in the end it was a ‘positive’
moment!
Here is a fantastic idea for reusing plastic bottles. There is no recycling on the island, it is
pretty sad how a large amount of the garbage here ends up in the ocean. From what I understand people are looking
into it. So maybe in the next 10 years
or so – who knows. But anyway the
Filipino community, who preside over the Catholic Church here, care for the
organization of its teachings, care for the building, and the Christmas
decorations! They used some very
creative ideas using old water bottles – widely sold here – to make these fun
decorations.
Another this on our Christmas list to do was hike to Mazinga
(Mazinga translates to something like a Zenith in English – the highest peak or
tip of a mountain) point on the Quill.
It is the highest point on the volcano, 600 meters, and it was time we
hike it.
Butterflies and stinky toe.
Apparently you can eat the stinky toe but it really stinks!
We saw tags on different areas of the hike, these are to mark different orchids!! There were tons of them. It would be amazing to be up there and see them in bloom!
The higher and higher was climbed the more gorgeous and
amazing it became. Beautiful rainforest
greenery became thicker and thicker with an amazing view to peek out of every
once and a while.
It was a fairly strait forward hike climbing some steeper
terrain, roots and rocks, cliff drops to the side and then a steep rope climb
up one part. A little tricky but the
kids had a great handle on it. Todd
climbed up a ways and then helped us all up.
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more beautiful it
did. After climbing past the rock face we came the Elven Forest. Very fitting
name! There are plants especially very
rare and fern and orchids that grow up here.
And if I’m correct ONLY grow here – orchids. We didn’t see any though. I think they come out only in specific
temperatures of weather that need to be exact for them to bloom. It was just amazing!
We even got a view of the Botanical Gardens.
And we made it to Mazinga Point!
We ate our snack.
And had a little visitor come to check us out! We are gathering our things to climb back
down and I hear this little goat calling over and over and it leaps through the
bush and I thought for sure it would just turn and run once it saw us but it
didn’t. It looked us strait on bawed a
little here and there moved its head like it was checking us out, slowly turned
around to go and looked over its shoulder one last time bawed again and bounced
away. It was so funny to have this
little thing just run up curiously to check out what all the commotions was
about on his mountain seeing it was us and thought, “Oh, Okay then. Carry on,”
and go off on his way.
This is him looking back at us before he pranced off – lucky
I got one clear picture – so cute!
IPhone pictures of our hike
Another activity on our Christmas list to accomplish was
getting the kids diving certification, which we started before Christmas. Now they were on the home stretch to
completing the Junior Underwater Diving Course! They have been doing extremely
well catching on to the theory, moving through the water, not being afraid in
the water with all of the equipment they are to handle and know, and being very
mature about the responsibility of becoming a diver. Marieke said that their
knowledge is very good and she couldn’t believe Jase in how he could answer her
question. She said he would answer her
by quoting almost word for word from the book – she was astounded by our smart
boy!
Here they are going over the navigation part of the lessons
on land – preparing to do it underwater.
And off we go on the boat – all of us (except Courtney) to
go on the kids final dive of their lesson together! Marieke still had a few
thing for them to go over in the water, their navigation, buoyancy, mask
removal and then we were free to swim around!
We saw the little sea horse that live around there and of course a whole
bunch of other lovely fish and plants.
Katie gets so cold under the water its hard for her to stay longer than
30 minutes because she get so cold poor thing!
I think she takes after her mother!
Marieke was so sweet and brought her personal underwater video camera
and took video of the kids entering the water, we videoed them doing their
stills and us diving together! They did
so well and it was so amazing to see them underwater doing their diver thing!
Marieke did a fantastic job of teaching them we are so pleased!
DUM,Dum,dum…. That is suspenseful music. Now for the final
exam and oh the suspense!
I don’t know about Todd but I was sure nervous for them but
why do I doubt with such smart kids! As
I mentioned in an earlier blog everything they do in this course is exactly
what every adult diver needs to know, do and answer in their final exam. Just because they are Juniors doesn’t mean
they have to know any less and they definitely didn’t’. Katie scored the same as me on the exam with
only 6 wrong out of 50 I believe (more than ten and you have to re-write)
beating her Daddy who got 7 wrong – he, he – our excuse is that he was studying
school too. And Jase blew us all out of
the water with only 2 wrong!
Auntie Leontine was closing up her shop – Mazinga on the Bay
– heard the good new, gave them both a huge hug and a celebratory Popsicle for
all the kids to go with it!
Yay! We did it!!! Oh
the things they can do and the places they will be able to go – priceless! Thank you Marieke for working so wonderfully
with our babies!
