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snelbz · 6 years ago

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The Arrival {ACOTAR 2nd Gen - Part 1}

A/N: Surprise! @tacmc and I didn’t even tell you this one was in the works. The idea popped into our heads and we both fell head over heels in love with it! It will be based around a long weekend away from Velaris. Each “chapter” will cover a day. We hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions about the kids, please feel free to drop an ask in either of our boxes!

Cassian climbed out of the truck and slammed the door, taking a deep breath as he looked out over the lake.

This long weekend away from the hustle and bustle of Velaris was exactly what Nesta needed and he heard his very pregnant wife groan as she lowered herself from the passenger side cab.

“Uncle Cass!”

He turned just in time to catch the little girl that jumped at him, hoisting her up and propping her on his hip. “Luna-Bug!”

“Hi!” She tossed an arm around his neck, squeezing as tightly as she said. “Uncle Rhys told me to tell you he needs your help on the dock when you get here.”

“Well since I have the boat, I guess I need to do that, don’t I?”

Luna nodded, excitedly. “Can I come with you?”

“Of course,” he laughed, kissing her forehead before setting her down. He looked back to where Nesta was fanning herself next to the truck. “Doing okay, sweetheart?”

Nesta gave him a glare that could destroy cities. “Thorn? Can you and John take our bags inside, please? I’m going to go find your aunts.”

Thorn nodded, taking a duffle bag out of the bed and throwing it at John, who fell down from the impact. Nesta couldn’t even take a step toward him before he was on his little feet, charging for his big brother.

Cassian just chuckled and looked back to Luna. “Boys.”

Luna rolled her eyes as if to say, Tell me about it.

“John!” His youngest son paused, looking back over his shoulder. “Don’t even think about it. Thorn,” he pointed at his eldest son, the spitting image of himself. Mischief danced in the blue-gray eyes he’d inherited from his mother. “Don’t be an ass.”

Luna gasped and covered her mouth. “Uncle Cass, that’s a bad word!”

He laughed and started heading for the lakehouse, the front door swung open wide to let the heat in. “Don’t tell your mommy I said it and I’ll give you an extra one of Aunt Nesta’s brownies after dinner.”

Luna’s eyes went wide. “Ooooh yummy.”

Azriel was standing in the kitchen, taking everything out of the fridge that he would need to start grilling. A 6-month-old Lannan was strapped to his chest in a carrier, little feet kicking wildly. Luna began squirming until Cassian put her down.

“Daddy! Uncle Cass is here!”

Azriel turned around, only to have Luna run into his leg with a big hug. She reached up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to baby Lannan. “Hi, baby brother.”

Lannan giggled and tangled his fingers into Luna’s dark hair.

“OW!” she screamed.

Azriel sighed, untangling his infant’s fingers from his eldest child’s hair.

“Hi,” he laughed, meeting Cassian’s gaze. “You’re needed-.”

“Dock? Yeah, so I’m told,” he said, narrowing his eyes at Luna, who stuck out her tongue and ran out the back door, toward the lake.

He ruffled his hand through his brother’s hair (much to Azriel’s dismay as he whispered “Prick,” under his breath) and pressed a kiss to the top of his nephew’s head and headed for the door. “Cass?”

He turned and looked back towards the kitchen. Azriel tossed him a beer. “Here’s to a good, long weekend. You’re going to need that.”

He saluted him and cracked the top, following the sound of giggles onto the back porch.

Feyre and Elain were sitting down by the dock in their swimsuits, Nesta waddling toward them — Thorn gripped by the wrist in one hand, John in the other.

Feyre and Rhysand’s twins were running around in the grass through the sprinklers.

“Party’s here!” Cassian announced, descending the back porch stairs.

Feyre rolled her eyes as Nesta let go of Thorn and John and plopped down in one of the other lawn chairs.

“Control your boys,” Feyre chastised. “Your wife is a whale.”

“Bitch,” Nesta muttered but didn’t correct her. Cassian didn’t want to know what it took to create human life.

“She’s beautiful,” Cassian winked, pressing his mouth to his wife’s before strutting out on the dock, to an impatient Rhys.

“About time you got here,” he said, tying the jet skis off.

Cassian raised an eyebrow. “In case you somehow forgot, my wife is 8 months pregnant. If you want to be the one tell her to hurry up, that’s your balls, not mine.”

Rhys glanced over to where Nesta was resting, her shirt raised over her belly, letting the sun warm her skin. He shuddered at the idea of asking an irritable Nesta to do anything she didn’t want to do. “Fair enough. I’ve got the ramps ready. You want to help me get them into the water so all you have to do is back down?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Rhys lifted his beer towards Cass and the two clinked their bottles against each other. “Happy Solstice, brother.”

Cass grinned. “Happy Solstice.”

-------

Nesta groaned as she felt another sharp kick to her ribs. “I swear, if she wants to come early, I’m completely fine with it.”

Feyre drank from her wine glass and looked at both of her sisters. One pregnant and one breastfeeding, she would be the only one drinking. Nesta eyed her wine glass. “Have one for me, please.”

“Same,” Elain said, eyes closed, an arm tossed over her face to block out the sun.

“It would be my pleasure, but if-.”

“Mamaaaaaa!”

All three women were instantly turning, Feyre and Elain on their feet, but it was Lily who was crying as she sat in the grass. Thorn had her Barbie in his hand, held high in the air out of her reach, and he looked as if he’d be caught red-handed. Nesta tried to get up from the chair, but her swollen belly wouldn’t allow her. She decided to yell instead.

“Thorn Stormwind Nazari, you give your cousin back her doll right now or I swear-.”

Feyre and Rhys’ son pushed him from behind and he landed in the grass. “Leave my sister alone!”

“Let them fight it out.”

The three women looked behind them to see Azriel. They hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Sounds like a bloodbath waiting to happen,” Elain mumbled, as Azriel took Lannan out of his chest carrier and handed him to Elain.

“It’s good for them to settle their own conflicts,” Azriel said, not unkindly, as he unstrapped the carrier and tossed it in the grass.

Elain watched the scene play out, worry coating her eyes.

But, Thorn got up, dropped the doll, and ran to the tire swing that hung on a large oak tree.

“What are we eating today, chef man?”

Azriel gave Feyre a small smile as he pulled off his shirt, the sun catching his tanned skin. “Burgers, hotdogs, I’ve got a few steaks.”

Nesta took a deep breath and cursed. “I’m so hungry, that sounds amazing.”

“Still not able to eat red meat?” He asked. “I’ve got chicken breasts for you, just in case.”

Nesta ran a loving hand over her stomach. About 3 months into her pregnancy, Nesta discovered she wasn’t able to keep red meat down, but craved it almost 24/7. There were many nights that Cassian was down on their porch at 2:30 in the morning, grilling a burger that would go uneaten, just so she could huff the smell of it out of his shirt as she laid in bed.

“No, I believe we’re finally past that, but I’ll probably still have them. That sounds so good right now.”

“She’ll change her mind in 30 minutes,” Cassian yelled as he went around to the drive to get the boat. “She’ll decide she wants Indian food or a pickle smoothie.”

“You did this to me, remember?”

He smirked. “Oh, I remember well.”

“Little ears, Cassian!” Elain cried, covering Lannan’s ears, even though there’s no way the small infant could have any idea what was being said around him. He cooed as she gazed down at him. Azriel dropped a kiss to his wife’s head.

Cassian just grinned. “Oh, you’d hate the things we say around our kids at home-“

“Cassian,” Nesta interrupted, shaking her head.

Cassian just laughed as he continued his walk to the driveway.

“Mommy?” A dark-haired, tanned skin boy tapped Feyre’s shoulder. “I want to go swimming. Thorn does, too.”

“I’ll go with you,” Azriel said, smiling softly. “Get your suits on. I’ll be waiting by your dad, okay?”

Bennett nodded excitedly and hurried inside to change.

Azriel asked, “You're giving this one a normal name, right?”

Nesta laughed. “Like you’re one to talk?” She heard Elain giggle from her seat. “Yes, Cassian lost his child naming privileges when I woke up and ‘Thorn Stormwind’ was our son’s official birth certificate. This little one will be Scarlett Rosemarie Nazari.”

“Thank goodness,” she heard Feyre breathe.

A little voice sounded behind them. “Mama.”

They turned to find Olive, one of Rhys and Feyre’s twins on the dock. She reached for her and Feyre lifted her and sat her on her lap. “What is it, sweet girl?” She didn’t say anything, just nestled her head against Feyre’s chest and closed her eyes.

“Looks like someone is ready for her nap,” Rhys said, taking his daughter from his wife’s lap. “Are you sleepy, Livy?” She shook her head ‘no’, but her thumb was in her mouth and her eyes were slipping closed. “Let’s go get your sister. Nes, want me to to put John down, too?”

“Please,” she said, taking a sip of her water. “He didn’t close his eyes once on the trip up here and if we don’t put him down now, we’ll be due for a meltdown right about dinner time.”

Rhysand chuckled and nodded. Soon enough, he had a line of toddlers behind him, holding hands, like ducks in a row.

________

Azriel had Bennett on his shoulders, Cassian holding Thorn on his.

“Alright, the first kid to hit the water has to set the table tonight,” Rhys announced from his swan floatie by the dock. “Go!”

The two boys wrestled atop Azriel and Cassian’s shoulders, until Bennett fell back, hitting the water. He came back up a second later, lavender eyes furious. “That’s not fair! Thorn’s older.”

“Don’t worry, kid,” Cassian winked, throwing his son into the water, off his shoulders. “Thorn would love to help you set the table for supper.”

Now it was Thorn’s turn to come up looking pissed.

“But I won!”

Before Cassian could respond, Bennett tackled him into the water and the two began to fight.

“Careful,” Rhys called, sunglasses on, eyes shut. He glanced over at the boys, and saw that they were wrestling, but weren’t too deep in the water, so they’d be fine.

His brothers, however, were nowhere in sight.

“Oh, shi-.”

Before he could finish swearing, the float was lifted from the water and tipped from underneath.

Cassian and Azriel emerged from the water, laughing, water dripping from their hair.

Rhys came up, his sunglasses floating next to him and glanced at his beer floating in the water now. He sighed. “I just opened that, you pricks.”

Elain called from the house. “Dinner’s almost ready! Start getting dried off, please!”

Cassian hauled himself up onto the dock and grabbed Thorn’s outstretched hands, lifting him up, too. Bennett, Azriel, and Rhys used the stairs and the boys all grabbed towels from the trunk under the upper deck.

As he ran a towel over his shoulder-length hair, Thorn asked, “Is Aunt Elain going to have her boobs out again?”

“Dude,” Cassian said, grabbing his son’s shoulder as Azriel choked on nothing and Rhys began to laugh. “We’ve been over this. She’s breastfeeding, Lannan has to eat, too. And you know not to stare.”

“But they’re boobs,” he said, making a disgusted face.

“You won’t feel that way for long, buddy,” Rhys said, clapping a hand onto Cass’ shoulder, trying to salvage the conversation.

Bennett looked up at his dad and asked, “Is Lannan always going to eat from her boobs?”

“No, just until he can eat real food,” Rhys answered.

“Can we stop talking about my wife’s boobs?” Azriel mumbled, holding his towel in front of him, rather than tying it around his waist like the rest of the boys.

Rhys and Cassian just laughed loudly as they led their sons up to the house.

Azriel followed them up the grassy hill and into the house, where Elain was waiting for him by the sliding door.

“You look amused.”

“Just talked with an eight-year-old about your breasts,” he mumbled, kissing her quickly.

She huffed out a laugh before shaking her head. “I don’t want to know.”

“You don’t,” he said, taking the plate of burgers and hot dogs from her and making his way over to the grill.

She went back into the kitchen, where Feyre, holding Lannan, was sending Bennett and Thorn to their room to change and get washed up. Elain returned to her place at the counter, tossing the salad and adding things in here and there.

“Where’s Nes?” Cass asked, grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge.

“She’s laying down,” Elain replied, not looking up from where she had begun cutting up vegetables for the kids. “Said she was having really bad heartburn from lunch.”

He laughed. “She’s the one who wanted ‘authentic Mexican’.” He tossed air quotes around the words and said he’d go get her up. No one else dared to wake the very pregnant, sleeping woman, for fear of bodily harm.

Feyre bumped Elain’s hip. “Want me to go wake up the littles? They’ve been down for, what? Almost two hours?”

Elain looked at the clock. She hadn’t realized it had been that long. “Please do.” She took her youngest from her sister. “And it’s time for you to eat, isn’t it?” She lifted him in the air and kissed his cherub cheeks as he giggled. “Yes, it is.”

Feyre just smiled as she headed down the hall and cracked open the door at the end. All three toddlers were out, the movie that was playing on the tv in the corner had ended long ago.

She brushed a soft hand over John’s curly hair. His face twisted in annoyance at being woken and the expression was so much like Nesta that Feyre had to stop a chuckle from leaving her lips. “Time to get up, Jonathan David.” His little eyes opened, hazel staring back at her and he yawned. “Are you hungry?” He nodded as he sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Uncle Az is outside grilling up your hot dogs. Wanna go help him?”

He nodded again, but another yawn wracked his little body as he scooted off the bed. He looked to where Livy and Lily were still asleep. He whispered, “Are they still sleeping?”

“I’m about to get them up, baby.” She brushed his light brown hair off his face again. It seemed it was time for a much-needed haircut, but if she had to guess, based off of both Cassian and Thorn’s hair, it would take a miracle for John to let anyone near him with a pair of shears.

“They’re still babies, they need more sleep than me.”

She chuckled. John wasn’t even 4 months older than her girls, but he was always so adamant that they were babies while he was a big boy. No doubt something he’d picked up from his own big brother. “Exactly, bud. Now, go help Uncle Azriel while I get them up.”

“Okay.” He yawned one more time before leaving the room.

“Livy,” Feyre sang. “Lily. Time to wake up.”

Olive was the first to open her eyes. The two looked so much alike, both like their father, although Olive had Feyre’s eyes. “Sleepy, mama.”

“But it’s dinner time, then we get to go for a boat ride,” Feyre said, kissing Olive’s forehead. “Wake up sissy and go wash your hands really good. Okay? I’m going to go help Uncle Az.”

Olive nodded, sleepily, as Feyre left the room.

She stopped at Nesta and Cassian’s door, raising her hand to knock when she heard a quiet moan that had her covering her mouth to stifle a laugh.

She was still chuckling when she made her way back into the kitchen.

Rhys, Azriel, and Elain all looked at her and she shook her head. “I think we’ll be eating without Nesta and Cass.”

Rhys began to laugh while Azriel rolled his eyes and Elain blushed from where she was nursing Lannan in the corner. The kids were all in the living room, Livy and Lily having joined them, even if Lily had curled right back up on the couch and fallen back asleep.

“I don’t understand how she still has such a strong sex drive,” Elain said, quietly. She inclined her head towards Azriel. “I didn’t even want to look at his dick by the time I was 8 months with Lannan.”

The look on his face said that she was absolutely right and that her last pregnancy had been the longest 9 months of his life.

Rhys wrapped his arms around his wife, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. “Definitely didn’t stop us.”

Thorn and Luna came into the kitchen and she asked, “Didn’t stop you from what, Uncle Rhysie?”

Rhysand blinked as everyone looked to him. “From...playing together.”

“Oh,” Luna said, shrugging. “Come on, Thorn. I’ll teach you how to properly set the table.”

They went onto the back porch, where a giant picnic table sat, and Azriel laughed. “So neat and proper, just like her mother.”

Elain was watching her, fondly, through the window as Luna scolded Thorn about silverware placement.

“Playing together?” Feyre asked, leaning into Rhysand’s chest.

“Fucking is frowned upon,” he mumbled, licking the back of her neck, earning a swat in the chest.

“Now's not time to play,” she scolded, but her arms went around his neck anyway.

“Alright,” Azriel said, standing and effectively cutting the conversation off. “Dinner’s ready. Everyone grab a plate and a kid or two and let's eat.”

They called everyone in, helping the little ones make their plates and get settled before making their own and sitting around a large table with an umbrella. Lannan was once again strapped to Azriel’s chest while he helped the other kids and Elain couldn’t help but gaze at him longingly while he talked to their son and he giggled back.

She sighed and Feyre looked at her. “I want another one.”

Rhys choked on his burger. “Didn’t you just say you didn’t want his dick anywhere near you while you were pregnant?”

“Yes,” she blushed. “But I’m not pregnant anymore.”

Azriel caught her gaze from across the porch. “What?”

She just shook her head and continued to eat her hot dog.

Cassian and Nesta stepped onto the back porch and grabbed their plates.

“Have fun?” Feyre asked as Nesta plopped down next to her.

Nesta groaned. “The more it goes into me, the faster this baby gets out of me.”

Rhysand chuckled, taking a giant bite from his burger. Cassian looked quite smug as he stood by Azriel to eat, speaking to his brother.

“Daddy?” Lily asked from the kid’s table.

“Yes, Princess?”

“Can I have a posicle?” Her little voice stumbled over the word.

A multitude of voices repeated the question.

“Did you eat all of your vegetables?”

Silence answered him.

“I did!” John cried, raising his hand.

“Good job, buddy, you get whatever color you want,” Rhys said, picking him up and carrying him in the house.

“He’s totally lying,” Cassian said, mouthful, but Rhys and John were already inside.

Nesta rolled her eyes. “A quality he’s gotten from his father.”

Cassian winked before shoving another bite into his mouth. “Popsicles for everyone!”

The kids all dropped their food and ran inside after Rhys and John.

“Cassian,” Elain scolded, shaking her head.

Cassian just shrugged, finishing the last of his burger in one bite.

“We’re on vacation, babe,” Azriel said, sitting in Rhys’ vacant seat next to his wife. “A little extra sugar won’t kill them.”

“No,” she said, taking Lannan out of his carrier on Azriel’s chest and cradling him as he dozed. “But it may kill all of us.”

Nesta inhaled sharply and Cassian was on his knees in front of her before any of the others had time to react.

He pressed soft kisses to her belly and quietly spoke to it. Nesta sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“The only way she’ll calm down and stop kicking me in the ribs,” she said, a glare to her round stomach, “is Cassian’s voice. It’s the sweetest thing, but damn it, if I don’t hate it.”

“I want another baby,” Elain said, for the second time that evening.

“Really?” Nesta blinked. “Me dying makes you want to be pregnant?”

Elain shrugged, rocking a sleeping Lannan.

Azriel was just staring at his wife, mouth hanging open. “He’s only 6 months old, El.”

She shrugged again. “And? Feyre had two at one time and they survived.”

She interjected and asked, “Hi, a friendly reminder that you both carry the twin gene, too. Do you want to tempt fate and end up with four kids instead of two?”

“I wouldn’t hate the idea.” She smiled at Azriel, who was gazing fondly at his wife and sleeping son.

“Okay,” he said, his mouth quirking to the side in a secret smile.

“Lock your door if you plan on starting tonight,” Cass said. “You’re in a house full of kids who barely know how to knock.”

Azriel huffed a laugh. “Noted.”

“Uncle Cass!” Bennett ran out of the house, popsicle in hand. “Can we go on the boat? Please please please?” Three little heads were peeking out through the screen door, waiting for his answer.

Rhys sauntered his way out behind his son and leaned against the door frame.

Cass looked up at the setting sun. “No swimming tonight, it’s too late and everyone just ate, but we can definitely go out for a bit.” He hollered into the house. “Thorn! You done with your popsicle?” He stuck his head out and nodded, curls bouncing. He tossed his keys to him. “Go make sure we have ten life jackets on the boat, please. You know which cubbies they’re in?”

Thorn jogged past him and said, “Little kids are in the front, and ours are in the back!” The fact that he continued to try and lump himself in with the adults always made Cass smile. John tried to run past his father and follow Thorn. “Nuh-uh,” Cass said, scooping him up and throwing him over his shoulder. “You know the rules. You can't be on the boat without mommy or daddy.”

“But Thorn-!”

“Is four years older than you.” Nesta cut in. “He wasn’t allowed on the boat without us until last year.”

Regardless of his nap earlier, almost as if he knew what Nesta had claimed about a meltdown earlier, he started to cry.

“You need to go to bed?” Nesta asked, brow raised.

With an angry look, John shook his head, arms crossed.

“So we're going to have a good attitude on the boat?” Nesta asked.

John nodded.

He kept that look on his face the entire time they waited for everyone to gather, and as they walked down to the dock.

Nesta stayed with Elain and Lannan at the house. Feyre helped Bennett, Lily, and Livy into their life jackets, while Azriel helped Luna and John. Thorn, already in his, was helping Cassian get the boat ready to go out. Rhys was on the dock, ready to push them when Az said, “Hey, I think I’m actually going to hang back. Need to make sure Elain is, uh,” he cleared his throat. “Well, taken care of.”

Cass threw his head back and laughed. “No time like the present, is there?”

He stepped out of the boat, much to Luna’s dismay. “Daddy, noooo.” She began to cry and reach for him.

Before he could even turn around, Cassian had scooped her up, promising she could sit in his lap while he drove the boat. This began a litany if requests to drive.

With the attention off of him, Azriel threw a grateful look and clapped Rhys on the shoulder before running up to the house.

Elain was sitting on the couch, a sleeping Lannan against her chest as Nesta stared lovingly at a bottle of wine.

When Azriel opened the door, both of their heads snapped in his direction.

“What are you doing?” Elain whispered. “Don’t want to go for a ride?”

Azriel cleared his throat. When he didn’t say anything more, Nesta slowly rose to her swollen feet. “I know when to take a hint.”

She waddled over to Elain and reached for the baby. “Gimme.”

Elain was rubbing a gentle hand along his back. “He just fell back asleep and it’s been a while since he’s been changed. I don’t want you to have to-.”

“Okay, I had babies before you, not to mention the one that literally refuses to vacate the premises of my uterus right now. I know how to be a good auntie,” she said, taking Lannan and resting him on her belly. “I promise, I can handle changing him and putting him back to sleep while you two make another niece or nephew. I’m pregnant, not an invalid.”

And with that, Nesta was down the hall and shutting her door.

Az sat down on the couch next to her and put his arm around his wife. “You’re sure?” He asked. “Lannan is just now sleeping through the night.”

“I’m sure,” she said, leaning up to press a kiss to his stubbled cheek. “We Archeron girls like to keep everything in neat threes.” She winked at him.

With that, he kissed her and rolled on top of her.

They forgot all about the boat ride out on the lake.

________

Thorn hopped onto the dock and caught the rope that Cassian tossed to him before expertly tying up the boat.

“He’s getting pretty good at that,” Feyre said, impressed.

“Sure is,” Cassian said, proudly.

“What do we get to do now, daddy?” Lillian asked, jumping into Rhysands arms.

“You get to go night night with your cousins,” Rhysand said, as if it was the most exciting thing on earth.

All the kids groaned and he put Lily down.

“Not me! I’m oldest,” Thorn beamed.

“Even you, bud,” Cassian said, turning off the boat engine.

Thorn pursed his lips, turned around, and stomped down the dock, heading for the house, while the rest of the kids played in the grass.

With a chuckle, Rhysand hopped onto the dock to tie up the front of the boat. “He certainly takes after his mother, doesn’t he?”

Cassian grinned. “He’ll be asleep first, too.”

Thorn ran back down the dock. “I thought you said Lannan would only eat from Aunt Elain until he could eat real food?”

Cass groaned. Of course, they were back to this. “He will, buddy. Then it’ll be solid food like you guys eat.”

“Oh okay.” He looked back towards the house. “So why is Uncle Az breastfeeding, too?”

Both Rhys and Cass froze and then Rhys took off down the dock and passed the kids. They took one look at him running and got up to chase him.

Cassian, taking advantage of one of their favorite games, yelled, “Uncle Cassian says, ‘Freeze, right now’!”

All but John stopped. “Jonathon David, I said ‘Freeze’!”

He stood absolutely still. Cassian looked at Thorn who still stood by him on the dock. “Don’t tell anyone what you just saw and you get to stay up for an extra 30 minutes and play Xbox when we get home. Especially not mom.”

He grinned, looking exactly like Cassian, when he said, “Deal.”

Rhys reached the porch and made a show of stomping up the wooden stairs. When the two figures on the couch didn’t stop, he cracked the sliding door, keeping his eyes wrenched shut and said, “Little eyes, Az! Little eyes!”