We didn’t only gain the neat experience of diving but also
learning and growing and sharing who we are as a family. Marieke shared this story with Todd. Jase had
an experience on one of the dives they were going on for their certification
where he at first misinterpreted some Dutch being spoken by Marieke to one of
her co-owner. They were taking about how
they had noticed, throughout the diving course, that the kids were so
well behaved, respectful, tentative, thoughtful – not the typical children they
have been accustomed too. They were
mentioning that they felt that it was because they have a mother that is
raising them at home and not having someone else raise our children, was there
for them, and gave them proper boundaries to honor. Jase spoke up and said to them. “I’ll have
you know my mother does a really good job at home and works really hard.” They of course helped him to understand correctly
what they were talking about. Marieke
also said she could see what a valiant young man Jase was turning out to be by
how he defended his mother when he thought she needed to be defended. This made Todd very proud – a good proud –
and me teary.
Marieke told me of a time while Jase and Katie were in and
study session at the Dive shop, located on the beach, and we were there hanging
out and Courtney was running and playing with some friends. These friends came up to where Jase and Katie
were studying to see what they were doing and in essence not really realizing
or thinking that they were disrupting the class. Courtney said, “Come on guys, you can’t be
here you are disrupting their lesson.” Marieke said something along the lines
of – “Yep, another little Erickson 3 for 3!”
At one point Marieke asked if it was the way we were raising
our children that created their demeanor and how they conduct themselves or if it was the influence of
our church; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Todd said we raise and teach our children based on the principles of the gospel.
It been about 20 years or more since Sint Eustatius last saw
a cruise ship embark on its little shore. The
Seabourne Legend came to the island December 27th. The Tourisms Development Foundation, the
government, and our friend Francine Harrigan, Shariques Mom, made the main preparations for the 200 passenger plus 175 crew to come to the island - if you are interested in island tours she would be an excellent contact. A number of local vendors were contacted
to be at the newly constructed Dingy Dock.
Selections of “sweet-mouth” items were available at the pavilion and
live entertainment by the historic Killy Killy Band and other local
entertainers. There were locally made juices, T-shirts, Arts & Crafts,
pottery and a table of artifacts for viewing from the archeology foundations. We went to go check it out! Any sort of new and exciting thing going on
on Statia is worth checking out!
You can see the little shuttle boat taking people to and from the ship
Little pavilion set up for tourists and locals too!
We had a fantastic time looking over the artifacts found around the island over time. The kids found this very fascinating - so do we! Old pipes, candle sticks, handles, gin bottles, keys, pieces of pottery...really cool stuff.
Clay pipes were used by almost everyone at that time and that's why a lot of the lower town is know as smoke ally because of all the clay pipe pieces that you can find scatters on the ground. That where everyone 'hung out' drank and smoked. A couple different rumors going around say that they would pass their smoking pipe around breaking off a piece of the pipe to share with the next guy, but most archeologists are saying that they kept their own pipe whole and the are found broken up these days because of their fragile state - thin clay ofter all.
And some smokers had their own fancy looking pipe ends where they stuck the tobacco. There is even a commemorative pipe end piece found in the excavation restoring an old storage house, for Mazinga on the bay, made to celebrate something to do with on of the kings at that time - I can't remember but its really neat. We have our own little collection of pieces that we have collected - that we can't take off the island so we will throw them in the water or somewhere on land before we leave.
The kids and the current archeologist on the island taking their own pictures of the articles.
Some cute fun pottery thrown by a Dutch lady who live on the island Alida Bouwes.
Jase talking with Olga Schats about her beautiful drawings!
The feedback was
really positive from the cruise goers and the crew. It not your typical Caribbean island
here. You don’t get the people hassling
you on the beach, its not your party island – its rich with history,
untouched beauty, its great for diving, hiking, creative exploring, and quiet.
And it was at last a
Happy New Year! Last year we stayed at
home for bringing in the New Year but this time we decided at the last minute
to celebrate our last New Years night at the Fort Oranje. We grabbed our
Martenellies apple drink, cups and arrived with enough time to find a seat on
the edge of the fort wall and wait for a few minutes, and then 10 minutes and
then 20 minutes. And finally at 12:35 am
we saw our first firework, and then at 12:38 we saw another, and at 12:40 we
saw another. It picked up for about 4 fireworks and then another couple after a
few minutes with a few minutes in between.
That was it. Last year it was
quite well done but this year - not so much. Apparently the man who was suppose
to lite the fireworks fell asleep and the police had to wake him to come lite
them – the long wait – and for how few there were and how far apart they were
lit – we aren’t sure about that. Only on
Statia! But we still love it!
Happy New Year!
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