He heard them both curse, hurried steps, and then a door in the hallway slammed shut.

He looked back at the dock and gave Cassian a thumbs up.

Feyre, on the other hand, was howling.

Thorn went back to looking confused, and the other kids were still frozen on the lawn.

“Oh, UNFREEZE!” Cassian yelled. “Pajamas, teeth brushed, in your bedrooms!”

They all did as they were told, laughing hysterically from the joyous feeling of a boat ride and a game of “Uncle Cassian Says”.

“And Az is the smartest one in our group,” Cassian muttered, tightening the ropes before helping Feyre out of the boat.

“Are we partying after the kids go to bed?” She asked.

Cassian just grinned.

———

Azriel and Elain were in a sweaty heap in their bed, slowly kissing, just enjoying their time together. They’d heard the kids run in, Cauldron bless Rhys for giving them enough time to run into their own bedroom, and had listened as the house fell into a comfortable quiet, the only sound the hushed voices of their siblings in the living room and the occasional rumble of Cassian’s deep laughter.

“We didn’t tell Luna goodnight,” Elain murmured, Azriel pulling his lips away from hers only to trail them down her neck.

“I think she’ll be fine for one night, love,” he dragged his lips back up to hers, brushing his tongue against her lips.

There was a banging on their door. “Alright, you two, you’ve had enough playtime.”

“Go away, you prick,” Azriel called.

Cassian jiggled the doorknob in his hand and shook the door. “You’ve got 10 more minutes before I come in there and pull your naked ass out of there. And you, too, Azriel.”

They heard Nesta, Rhys, and Feyre laughing in the living room.

“You know he’s serious, right?” Azriel breathed in her ear.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Go, I’ll be out in just a few minutes.” He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, a question on his face. She glanced down at her legs squeezed together tightly.

“Have you been doing that since I-?”

“Yes, yes, I have. I’m not wasting any of it. I want a baby, and I want it in exactly 9 months.”

Azriel gave her a fond smile before kissing her cheek and hopping out of bed. He tossed on a pair of shorts and a shirt before walking out into the hallway.

He made a stop at the end of the hallway, where the big kids were huddled together in sleeping bags on the floor, watching a movie.

“Daddy!” Luna whispered, smiling brightly. “I thought you weren’t going to say goodnight.”

“I’ll always say goodnight,” he promised, kissing her forehead. “Goodnight, my love.”

“Goodnight, daddy.”

“Goodnight, Uncle Az,” Bennett yawned.

Thorn was already snoring.

“Goodnight,” Azriel winked, ruffling Bennett’s dark hair.

He closed the door quietly behind him as he joined the others in the living room.

Feyre was smirking and Cassian raised his hand in a high five without even looking at him, keeping his eyes on the puzzle in front of him. Az chuckled as he slapped his hand and sat down next to Rhys. He handed him a shot of tequila and Azriel braced himself as he tossed it back.

“Did you knock my baby sister up again?”

He coughed and almost had to endure it coming out his nose as he looked over at Nesta, who hadn’t looked up from her book. “Excuse me?” He laughed.

“I just want to know if it was a success since I had to listen to ‘Fuck, Az, yes, Daddy, please!’ for 45 minutes.”

Her impression of Elain was spot on and the house erupted into laughter as Azriel’s face burned.

“What are we laughing about?” Elain asked as she tied her long hair up in a messy bun. She had put on a pair of leggings and one of Azriel’s t-shirts.

The laughter stopped abruptly before Feyre mumbled, “I didn’t know you called Az daddy.”

Elain’s cheeks were on fire as she turned on her heels and hurried into the kitchen. “I….need a drink.”

Rhysand chuckled, nipping at Feyre’s ear.

“Let’s play a game,” she suggested.

“What game?” Cassian asked, still not looking up from his puzzle.

Feyre shrugged. “I’ll go see what we have in the game cabinet.”

The second she opened the double doors, her eyes landed on the box and it was decided.

She dropped Twister on the coffee table, right on top of Cassian’s puzzle. He glanced up at her.

“If I wasn’t absolutely positive I’m about to kick your ass at this game, I’d be mad at you.”

“Gimme the spinner,” Nesta said, snapping her book shut and holding out her hand. Feyre handed it to her and stood up, spreading the mat out over the carpet.

Elain came out of the kitchen with a stack of shot glasses and a chilled bottle from the freezer. “Who wants a shot of Fireball?”

Rhys took the glass from her and narrowed his eyes at it. “Gods, what, are we in college again?”

He tossed it back and blew out a harsh breath. “Yep, tastes like regret!”

Elain threw a vulgar gesture his way which had Cassian howling. “Az, baby, will you go get the can of formula out of my bag? I want to make Lannan a bottle since I’m drinking tonight.”

Cassian muttered, “Don’t you mean, daddy?”

“Gods above,” he groaned, but made his way down the hall to their room.

“I’m gonna start calling you daddy,” Feyre said, winking at Rhys.

Rhysand lifted a brow that said he wouldn’t hate that idea.

“Nesta already calls me daddy,” Cassian said, grinning. The way he said ‘daddy’ was far too confident and provocative.

Nesta scoffed. “I do not. I call him many things in the bedroom, but never daddy.”

Elain sat down next to Nesta and she mumbled, “Don’t knock it til you try it.”

Rhys brought Elain two shot glasses full of tequila. “Drink up, Lainy. You’re about 6 drinks behind and we need to even the playing field for Twister.

She rolled her eyes, but did as she was told, shaking her head and laughing.

Cassian turned on some music quietly in the background and Azriel came back down the hall, shaking two full bottles.

“Thank you, daddy,” Elain giggled and he just sighed and shook his head as he made his way into the kitchen.

“Who got my wife drunk?” He called from the other room.

“That’d be me,” Rhys said, tossing a hand in the air.

He brought her a bottle of water and gave it to her, pressing a kiss to her head. “Thanks for that.” He poured himself another shot of Fireball before pointing at Nesta. “Let’s do this.”

She spun the dial and chaos ensued.

They didn’t hear the door as it squeaked open down the hall, didn’t hear the little footsteps as they snuck down the hall. He stood there, with his thumb in his mouth, clutching his blankie and said tearfully, “Da-daddyyyy.”

Cassian’s face was far too close to Azriel’s ass when he looked toward the doorway to see John standing there.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“I had a ba-bad dream,” he said, a tear sliding down his cheek.

Cassian stood, losing his place on the mat as he went to his 4-year-old and picked him up. “I’m sorry, bud. I’ll tuck you back in, okay?”

John nodded, lying his head on Cassian’s shoulder.

He took a detour, stopping in him and Nesta’s room to grab a stuffed animal out of the overnight bag they’d packed for the boys. John held onto it and Cassian tightly and he paused before leaving again, sitting on the edge of the bed and running a soothing hand over the back of his son’s head.

“I wanna sleep with you and mommy,” he said, voice already getting heavy with sleep again.

“Mommy and I aren’t going to bed yet, bud. Plus you’re getting to camp out with Bennett and Luna and have a sleepover. You love your Luna-Bug, don’t you?”

He only sniffled and nodded.

“You wanna tell daddy about your bad dream?”

He shrugged, gripping Cassian’s t-shirt tightly in his little fist.

Cassian took his blankie and tucked it around him.

“I think there’s a monster under Livy and Lily’s bed.”

He mock gasped. “A monster? I guess I better go tell it to hit the road, shouldn’t I?”

A quick nod and Cassian had John propped on his hip as he quietly slipped into the Little’s room. He could see that Olive and Lillian were fast asleep so he sat John on his bed and put his finger over his lips, telling him to be quiet. John nodded and watched as Cassian bent down by the girl’s bed. “Be careful, daddy,” he whispered, and Cassian’s heart felt like it would burst as he noted the true fear in his son’s voice. He trusted his daddy completely and he hoped he always would.

Cassian peeked under the bed and saw nothing but spare socks, long-forgotten toys, and dust bunnies, but he made a show out of whispering, “Listen here, Mr. Monster, I don’t know where you came from and I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.” He heard John gasp and he tried his best not to chuckle. “What’s that? Oh, you were just passing through and didn’t plan on staying anyways? Well, that’s good. I appreciate you being so understanding. Have a good night.”

He turned and faced John again, who was staring wide-eyed. “See? It was just a misunderstanding. All gone now.”

He looked around the room. “All gone?”

He pressed a kiss to his curly head and tucked him in as he laid back down. “All gone, buddy. I love you.”

“Love you, daddy,” he yawned, clutching his blankie as tightly as he could.

Before Cassian was out the door, John was already sleeping soundly. He tiptoed back down the hall, peeking in on the other kids before he made his way back to the living room.

Azriel’s ass was straight in the air, his head nearly touching his knees as he stood between a howling Feyre and a giggling Elain.

Rhys was lying on the floor, apparently already having gotten out, and Nesta was still holding the spinner with her feet propped up on a footstool.

“Right hand, blue,” Nesta announced, catching sight of Cassian as he entered. “He okay?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cassian said, sitting on the armrest of the chair she was in. “Just needed his daddy to scare the monsters away.”

Nesta grinned as she spun again. “Good thing he has such a good daddy.”

“Elain has a good daddy, too,” Rhysand noted, words beginning to slur.

“Shut up,” Azriel laughed, head still in an awkward position.

“We’re never going to live that down, are we?” Elain asked with a heavy sigh, walking her right hand to the closest blue space. It just happened to be the same spot Feyre’s foot was on.

“Of course not,” she laughed. “You two gave me and Rhys shit for so long, it feels good to finally have something to make fun of you for.”

Elain scoffed and dug her finger into the arch of Feyre’s foot. She squealed in laughter and knocked the three of them down, into a sprawling heap on the mat. Azriel rolled away, sitting next to Rhys. They admired their wives, tangled in a giggling heap on the floor.

Rhys nudged him, his words becoming harder and harder to understand. “That’s a god damn Archeron sister wet dream right there.”

Feyre barked out a laugh and said, “Pig,” before she crawled away from her sister and straddled his waist, pushing him to lie back onto the floor.

Cassian lifted a brow. “I know the kids are asleep, but my eyes burn, too, watching the two of you make out, so-.”

Feyre pressed her lips to Rhys’.

“Apparently my words mean nothing,” Cassian finished.

Nesta chuckled. “It’s getting late, I’m pregnantly exhausted, and we have a big day of chasing kids tomorrow. I’m ready for bed.”

Cassian kissed her forehead. “All in bed before midnight. Not as young as we used to be, huh?”

“Kids add a few years,” Azriel mumbled, pulling Elain onto his lap on the floor. She nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck.

“If your canoodling worked this afternoon, you’ll have to add a few more years onto your life in nine months,” Rhys grinned, back still against the rug.

“Canoodling?” Nesta asked.

“Kids also expand your vocabulary of substitute words for fuck,” Feyre winked.

“We tell Luna we have to go do laundry,” Elain said, eyes already closed as she drew small circles on Azriel’s collarbone. She traced the swirling tattoo sticking out from his shirt.

“Luna hates laundry day,” Azriel smirked, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back. “She has to stay in her room until we finish ‘folding clothes’.”

They all looked at Nesta and Cass, sitting on the arm of her chair. They glanced at each other. He shrugged. “We just tell them we’re having adult time and to go play Xbox. Boys are easy.”

Nesta smirked. “We’ve never been interrupted once.”

“Wish we could say that,” Feyre groaned.

Rhys just laughed and said, “When he was five, Bennett caught us fucking at, like, 4 in the morning once. We figured we were safe, so we were just going at it. No covers, nothing to hide under, absolutely nothing.”

Feyre covered her face and leaned down, burying it in Rhys’ chest. “He asked us why daddy was poking mommy with his pee pee for MONTHS.”

Everyone laughed at that, but no one harder than Cassian.

“What about you two?” Rhys asked, and smirked. “This afternoon notwithstanding.”

Elain blushed again and buried her face harder against Azriel’s neck.

“Yes, we’ve been caught before,” he laughed. “A few times actually.”

“Once by dad and then by Luna, too,” she said, her voice muffled.

“No!” Nesta yelled, laughing. “I need both stories. Now.”

“Well, your dad caught us before we were even married,” Azriel began, and Elain was already blushing. “He came over to bring Elain a box of her old things after we had just moved in together. Apparently, he doesn’t believe in knocking, because he opened the front door while I had Elain bent over the kitchen table.”

“Oh my god!” Feyre howled. “Why didn’t you ever tell us that?!”

“Because it’s horrible,” Elain said, face still buried in her husband’s neck.

“So that’s why you and dad didn’t talk for months,” Nesta said, nodding. “Huh.”

“I’d never seen him move so quickly. He dropped the box and hauled ass,” Azriel said, unable to control his own laughter as he took another shot that Cassian had handed him.

“Please tell me Luna caught you in a less compromising position,” Rhys said, humor in his violet eyes. “Or, at least in the dark.”

Before she answered, Elain reached for the tiny glass Cassian was holding for her and tossed it back. “It was in the hot tub. I still had my top on, so she couldn’t see anything through the bubbles from the jets but- Gods, I can't believe we’re talking about this.” She blushed and covered her face.

Azriel has a smug look on his face when he said, “She was riding me pretty hard and we were pretty focused on what we were doing. We didn’t even hear her come outside until she asked if she could have a pony ride on my knees next.”

The house erupted into laughter.

“She had been asleep for three hours and we didn’t have Lannan yet!” Elain cried, her head thrown back as she laughed. “We thought it was safe!”

Their laughter faded away into a joyful, comfortable silence. They had all grown up. Gotten married, had kids, but even so, they had all remained close. Friends. Family.

When Nesta began to doze off, Cassian rose to his feet, lifting her up in his arms. “I’m taking mama to bed.”

“Looks like Scarlett won’t be making her appearance tonight,” Rhys mumbled.

Cassian chuckled. “We’ll speed up the pregnancy again tomorrow,” he promised with a wink. “Goodnight.”

A chorus of goodnights rang throughout the room. When they heard Nesta and Cassian’s door click shut, Azriel ran a finger up Elain’s arm. “Ready for bed, baby?”

She was already half asleep on his chest but still managed to smirk as she whispered, “You put baby number 3 in the oven already. Don’t want to try for number 4?”

He chuckled and stood, pulling her with him. She looped her arms around his neck and hopped up, wrapping her legs around his waist. He huffed a laugh as his hands cupped her rear and held her up. There was nothing sexual in the way he held her, just love and support, as pure exhaustion was written on every inch of her.

“Goodnight,” she called, face buried in Azriel’s neck.

Feyre and Rhys laughed and told her goodnight.

“Night, guys,” Az said, carrying her down the back hall.

When it was just the two of them in the living room, Rhysand rolled his wife onto her back and hovered over her. “Seems we’re the only ones who didn’t get to engage in any canoodling today.”

She laughed, brushing his hair off of his forehead. “You seem to be forgetting about the hour-long shower we took before the kids got up this morning.”

“Oh, I could never forget anything that wicked mouth does to me.” He bit her bottom lip and tugged lightly. “I just meant out here. This is the first place we ever had sex.”

Feyre blushed at the memory. “You sure you aren’t just trying to get me to call you daddy?”

Rhys tipped his head back and laughed. He leaned his lips down and dragged them up the long column of her neck, pausing to suck and lick the tender skin. “I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be opposed to you trying it out.”

She rolled her eyes. “Cocky bastard.”

She kissed him, long and slow, as the rest of the house grew completely silent.

#toab tacmc acotar 2nd gen #feysand #nessian #elreil #acotar 2nd gen #throne of ashes and beauty #tacmc #throne of ashes and beauty X tacmc collab #tag team prompts #tag team oneshot

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actualmythicalcreature · 5 years ago

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UFO- What are places on your travel list?

Oh everyone always hates my answer to the travel question 🤣 Okay so - I dont actually want to travel? I live in BC Canada on Vancouver Island. In the summer's its hott and humid, theres more lakes here than like anywhere else. I can surf in the ocean and then it's skiing 2 hours later, if I were interested in either of those things. It's a temperate rainforest so I like to spend time in the woods. The trees here are giants. We have glaciers and snowcapped mountains. Its mild in the winter, we're just having our first snow of the year now. Its beautiful, the people are nice. My community has more art festivals than literally anywhere else. Theres always things to do and experience. Lots of arts and culture. Also - I am at home here. I've done some travelling across canada and through the US, and it was nice but like, I'd rather be home?

When I think of travelling I'm like, yeah - let's drive 2 hours to a new lake and have a picnic. Or let's go camping in the woods. Or let's take a road trip and see some touristy art stuff. The furthest I have a desire to travel is about 6 hours drive farther north during the right season so that I can see the Northern Lights, which is on my bucket list. I'd also do a whale watching boat tour to see some of the Southern Resident Orca's that are endangered. Maybe a trip up to the next island up north to the Haida gwaii area to go on a hunt to see a spirit bear. But like, none of these things require me to leave my province, y'know? My wanderlust really doesnt extend farther than my own back yard, because I happen to have an amazingly beautiful backyard. Pics of my town for proof - noting that I can get to each of these locations in under 30 mins of driving...

Why would I ever wanna go anywhere else?

#sorry for the ramble #but people are always likewhatdo you MEAN you dont wanna travel?#and im like - bish I havnt even explored all of my own back yard yet!#but thanks for asking 🤣#💕

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timtamtalestakestwo · 6 years ago

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Easter adventures: Part 1

Our blog posts are like buses - none for ages and then two will come together! It’s been an adventure filled few weeks so apologies for the delay!

Since our last update I have finished my 6 months of oncology. It was a bittersweet departure – it was the longest I’ve ever worked on one job so had developed some lovely relationships and was sad to leave such a great team of skilled and fantastic humans. It was an emotionally challenging job at times and I think we all really helped each other through that. However, it was time for pastures new and other challenges! Before that though, Tom and I both had some time off to enjoy!

For Easter Sunday, we had planned a roast lunch together at home between my cathedral commitments but in a last minute change of events (last minute being at 11.30 after the morning service) with the rest of the my choir friends in a dilemma of where to go out for lunch, I ended up (after a quick call home to Tom) inviting them all over for lunch at ours! We all went via the glorious Harris Farm market en route and each picked up some hot roast chickens, salads, drinks and cheese and it ended up being the easiest Easter lunch ever and was very lovely to spend time with them all!

First thing on the Monday, we packed up the car and headed north up to Coffs Harbour; a fairly long drive made pain-free with lots of podcasts and digestive biscuits! When we arrived we did a lovely walk out to Muttonbird Island and saw some of the last remaining very fluffy Wedge-tailed Shearwater chicks which the island is known for. There was an organisation there who had put up posters about what to do if you found a chick in the city – sadly the chicks would mistake the city lights for the moon and fly in the wrong direction when they were ready to leave, so there were volunteers who collected the lost and returned them back to the island in the evening for another go!

Day 2:

Breakfast on the beach in Coffs followed by quick detour to see the famous ‘Big Banana’! We had decided to drive inland a little along the Waterfall Way to Dorrigo National Park – a very lush rainforest in the clouds and much colder than Coffs. As we walked out to a lookout point we saw a python in the tree right next to the walkway; our first snake encounter since arriving and thankfully an uneventful one! We did a beautiful walk through really lush rainforest, with eerie mist between the trees! The walk was steep downhill to a waterfall – now unfortunately we have been spoiled by the enormous grandiose waterfalls of Iceland and so on arrival Tom was fairly underwhelmed to have walked all this way (with a steep uphill climb back imminent) for a fairly small waterfall! Still, it was a beautiful walk and certainly the most ‘rainforest-y rainforest’ we’ve seen since arriving here! Was then a short drive down to South West Rocks for night number 2!

Day 3: An early start to go diving at Fish Rock Cave! It was to be a 40 minute boat ride out, and two dives with an hour on the boat in between. Since our recent boat dives have ended up with both of us bringing up our breakfast, we had come armed with sea sickness tablets but thankfully the wind and swell were much more manageable than previously! We’d also heard news that divers had seen a whale shark there 2 days prior so we were eager to get in the water!

(At this point I probably advise both our mothers to close their eyes and scroll down a bit to Day 4).

The first dive was amongst 7 or 8 grey nurse sharks, about 30 wobbygongs and lots of fish. I wasn’t sure what my reaction would be to the sharks but it was absolutely mesmerizing to look down and watch them swimming up and down between the rocks so gracefully! We even saw a guitar shark up close which the dive club not seen for a while. Managed to find myself a lost shark tooth on the bottom to keep as a memo!

Our GoPro decided not to work on the first dive so this is obviously not my photo but we were on top of the rock crevice seen here, looking down on a scene not dissimilar!

The surface interval was spent refuelling with a cup of tea and some biscuits. Tom had a few issues with getting the dive centre to give him the weight he needed which led to a bit of an uncomfortable and floaty first dive so we tried to add a bit more for dive 2. This one was Fish Rock Cave, which is Australia’s only true ocean cave and was about 125 metres long. It was pitch black in there so torches definitely needed and for about half the length was space for single-file only, including a vertical ‘chimney’ to swim up! We saw a snoozing turtle, lots wobbygongs, crayfish, eels and again a whole host of different fish! One of my favourite parts was when the cave started to open out and there was just this bright blue glow ahead filled with the profiles of the marine life swimming around! We were very lucky with the conditions that day and the visibility was about 15 metres, which made the dives even more fantastic! Tom has put together some footage from the second dive in the video below to give you an idea!

youtube

Once we’d changed, fed and watered ourselves, we made a quick trip to Trial Gaol, one of the prisons used for deported convicts in the 1800s - a fairly thought provoking visit made slightly more light-hearted by lots of kangaroos hopping around the place!

We then drove down to Port Macquarie for the last part of our short trip! We were staying just outside of Port in a slightly more rural place called Sancrox. The night sky was unbelievably clear so it was an excuse to attempt some long exposure shots of the stars which I don’t think came out too badly!

Day 4: ANZAC day. We didn’t quite make it to the 5am dawn service after post-dive exhaustion but we made our way into town for the 10am procession and service in the town square by the cenotaph. The procession involved cadets, marching bands, veterans but also schools, scouts and girl guides. We had a good position right next to the memorial and it was an expectedly moving ceremony with a playing of The Last Post and a young boy singing the New Zealand and Australian National Anthems.

We did a couple of short walks along the coastline before starting the drive back to Newcastle in time for me to get things washed and packed before heading off on my solo adventure the next day! More of that to come...!

#portmacquarie #southwestrocks #coffsharbour #newsouthwales #australia

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sharyjournals · 4 years ago

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Sharkwater Extinction (2018) - another must watch for everyone! i’m so amazed by the shark conversationists & activists for doing whatever they can to help save sharks and enlighten people about this devastating problem happening in our world today. i have never thought that 100 million sharks get killed every year not only for shark fin soup but are also turning up in pet food, livestock feed, fertilizer and even in cosmetics. some also kill them for fun and enjoyment which is just totally horrible.

shark finning in costa rica (illegal)

it’s always the same with the government they say one thing and do another

illegal activities are still happening like, to bring illicit fins in a country all you have to do is land them in port on the weekend when there are no security officials around, no operations & establishments are closed

people don’t realize there’s so much money in the trade of animals, especially of fins, it’s a billion dollar industry

there’s multimillionaires playing mafia rings like puppeteers trying to EXPLOIT THE RESOURCE

there are mafia warehouses drying shark fins

WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP SAVE SHARKS WORLDWIDE?

taiwanese companies pay huge to buy docks in costa rica. these were multimillion dollar deals that lets them work without fear. they have thousands of boats fishing in eastern pacific & bring their catch to costa rica through these private docks which is then shipped out through the airport. they are a VERY POWERFUL MAFIA. they bought this government and the past ones too.

sharks are worth an enormous amount of money, and mostly for their fins where a single pound of fin is worth over $200 so fisherman around the world in poor countries pull up sharks and CUT OFF ITS FINS, THROW THE REST OF THE BODY BACK, dry the fin. you don’t need refrigeration systems on your boat so even the most decrepit boats can go out there and make enormous amounts of money. SHARKS ARE BEING KILLED EVERYWHERE.

costa rica is a good country but unfortunately there’s very bad layers in it. the problem is a big local company owned by a costa rican millionaire owns two boats and bring in FIVE TONS OF SHARK FINS EVERY WEEK. they unload at night because no authorities are working then and dry the fins to sell to singapore or taiwan. he has helicopters, apartments, hotels, all thanks to shark fins.

in bahamas, one of the most amazing sharks in the world, the oceanic whitetip shark goes there only on May, was once of the most abundant large predator on the planet, they were everywhere but because they have massive fins that are highly valued in the fin industry their POPULATION HAVE DROPPED 99% in the atlantic and caribbean

in miami, there are shark hunting businesses, some of them does not believe in endangered sharks and think of them as just propaganda, for them there’s plenty of sharks to catch every trip, and believed that sharks are just animals on earth that are meant for people to eat

people tell you your whole life to be afraid of sharks. everything we’ve been receiving from the media, from everybody, is that sharks are dangerous and they’re gonna kill you and eat you. but the reality is totally different. they have been on earth for 400 million years and survived five major extinctions that wiped out most life on the planet. they’ve seen life on earth rebuilt from scratch five times. 450 million years of shark’s presence on earth we have decimated in 30 years. shark populations dropped 90% in 30 years. 90%!!! HOW COULD THIS BE HAPPENING?!!

it’s so terrible and fucked up how boats catch sharks, smile and take pictures while leaving them injuries, if not kill them. when people do those kind of stuff for fun, i have absolutely no contemplation of what’s going through that person’s head, why that’s fun for someone, said madison.

the killing of sharks is one if the biggest concerns that we should have on the planet ecologically today. we depend on ecosystems for survival. we depend on other species. they’re part and parcel of ourselves, of out daily lives. removing sharks is removing part of the framework that allows life to exist on land. it’s the animal that sits on top of 70% of the oxygen in the air that we breathe from phytoplankton in the oceans. if you remove one species, the consequences ripple through entire ecosystems. and right now, we’re removing the most important predator the planet has. and the consequences are going to not affect oceanic ecosystems, they’re going to affect our ecosystems and ourselves.

we’re now killing up to 150 million sharks a year, and it’s not just shark fin soup anymore. sharks are now being killed and renamed and fed to us, so we don’t know we’re eating shark. there’s a massive scandal representing tens of millions of sharks every year. eating sharks is a bad idea. we’re eating endangered super predators. we’re eating animals that can take 40 years to reach sexual maturity. they can have very few young. most of the pollution we’ve ever made as a species has gone into the environment untreated. and that accumulates in living animal matter and concentrates as you go up the food chain. by the time you get to sharks, they’re enormously toxic. with things like lead, and mercury and even neurotoxins. so it’s important that we keep sharks out of our food. and it’s recommended, women and children, don’t eat them at all. it’s really important to bring this message to the public.

in panama, shark fins are just $5 and in china it’s 200 bucks. a pound of the little sharks are also 50 cents. they even kill baby hammerheads. there are confiscations, fins are kept in custody at the coast and ocean department of the environment ministry.

rob: we’re here in a parking lot in panama city, with hundreds of dollars of shark fins confiscated from people that were trying to check these into airlines and fly them to asia. a seizure of 800 pounds of shark fins in panama representing $300,000 in shark fins many of which are illegal and on the endangered species list including the scalloped hammerhead shark, our favorite species. there’s 38,868 fins confiscated. we’ve seen many different shark species of many different sizes. among these, probably the largest hammerhead fins, to the newborns, to lighter ones. they seem to really get a little bit depressed when they see these little small shark fins from hammerhead newborns, plus 1, plus 2 years, which are the sharks that hang around the nursery areas. it’s disappointing to see the large amount of baby hammerheads that they’re using for the shark fin trade because they’re destroying the whole population. it’s sad. and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. panama is one of the important places where the big mommas come to give birth. it’s an important nursery area. it’s part of the heritage that panama has so it’s important to protect them.

when we started making sharkwater, there were four countries that have banned shark finning. when we were finished, there were 16 countries. now there’s more than 90 countries around the world that have banned the process of finning but none of them have banned the importation of fins which means you can fin as many sharks as you want as long as you put the fins on a shipping boat before you bring them into port, not a fishing boat, which is a massive loophole.

in africa, there are reefer containers full of frozen shark. you can actually see a fin just laying on the wharf and some blue shark tags stating that blue sharks that were landed there were caught in spain. so apparently they’re not really trying to hide it.

we just saw two japanese longliner boats that showed up in cabo verde. one of them appears to be transshipping onto a freezer container ship. at the end of the dock they’re unloading blue sharks. there’s tons of them. they’re all big blue sharks in the container. blue sharks are cute, they’re dopey, big eyes, they don’t really ever bite people. they’re loading the shipping container full of tens of thousands of pounds of blue sharks onto a shipping boat to leave the country. the word is out around the world, that sharks mean money.

you know we spent 4 years 15 countries trying to figure out what the biggest environmental issues were out there only to discover that one of the biggest destructors of our life support system is in our own backyard. we are in a little plane looking for DRIFT GILL NETS and later see what’s caught in the nets that are A MILE LONG, that just hang as a curtain at night. it’s a hugely destructive method of fishing that catch everything that comes into it. dolphins, whales, turtles, tons of sharks.

some fisheries will waste 85% of what they bring to the surface as bycatch. right now, we’re wasting 54 billion pounds of dead fish every year that’s brought out of the ocean and killed and thrown back because it wasn’t our target fish. we wanted the more expensive ones. we threw back all these amazing animals.

we’ve seen a blue shark and a thresher shark that are still alive and caught in the drift gill nets. you can see their mouth’s opening and closing and then struggling. the blue shark had the mesh caught in its mouth and the thresher shark was mangled, all messed up from thrashing around within the net. really sad to see an endangered majestic super predator stuck in a primitive fishing method.

the biggest issue we have on the planet right now is aside from the environment, is our lack of awareness of what’s going on. we don’t know about our individual actions, about our consumption, about out governments and corporations destroying our life support system. if we did, our morals would engage, and we’d be guided to a world that works. we’d hold our friends and our family, and our governments accountable for this stuff. we just don’t know what’s going on. so, knowing how we’ve already so decimated the oceans, this method of fishing should not be happening. THE ONLY REASON IT’S HAPPENING IS ‘CAUSE PEOPLE DON’T SEE IT. they don’t know what’s happening here.

in miami florida, 33% of pet food products tested positive for shark DNA, including blacktip and mako shark which is a vulnerable species known for very high mercury levels. we also found traces of scalloped hammerheads, milk and blue shark DNA in the beauty care products we tested.

shark population has dropped an estimated 90% in the last 30 years. 100 million sharks get killed every year and nobody notices. it is astronomical. and this is a huge consumer awareness issue that can be fought and can be won. we’re not just killing sharks for shark fin soup, we’re killing sharks for a myriad of crazy reasons. sharks are now being killed and renamed and fed to us. things like rock salmon and flake so we don’t know we’re eating shark. sharks are also turning up in pet food, livestock feed, fertilizer and even in cosmetics. we’re smearing endangered super predators on our faces without knowing it.

it’s important for all of us if we want to ensure a healthy environment into the future to make sure that things we buy, foods, cosmetics, are shark-free. insist on a world that’s shark-free.

elephants kill 200 people a year. sharks kill 5 people a year. we kill 100 million of them and nobody notices. the reality behind sharks is that they are not predators of people. you know if sharks ate people the oceans would be a really dangerous place and people would be getting eaten every day but they are not. what is unfair and irresponsible is wiping out 90% of the most important longest lasting predator the planet has for the sake of soup. conservation is the preservation of human life on earth. people don’t understand how ecosystems work because they never taught it. if you look at the education system why are we taught shakespeare and algebra before we are taught conservation or we are taught how to survive on the planet. especially if we know by mid-century that our survival is very much in jeopardy.

this is really important. we depend on the oceans to survive. we depend on life. it’s life that gives us our food or water and our air. this is the generation. this is the task of your time. are we going to save the ecosystem we depend on for survival or are we going to live in lack and starvation and crisis and fight each other over what is left? we are all entirely morally bound together and that if we are made aware of these issues we will make different decisions. be conscious of what you eat, where you put your garbage, and how you live your life. nothing is more important than this. there’s never been an issue this big. there’s never been an issue that needs your involvement more than this. you’ve got an opportunity to be a hero, so be a hero.

#movie #sharkwater extinction #must watch #amazon prime

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meggellithorne · 5 years ago

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all the beautiful nostalgic moments of my youth:

1. homemade ice lollies

2. camping with my family

3. picking up acorns for the “perfect fire” with grampa

4. lanterns on New Years Eve

5. losing my favourite stick & Grampa holding my hand & following my steps to find it

6. braaing with Grampa

7. cooking with gran

8. school projects with my grandparents

9. my grade 7 lightning poster with mom

10. dad going all the way home from the airport to fetch my favorite ring so I didn’t have to leave home without it

11. mom doing me & my brothers nails in a little bowl when we were super small

12. that time I lost P200 I was supposed to give to my grade 7 teacher and had an anxiety attack and cried because I was so scared I’d get into trouble & mom gave me a hug and told me it was okay

13. trying on dresses for my matric dance with my mom & gran

14. going to milky lane & watching “When in Rome” with my gran

15. Ocean Basket with my dad

16. Perna Perna with my gran & grampa

17. drawing a whale at my grandparents house & my mom having it framed (age 7, mom drew a horse)

18. running down Kilimanjaro with my dad (even though he told my brother he’d rather have gone with him)

19. dad saying “I love you so much, you’re always on my side” one day when I was small and he came home late at night from work

20. dad bringing home two pieces of nickel from the mine for me & my little brother

21. mom teaching me how to draw shapes

22. napping at the top of my clothes cupboard because I could fit & liked to sleep in hidden places

23. my childhood friend Kyra & I picking lemons & putting them in our dresses to make boobs

24. shopping with mom

25. gran teaching me how to knit & getting me a Barbie sewing machine for my birthday

26. mom giving me a pretty purple passport doll one day when I was anxious that she was mad at me

27. gran teaching me how to plait

28. dads hugs & cuddles & little massages

29. Simba & Tigger, the most beautiful little animals

30. walking on the monkey bars with my friend Robynne every break time

31. teaching my childhood crush (Christiaan) how to write the number 3

32. making vegetable soup in my grade 1 class with Mrs Richards

33. Mrs Van de Bought taking me home and getting me an ice-cream because Harry Potter, our class movie, was really scary (age 4)

34. Shakawe with my friend Shevaun: we made up silly songs & put on a show for the family (age 11)

35. the day my dad bought home my JCB teddy bear from his company trip in London

36. Christmases in Plett, and riding our bikes all over (especially the time it flooded & we had to cycle in knee deep water, which was really fun)

37. story telling after lights out in the boarding house

38. my little brother and I climbing onto the roof when mom wasn’t home and jumping into the pool with our friend/brother Neil

39. also climbing onto the roof and having picnics

40. quad biking with our parents and squishing into pairs on the bikes

41. dressing up as a cat and climbing trees with my friend Meagan

42. switching clothes & climbing the jungle gym every time we went to Anniques house

43. picking mulberries with Jemma

44. decorating the treehouse at our new house

45. dad bringing home Patch

46. diving down & picking marula fruit out of the pool

47. singing to my little cousin Eric while we were waiting for his mom to get home (he was scared she wouldn’t)

48. playing teacher with my little brother and his friend Barend (I even gave them homework)

49. teaching my little brother how to read

50. my high school friendships, their closeness & the sisterhood (Kelly, Kieran & Tshili)

51. Aero plane trips home from boarding school with Amy

52. holding my little cousin Robbie when he was just a baby (making extra sure I was cradling his head)

53. playing barbies outside with my little brother and building whole towns

55. that carpet with the roads & a little city which we’d play cars on

56. drawing hearts with mine & Christiaans initials on the mirror after I showered

57. the day he asked me to be his girlfriend in grade 6 (we said we loved each other straight after that lol)

58. taking Simba into the bush and driving slowly behind her in the car as she ran into the wilderness

59. making little beds in my draws for Tigger

60. the furry mouse toy/memento the vet gave me after Tigger died

61. Sun City with Sean & Conner (and one time my grandparents came) on all my birthday’s.

62. when I got my first phone from my gran and Grampa

63. me & Hannah’s medieval outfits from my Aunty Carol

64. all the important people being proud of me & my good report cards

65. my walk with dad when he told me he’d like me to repeat grade 8 because I was too much younger than my peers (who bullied me)

66. watching “How to lose a guy in 10 days” every Christmas with my mom, because for some reason it always showed on TV in December

67. chewing gum for the first time on Robberg mountain

68. boogie boarding with my dad because we were too young to do it ourselves

69. dad’s French toast

70. Mom’s soup

71. lunches with my aunty & gran every Wednesday during my first year at boarding school

72. decorating my room at my gran & Grampa’s house

73. building my milk carton car with my Grampa in the back yard

74. gran’s Sunday brunches & Heckers nursery

75. singing “party for 2”, “lemon tree”, “pretty Belinda”, “away in a manger” and “grandpas old jalopy” in the car as a family during road trips

76. picking flowers and bringing them to my mom

77. making special headache bags (sandwich bags with water and flowers in them, tied with a hair band) & special soap concoctions in the shower

78. climbing the tree at the the tennis club

79. playing with red velvet mites & mophane worms & making them race

80. riding those plastic black motorbikes on the tennis courts

81. jay boarding with Reece & Kyle (and tying them to the back of our bikes to go extra fast)

82. turning a lawnmower into a go-cart with my little brother

83. spray painting fishing lures with my dad

84. drawing a horse sign for the farm with my little cousins (I was director)

85. my first kiss

86. dancing with my roommate KB at a dance I forgot the name of but had the best time at

87. singing my moms ringtone so she’d think her phone was ringing and would come find us

88. playing rugby and soccer with my dad

89. playing canasta with my dad & our secret cheat code

90. being 5 years old and insisting on like 4 outfit changes every day

91. Aunty Solfrid washing and styling my hair with little butterfly clips and doing my makeup

92. being in a dance play and getting to be a pink ballerina (age 4)

93. playing tennis with Loryn & Shevaun

94. breaks with Robyn & Tunanjina (we “invented” a game where you had to throw our school hats to each other & catch them with sticks)

95. watching high school musical with my mom & little brother

96. singing & playing “I’m a Barbie girl on repeat” with a big set of headphones

97. dressing up as a fairy or princess every chance I got

98. watching the nutcracker & Care Bears on video at my grans house

99. going to the pantomime

100. the elephant teddie bear that aunty Vicki got me when Eric was born, and the brown talking bear she got especially for me when I had pneumonia

101. helping dad with the cottage window putty

102. decorating “my room” with gran & grampa

103. boat trips with the family, dad letting us drive around the bouys & mom teaching us how to blow bubbles with chappies

104. singing “angels” by Robbie Williams with KB in the boarding house & painting our nails glittery blue

105. being a close little family & feeling loved & cherished & important

I know these are just the good moments, and that writing this made me cry because things aren’t like this anymore; but these are the moments I will always hold close to my heart - however trivial they may seem.

#fairynotes

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summerphonic-essays · 7 years ago

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Dual Op-eds: SEAWORLD

For these two essays we had to write a 750-word op-ed, or argument, for a hot topic we’re very passionate about, so I chose SeaWorld. Afterwards, we had to write an op-ed for the counter-argument. I think both of my essays turned out great and neither is less persuasive than the other. If you would like any more information about my personal views or context, feel free to send me a message!

Be Their Voice: Anti-Seaworld

Orcas deserve to be free in their natural environment, not swimming around in a bathtub sized enclosure. No human would enjoy or volunteer to live in a cage for the rest of their life doing tricks for saltine crackers. But that is the fate of the orcas and the other animals in Seaworld’s care. We all need to work together and follow PETA’s (The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) initiative to release these captive whales into their rightful home.

Certainly everyone has seen the news stories of whales dying at Seaworld, and trainers dying as a result of orca captivity. In July, a whale calf passed away from pneumonia, and her death was just another example of Seaworld’s neglect for their animals. It is not rescue when you take animals from their homes, then stick them in performances doing unnatural behaviors like flips and belly-slides, to make a profit off of them. There have been a multitude of deaths. By now we should realize that animals are not our toys and need to be treated with respect.

In the wild, orcas live in pods their whole lives (with some exceptions) and are top predators in each and every ocean. Their dorsal fins stand tall - sometimes up to 6 feet tall - they live an average of 30 to 50 years, and they have an endless supply of food. In captivity, orca calves are taken from their mothers and many times moved to other parks. Pods are manufactured and often don’t get along as well as Seaworld would like the public to believe. You can see this if you examine any one of the whales. They are covered in injuries from their enclosure and rakes from fighting with other whales.

For instance, Trua, a whale at Seaworld Orlando, lived the majority of his life keeping his grandfather Tilikum company (before Tili’s passing earlier this year) because the dominant females, which made up two-thirds of their pod, would bully Tilikum into isolation.

“Trainers reported that Tilikum’s rake marks have been so severe at times that as he swam, blood would trail behind him. As a result, he would be held out of shows for days to heal.” (Dr. Heather Rally, SeaworldOfHurt)

The majority of the whales also have collapsed dorsal fins, attributable to their lesser quality of life living in shallow tanks where gravity affects their fins in an uncomfortable way. Their teeth are drilled at young ages, and if they aren’t they become constantly infected from the whales boredom chewing on the sides of their tiny tanks (Jett & Ventre, Decoded Science). The average age of orcas who have died at Seaworld is 12 (Carroll & Jacobson, Politifact), indisputably lower than that of wild orcas, and one factor that plays into this is lack of food. Seaworld’s whales are forced to perform and if they don’t comply, they don’t receive food that day (David Kirby, Death at Seaworld). These whales did nothing wrong but are starving, depressed, and under constant abuse from greedy humans.

In 2013, a documentary entitled Blackfish was released that exposed Seaworld’s practices for what they really are. It shows the gruesome live footage of orcas being torn from their families to be put on display at Seaworld. Trainers who formerly worked at Seaworld provided horror stories of what it was like to work there, and the truth behind why they left which the park was trying to keep under wraps. Now, Seaworld’s name lives in controversy and receives backlash which is a step forward towards freedom for all their captive animals.

I’d prefer to see all animals living in their rightful wild homes with all the freedom they deserve, and for us humans to leave them alone. We have such technology now that we don’t need animals in captivity anywhere to learn about their behavior - we can learn by observing them in the wild and conducting research which doesn’t infringe on their lives or safety. If you would like to get involved, do your own research and protest the mistreatment of all animals. One of the strongest groups working toward an ethical future for animals is PETA, who uses their voice to enact change. They hold protests often you could join. Animals like the orcas at seaworld can’t talk, so it is our responsibility to be their voice and advocate for the rights we’ve deprived them of, because only we have the power to unite and most importantly, to make this right.

Seaworld Cares: Pro-Seaworld

People rarely do their own research, especially about the environment and animals. We are a generation of instantaneous news - of recycling and bandwagoning opinions perpetuated by social media, despite how harmful they may be. That being said, Seaworld is a vital company whose work helps animals worldwide. Shutting them down would have unspeakable implications on not only animals in their care, but all the wild animals that we as a society are responsible for putting in danger in the first place.

On July 24th 2017, the last whale calf to ever be born as a part of SeaWorld’s breeding program passed away from suspected pneumonia. Anti-captivity activists and PETA, the supposed People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are busy at work exploiting the tragedy for their own personal gains and agenda. They paint their picket signs and shout “free the whales!” as if that isn’t a death sentence for these animals, for a multitude of reasons. Consider what would occur if you released your domestic cat into the forest yelling “Be free!” Your cat has no knowledge of the wild so 1. It would question why it had been abandoned and 2. It would be mauled to death by wild forest animals.

People also claim that animals are being forced to do “tricks” and food is withheld if they don’t, but that is falsified information. Behaviors are voluntary, and based on natural behaviours of orcas such as breaching or spyhopping, which have been shaped through positive reinforcement and incorporated into a “performance”. (Positive Reinforcement Training as an Enrichment Strategy, Active Environments) And even so, due to pressures from the public, Seaworld is phasing out performance-based shows for more education-based ones. When some people see orca shows they may say that the whales didn’t want to perform those behaviors. But, if a parrot recites your “Polly want a cracker?” statement you wouldn’t accuse it of not wanting to do so. That’s the natural behavior of parrots, it’s just been shaped and reinforced!

Many people focus solely on the orcas at Seaworld, disregarding the big picture, simply because incidents with orcas have been on the news recently. The death of Dawn Brancheau, a Seaworld trainer, in 2010 and the whale responsible, Tilikum, were the focus of supposedly factual documentary “Blackfish”, which has amassed a cult following. And to add to this, Tilikum passed away earlier this year due to pneumonia, which sparked even more controversy.

Although SeaworldCares, a division of Seaworld, released a 32-page-document that analyzes the false information in the movie, “Blackfish” is still held as truth by PETA and others who protest Seaworld. Many of whom, as I touched on above, only protest Seaworld and its orcas with no regard for all the good Seaworld does, or how animals in need of help would suffer and die without Seaworld. They ignore the inspiration/education the park provides with opinions based on one “documentary”. Because apparently watching and citing one “documentary” makes you an expert. Tim Binder, an animal care specialist at Shedd, commented “The film is not fully accurate, and it portrays events that happened 30 years ago as contemporary. The unfortunate thing is that people are taking that film at face value.”

To expand, Seaworld is the first company called to rescue, rehabilitate, and release animals in danger worldwide. Recently, Seaworld reached a milestone of 30,000 rescues! That’s beyond one rescue every day for over 50 years, and more than 4 rescues each day since 2010 alone. (30,000 Rescues, SeaworldCares) The majority of the rescued animals aforementioned are in danger because of our actions - whether it be littering, boat accidents, habitat loss, illegal hunting, etc. Due to Seaworld Parks success, they have the facilities, tools, and reach to provide medical care, a safe haven for animals who the government deems unreleasable, and educate people about how we’re harming our oceans and the animals that call them home.

It would be in Seaworld’s best interest to speak out about what they do for wild animals around the world, how they care for their animals, and the success of their rescue program in a very public way. This would help combat and right all the negative and/or false media. It is time for people to cease their habit of blindly supporting the group that garners the most attention, and I hope we begin to we recognize the damage we’ve caused and adjust our actions for a better future.

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sanctferum · 7 years ago

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Dangan Ronpa V3: Chapter 4 Free Time!

After leaving the library, I immediately find a hidden Monokuma near the bottom of the stairs. Let’s look at all these old and new areas to find some others. There’s one on the railing in the second floor hallway, and another in the dorms, and yet another in Tenko’s abandoned lab. The final one must be during a trial minigame.

Hanging out with Kaito, he offers to spend the free time talking about himself. The reason Kaito feels so strongly about the universe. When Kaito was a kid, he used to go to his grandpa’s house. (Let’s not mention what we saw in the motive video to him.) He’d look for treasure in his grandpa’s old warehouse, and one day, while rummaging around, he found a treasure map, to find the treasures of these with! He promptly sold it to a pawn shop for cash. Kaito wouldn’t follow a map to adventure. He’d make his own maps. Still, the sea was calling him now, so he used the money to buy a boat and went on a voyage, and soon after becoming a captain, he met his destined rival. Where is this story going?

The boss of the Great Pirates. Uh. What.

He and the boss of the Great Pirates fought many battles, and eventually became friends. Then they had one final battle to determine who would conquer the seas. Kaito knew he could win, but he’d come to realize he wouldn’t be satisfied with just the sea. Kaito won the battle but didn’t finish the guy off, and ever since then, they haven’t seen each other. To be continued next time…

After an incredibly stupid and suspect story, we return to our room. No more free time today.

Monokub announcement! Night-time starts now, Monophanie and Monotaro have fallen in love, etc. Wait, what? C’mon, what’s with all the incest stuff. First Kiyo and now this bullshit…

Shuichi decides to pretend that never happened, and goes off to train with Kaito and Maki.

Gonta is up too. He thinks it’s best that even with the Student Council dissolved, people stay in their rooms for the night. Both Ryoma and Angie were killed at night…by that logic, the day/night split for the murders is 50/50, though.

Gonta feels useless. Shuichi encourages him, saying everyone can tell how much he cares about everyone. Gonta comes to a decision…but doesn’t say what it is. He’ll discuss it tomorrow at breakfast.

Outside, Kaito and Maki are waiting. 100 sit-ups each. In the time it takes for Shuichi to do 3 sit-ups, Maki’s almost at 30…that’s 10 times as fast. Impressive. And Kaito…has done none. He’s just staring at the stars…he gets up and tells us he needs to use the bathroom. Maki offers to go check on him for Shuichi while he finishes his sit-ups, but Shuichi points out that Maki would have to follow Kaito into the boys bathroom.

So no on that plan…but Maki takes the opportunity to ask a surprise question. Did Shuichi like Kaede? Maki thought he didn’t, because she can’t understand how people could become friends so quickly, especially in a situation like this. It’s weird.

Shuichi asks Maki what circumstances that people meet under aren’t weird for a sudden friendship. Maki is unable to answer, because it’s not an experience she has ever had. Damn, that’s…

Before Shuichi can figure out why Maki is asking these questions all of the sudden, Kaito returns. He drank too much water before training and had to pee. A lie, in all likelihood, but not one Shuichi picks up on.

So, then, the training begins again from the beginning. Another 100 sit-ups.

Kaito isn’t exercising because he has nothing to worry about, or so he says. What’s up with him?

Neither Kaito nor Shuichi are able to do the extra 100 sit-ups, but Maki manages it easily. Back in his room, Shuichi reflects on what the flashback light made him remember. All the things he remembered…If they’re connected to this situation, or to the Ultimate Hunt, or to the funeral…maybe the answers can save them. But those are answers Shuichi does not have.

Monokuma Theater! Haven’t had one of these since chapter 2. Chapter 3 just had Monodam theaters.

According to Monokuma, soccer players wear numbers on their jersey to determine how many mochi they get in the red bean soup they eat post-game. That way, the red bean soup can be properly prepared in advance. Trading jerseys with someone gets you that jersey’s number of mochi in your red bean soup. But for baseball players, the number represents how many pieces of meat they get in their curry. Volleyball players and sliced pork in their ramen, etc. And that is the importance of jersey numbers. Thanks Monokuma, that all sounded really credible and trustworthy trivia.

Morning announcement! Monotaro and Monophanie are now playing the part of an abusive boyfriend and the girl he seduced.

Outside the dorm, Maki and Shuichi talk about their conversation last night. Maki sounded like she didn’t care, but that wasn’t true. A detective should listen before making assumptions.

Maki walks off. Further up the path is Himiko, who’s out of breath from running all the way to the front of the Academy building from the dorms. She ran as part of her new philosophy of moving forward with her life. Walking is too slow of a pace for that! Shuichi questions whether she needs to be physically going fast to do that. The thing is, how else is she gonna do it? She doesn’t know of any other way to live life facing forwards, for Angie and Tenko’s sakes.

Still, she’s definitely gotta pace herself. Shuichi gives her a black belt from the monomono machine, so she can exercise in Tenko’s dojo. After breakfast, Shuichi will meet up with Himiko and train in the dojo.

Miu’s standing in the hall, near the basement stairs. Shuichi almost immediately regrets talking to her.

Fun last night? Huh?

Oh, she thinks Shuichi, Kaito, and Maki had a threesome in the middle of the courtyard. Yeah, that sounds like something Miu would think. She goes off to the breakfast hall, but not before mentioning that she’s working on the perfect invention! Once Shuichi has that, he won’t even need a rubber…Shuichi muses that Miu seemed more upbeat, and that she said “wait” in relation to the invention. Is she working on something right now, that she’s almost finished with? It’s weird…hopefully it’s something other than her figuring out how to make drugs and getting high. That’s the last thing we need.

Inside the dining hall, Gonta seems to be trying to convince the others of something.

Oh, he plans to fight Monokuma. Even with three Monokubs dead, there’s still two Exisals, and Monokuma himself has spares, so…bad idea.

Kokichi doesn’t think Monokuma’s defeat would even stop the killing game. And why would anyone (read: just Kokichi) want it to stop in the first place? It’s starting to get fun now, after all. He also states his intent to win the game. If he needs to become the next blackened to do that, he’ll do it. But the game can’t continue until there’s another killing…so, someone kill already, and make the fun start! And if no one kills each other, Kokichi will have no choice but to take the matter into his own hands and become the blackened himself.

Kaito punches Kokichi in the face. As Kaito yells at Kokichi, Keebo cautions that even minor fights can escalate into murder. If we try and solve our problems with violence, another killing is all but assured. Kaito, who was about to punch Kokichi again, steps back and puts his fists down.

Gonta says that if everyone’s gonna fight each other, he’ll go fight Monokuma rather than watch another killing happen.

Miu tells him there’s no need for that. Hmmmm. I wonder what she invented? An Exisal of her own?

Himiko delivers a Miu line…no wait, that’s just an example of what Miu would have likely said. But she told him not to be worried about Monokuma instead. Miu says that recklessness is pointless because she’s got a plan to save everyone.

“I’ll bring you to a world where the killing game doesn’t exist!”

It’s the computer, isn’t it…she plans to use the computer to create a new world of her own. That’s the only thing I can think of.

After breakfast, we head to the dojo to train with Himiko. Gonta’s there too. And he’s refusing to accept that there’s no way he can help out, so we have no choice but to invite him to train with us and work out together.

Himiko’s gonna do mage exercises. And the best way for her to gain the mana necessary is to have someone overflowing with vitality nearby. Gonta can stand nearby while Himiko borrows his vitality for her exercise. OK.

The exercises are basically preparations for stage performers to do their stuff. That isn’t a Mage exercise. That’s a Magician exercise. Well at least Himiko and Gonta are having fun.

Back to our room. Gonta wanted to fight Monokuma to save his friends. There’s no way Miu would ever say it, but she probably is working hard for the same reason. But Shuichi can’t help his friends, because his talent is only useful after they’re dead.

Free time again! Let’s see what nutty story Kaito has this time.

OK, so Kaito fought off a bunch of rival pirates and left his ship. But before he could get to port, he got caught in a storm. Right when he thought he was done for, a whale ate his boat. Hey, has this guy been watching Pinocchio too many times or something?

Whales are apparently the second smartest thing in the world. The smartest thing is Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars. What am I reading.

Kaito was sheltered from the storm, but he was stuck inside the whale’s stomach. He eventually made it to port, and realized that he’d tried to conquer the sea, and the sea won. So next up was…the land. This story sure is long.

Shuichi is just sweatdropping. Kaito talks on. He sold his boat and all his belonging, and entered the jungle. As he cut his own path through the dense growth, he found himself face to face with va giant anaconda, capable of swallowing a man whole! Kaito defeated the fell serpent, but that ended up triggering something else. Right before him, a gate opened up, leading to the Underground Empire, who had been using the anaconda as a watchman.

Against his better judgement, Shuichi asks what the heck that even is. Apparently, it’s a civilization located in an underground cave. Kaito invaded the empire, and made the emperor into his sidekick, but then time ran out and he had to go back to his gramp’s house. Summer vacation was over. So…was this whole story just his younger self thinking up a cool story about what the map could do?

Anyways, back to the main topic. Kaito must have wanted to become an astronaut for some reason, right? Even if he lost track of the topic while telling his tall tale. His reason is that the universe is the final frontier for him to conquer! Besides, astronauts are cool! What kid hasn’t grown up wanting to be one?

Shuichi looks so disappointed…

Well, time for more Free Time!

Kaito wants to escape. Who knows how much astronaut training he’s missing. But since we’re here, at least we got to meet each other and become friends.

Kaito says he could be called the Ultimate Hero. He’s had plenty of sidekicks before Shuichi. He’s only an astronaut trainee, but in other fields, he’s already made quite the name for himself. One of his sidekicks became a star rookie in major league baseball, another became an engineer who won a Nobel Prize, he even tutored the prime minister of Japan in politics! (What, the figurehead Prime Minister or Kirumi?) He goes on to talk about other sidekicks and make up a bunch of bullshit to brag about. But still, he says that he only nudged them in the right direction. Because…he believed in them. And that’s what’s most important, following the path you believe in. Kaito may be an idiot, but he’s someone who can give encouragement to others…encouragement that lets them face forwards and pursue their dreams. In that sense…he’s the perfect partner for Shuichi.

Evening time. Monotaro gives the night-time announcement. He has a bruise on his face and Monophanie is nowhere to be seen. Serves you right, asshole.

Monophanie whopped him so hard that he’s forgotten where he is and what time he’s announcing it to be. And didn’t there used to be someone else?

Monophanie steps out from behind a pillar to say that Monotaro is helpless without her. Shuichi doesn’t even bother commenting on the soap opera this time.

Training time with Kaito and Maki. Keebo and Tsumugi are in the dorm halls. Keebo’s worried about another murder happening if people are out at night. Keebo and Tsumugi discuss how seriously to take anything Kokichi says…everyone should make sure to be careful around him. I somehow suspect he might be the next victim, and he certainly is not gonna be the blackened this time around. Tsumugi’s also annoyed about the soap opera Monokub announcements. Keebo is more worried that it’s an incestual relationship. OK, well, they’re just robots, no offense, so if you want to squick at someone, Kiyo’s a better choice.

Do the Monokubs have to abide by human morality if they’re bears? No, they aren’t even bears. They’re robots oh shit Keebo’s mad about robophobia again.

Outside, Kaito doesn’t look well. Maki says it’s because of what happened earlier. Kaito suggests the three of them skip training and just talk. He definitely has something on his mind, so…

The conversation almost immediately turns to the subject of Maki’s life. Like, what her favorite blood type is. What? You meant, what’s her blood type, right? (It says it’s A, right there on the monopad’s report card.) Kaito seems to be acting stranger than usual.

Shuichi has a question of his own. When they first met, Maki told Kaede and him that she was the Ultimate Child Caregiver. Why that title in specific?

As the topic is about to move on, Maki speaks up with her answer. She grew up in an orphanage. That part of her backstory wasn’t made up. She has no idea who her parents even were, much let alone memories of them. And what she told us at the beginning…the only part of it that was false was her Ultimate title. Maki really was an orphan, and she really did end up helping raise the orphanage’s other residents…and kids really do like Maki. She doesn’t like taking care of them, but the kids like her anyways…but she never had a choice as to whether to become a caretaker or an assassin. Because when she was 10, a group of strangers started hanging around the orphanage. They were all smiles, but didn’t interact with the kids. Only watched them from afar…trying to see what talent each of them had. And Maki agreed to let them adopt her when she heard that they’d donate a large sum of money to the orphanage if she did. And that’s how Maki’s life started to become a living hell.

Ever since that day, she trained to become an assassin. And she had no choice but to keep going, even when she didn’t want to. As long as she became an assassin and succeeded in her missions, the orphanage would continue to receive funding…at first, Maki vomited every day, cried every night…but then, she got used to it. It was her life now. And so she became a tool to be used for killing by the cult she worked for, and her heart became empty, and her emotions numb, and her thoughts on why she had to keep going diminished.

But even with all that, she has to ask herself after every mission what life would have been like if she stayed at the orphanage. It’s a gnawing thought that will never leave her.

So that’s it. The story of Maki Harukawa. A girl who made what seemed like the right choice, and descended into hell because of it.

Kaito says that Maki and Shuichi both try to shoulder things on their own. Better to trust in others. Having shared your burdens with your friends, you’ll become stronger. And if Maki has managed to share her burden with Kaito and Shuichi, then maybe she’s become stronger already.

Maki acknowledges that the training has made her stronger, and the three friends spend time just talking. Shuichi feels more than ever that he needs to uncover the truth of the Academy, so he can protect his friends. No matter what, he needs to keep his friends alive.

And yet, at that very moment, in the games room in the basement, Monokuma is face-to-face with Kokichi. Kokichi, who has something to talk about with Monokuma in private. Something that will make the killing game that more exciting. Kokichi also says that the reason he hasn’t used the motive yet is because it has to be used dramatically. But then, he had an idea. A certain someone is planning something interesting. If the motive is used with regards to that, then the game would become super intense. I wonder who the certain someone is? Gonta or Miu, perhaps.

When Monokuma says you’re an evil bastard, you’re pretty damn far gone.

Kokichi makes the evilest face he’s made yet. And evil is what he is planning…

Monokuma Theater! Dishonest people…you can trust them, cause you know that they’re dishonest. But an honest man, you never know when they’re gonna do something idiotic. Unless he’s lying about that. And so on and so forth. Kokichi’s plan really impressed him, it seems.

Monokub announcement, starring no one. No wait, Monophanie appeared out of literally thin air to continue the soap opera bullshit. Monophanie and Monotaro eventually realize that they need each other, and a curtain falls with the words “The End” on it. What a long, strange announcement.

Outside the dorms, Kaito wants to ask Shuichi for advice about their training sessions. We’ve been doing sit-ups and push-ups, but Kaito feels like something is missing. Martial arts, or mental training…we have a practice sword in our inventory, so Shuichi and Kaito decide to train together after breakfast. Kaito will bring Maki over as well.

Near the boiler room, Gonta’s still looking for the tiny bug…

*Silver the Hedgehog voice* IT’S NO USE!

Hey, I did say I would bust out that line every time the voice clip was used…

Himiko’s in the hall near the bathrooms. She’s sad the Monokuma soap opera is over. She thought there’s be a plot twist, where Monophanie would turn out to be pregnant with a kub of her own, but it’d turn out the father wasn’t Monotaro! The father would be Monokid, or Monosuke, or possibly Monodam but probably not. Despite her predictions, the soap opera ended happily ever after. I wonder if Himiko is a soap opera fan? Wouldn’t have thought so before now, but…

Inside the dining hall, everyone but Miu and Kokichi are here. That worries me.

Everyone’s trying to think of ways to make themselves useful to each other. After breakfast, we go back to our rooms. But even then, an “unspeakable malice” is brewing.

No time to worry about whether Miu is dead, though, because it’s time to train with Kaito.

Oh right. Maki doesn’t use swords. Oops.

It’s a painful memory, but Kaito tells her to get it out there so the three of them can continue to share each other’s burdens.

So, Maki gathered information for her mission. The target worked late at night, but was also into some nerdy hobbies. And we’re talking Tsumugi-levels of nerdy, especially considering that this guy loved cosplay. So Maki came up with a plan. Use a prop carrying case to stealthily bring a katana with her and then kill the guy with it. The plan worked at first. Then Maki drew her katana on the guy. But her height and hairstyle match that of a popular character who is a katana user, and she was in the middle of a cosplay hall when this happened. And so, before she knew what was happening, Maki found herself in a different hall, with people photographing her as part of a photoshoot. Luckily, no one looked inside her weapon case, or she would’ve been busted. They would’ve realized the katana was real…Kaito and Shuichi think the whole thing is pretty funny. But the story isn’t over with. Maki returned to her employers without having killed the guy. She was branded as a failure. And failing meant her employers would no longer donate to the orphanage…which is why she had to keep going. So that her hell of a life would have some kind of meaning.

Shuichi returns to his room. Hopefully there’ll be at least another free time before the murder. Ooh, there is. Next time, we finish up Kaito’s last free time event and move towards the inevitable deadly life.

#Dangan Ronpa #Dangan Ronpa V3 #Danganronpa V3

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makinoemii · 6 years ago

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“I came to realize that I traveled best when I traveled with my partner.”

We got up nice and early. We ordered a Taxi called Grab and traveled to the ticketing office. There are two company’s that you can use. We used the Ocean Jet to travel over first. Then Super Cat for our return ticket. It cost 460 PHP for the Super Cat and a bit more for Ocean jet. In total it was about 1000 PHP for both of us one way. I do remember that the staff is very helpful and obliging and helpful for a person such as myself. I must compliment them for their due diligence on assisting myself. I only have 10% site. It was a nice trip and I think it took about 3 hours and only two coming home with Super Cat. The cost of flying is about 3000 PHP each.

I would highly encourage that you would visit a ticketing office available in some shopping malls in the city to book your tickets ahead of time. Please see the links attached to check the schedule availability of both vessels. OceanJet and SuperCat.

Sample Itineraries for a day trip in Bohol for 7:30 AM arrival via private rental car with driver:

Check out sir Arvin’s Facebook to schedule a private trip. Or you can also contact him thru this number (09954743462).

Arrival Tagbilaran Wharf

Butterfly Farm ( optional / depend on time availability )

Blood Compact Monument

Baclayon Church & Museum Loboc River Cruise w/ lunch on board (optional / depend on time / budget availability)

Tarsier Sanctuary Passing Bilar Mahogany Man Made Forest Chocolate Hills

Bohol Adventure Park locations at (Danao, Chocolate Hills, Loboc Ecotourism / optional) Please check on this link for a sample adrenaline activity in Bohol.

NOTES

Rates and schedules are subject to change without prior notice.

Applicable Entrance Fees ( Own expense)

Terminal fees ( Own expense)

Had our first stop at the well-known monument in scenic surrounds is a statue depicting a famous blood compact from 1565.

Bohol Python and Wildlife Park

Butterfly sanctuary, awesome butterflies at the back part of this Wildlife Park.

The preserve popular phyton in Bohol ages ago. Lot’s of negative feedback I read about this place but as part of their itineraries, we gave it a try to see for our self.

This would probably my favorite spot for this place. Refreshing and you can hear the different sounds of wilds along the corner. (Though we felt bad for some of the wild inside the cage)

We took a short snap to stretch at The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Baclayon Church one of the oldest church in the country. This church was one of the best preserved Jesuit build churches in the region.

And before we head down to most popular chocolate hills, who wouldn’t love to take a great photo in their man-made forest along the road. We were so lucky because the road was so quiet and peaceful.

Then we reached one of the unique spots that you should not miss in Bohol. The Philippine tarsier, (Tarsius syrichta) is a very peculiar small animal. In fact, it is one of the smallest known primates, no larger than an adult men’s hand. It can be found in islands of Samar, Leyte, Bohol, and Mindanao in the Philippines.

Observe silence as Tarsiers spend most of their lives clinging to vertical tree branches where they rest during the day.

And we finally reach our final destination. Chocolate hills, the most popular tourist spot in Bohol as well as in the whole country.

The chocolate hills consist of are no less than 1268 hills (some claim this to be the exact number). They are very uniform in shape and mostly between 30 and 50 meters high. They are covered with grass, which, at the end of the dry season, turns chocolate-brown. From this color, the hills derive their name. At other times, the hills are green, and the association may be a bit difficult to make. (credits http://www.infobohol.com)

To capture your best photography you need to go upstairs and make the most of your time.

I can say when we landed in Bohol we took a tour with a guide and eat breakfast at McDonalds. We had two drivers that afternoon. Both of them took us to see lots of different sites. I really think this is the best way to see Bohol. Local knowledge and driving in an air-con car are great. We saw some wonderful majestic forest. The Chocolate Mountains was another place where your camera will get used a lot. I recall we went into a butterfly sanctuary and that was so very nice too. Later on, we went and looked at some very large snakes and reptiles. If you like monkeys go check out the little tarsier.

Our lovely arrival in The Bellevue Resort in Panglao, Bohol.

Down below is the advert for where we stayed.

My wife picked this place and got it for half price with a coupon code. So, the value for us both was outstanding. They upgraded us and we had a nice balcony which we spent a lot of time resting and looking out over the Xmas lights and ocean. Playing some tunes on the blue tooth speaker. That’s when we discovered that the Wi-fi was amazing, 40mb down and 21mb Up. So, it’s very easy to back up all your photos at the end of the day. I can say the bed was super nice to sleep in and the bathroom had a nice deep bath and a very nice shower to wash any sand grains off of your body if you went out swimming or used the beach lounges like I did.

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The breakfast buffet is quite expensive. It is all you can eat and yes it has a tone of different food to try. I wanted my wife to explore different food and take a crap load of photos of it. To remember our honeymoon meals together. There is unlimited juice and coffee and tea. Hot chocolate you have to buy. I did not like it that much so I stayed with just drinking juice.

I really enjoyed our evenings together eating in alfresco dining. The hotel does make a very nice meal. I did not like garlic bread in the Philippines. It’s so very sweet. I had fettuccine both nights with different sauces. I think my wife had fish and calamari. We listened to the live band and the personal service was outstanding. We even tipped the singers and I asked for a specific song for my darling wife. My wife’s best friend works in tourism and she is able to all so give you great feedback on places to stay. Ask Luche and she will inquire on your behalf. Mostly I think Luche will just put links into her blog if she deems them worthy.

This is an ADD describing where we stayed.

“On Dolijo Beach overlooking the Cebu Strait, this upmarket hotel surrounded by tropical forest is 21 km from Tagbilaran Airport.

Understated rooms provide free Wi-Fi and flat-screen TVs, plus iPod docks and minibar. Upgraded rooms add furnished balconies and/or beach views. Suites come with living areas; upgraded suites offer outdoor whirlpool tubs.”

Day 2 – An Exciting Island Hopping To Balicasag and Virgin island.

If we’re lucky enough to wake up early we would’ve gone to visit Pamilacan island first. To experience, dolphins, manta rays and whale shark watching. However; were pretty exhausted from our day one trip so we just chose to go to Balicasag island.

Location: The southwest wall of Balicasag island, 6km southwest of Panglao island. Fresh from the success of the Philippines, Balicasag in the 2006 Marine Diving Fair in Tokyo, where Balicasag was voted as the Reader’s Choice ‘ 3rd world’s best dive site through a diving magazine survey, the Department of Tourism further ensure its presence in the biggest Asia Dive Expo in 2006. (www.infobohol.com)

I like Bohol because there is a very nice sea breeze that takes off the zapping power of the humidity. So, if you go riding on a trike it’s so very pleasant. The wind in your hair and seeing the sites is fun. Just like the boat trip we took. My wife got so fascinated with the turtles the owners of the craft we took out called her back so she did not get into any trouble. She was fixated on taking her videos and was not aware of what she or where she was swimming. Any way our hostess told us about a rain squall that was coming. They got us home and as we walked into the resort it rained cats and dogs.

The Virgin Island

Virgin Island (also known as Pungtud or Pontod Island) is probably the most iconic island destinations in Bohol. We had our final stop here to relax after the rain shower. Upon our arrival, you can vendors as if they haven’t welcomed you to the island upon docking yet. Fried banana or also know as ( banana cue) is around the corner as well as fresh coconut juice.

How to get there: Our island hopping tour was arranged by Mr. Arvin our contact driver during our day 1 trip. He can provide a suggested arrangement for your itineraries and accommodation depends on your budget and days to stay on the island.

What a trip!

This was a perfect time to relax and look at our photos and back them up. As well as clean up and get ready to go out to dine later on that night. I am sure that there are parts I mist of our adventures. However, my thought is two thumbs up. Will I ever go back? Hell yes. I enjoyed that place. It was hard to leave it really. I hope you enjoy it too. Just remember to take water bug spray and a portable battery charger too. Advice buy some dried mango, it made by the gods lol, it’s awesome. Take care and happy travels.

We highly appreciated the management of the resort for their lovely welcome and amazing service. We gave it a two thumbs up and we would probably stay for our next visit.

Honeymoon Getaway: Picturesque locations you’ll want to visit in Bohol, Philippines "I came to realize that I traveled best when I traveled with my partner." We got up nice and early.

#thecebuanaph bohol honeymoon thephilippines naturewanders boholphilippines bellevueresort panglaobohol chocolatehills manmadefores

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thirtysomethingadventures · 7 years ago

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The cutest boy in the world and I took a day trip to Monterey County to get our marriage license! Highlights included getting our license, walking around Carmel-by-the-Sea, watching a dead humpback whale get towed off the beach and out to sea (it was stinking up the rarefied air of Pebble Beach), playing in the Steinbeck Museum, and hanging out with friends until late late at night. Carlo stayed cute even after 14 hours on the road!

Remember the Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover showing the couple bent over the county clerk's desk, signing their marriage license together? We got the 21st century version. The old county office building is under renovation, and the clerk's office is now in a new, modern building. We found a lot of forms in Spanish and tried to figure out which one we needed. When we realized we were looking at an application to create a fictitious business name, we decided to ask at the counter. One of the clerks directed us to a bank of computers. "Fill out your marriage license application there," she said, "then go to window number one." So we bent over the keyboard together and filled out our application online. When we were done a clerk took Carlo's check for the filing fee, slid the license under the safety glass at the clerk's window for us to sign, and gave us instructions for filing after our wedding.

Red tape out of the way, we went to the Steinbeck museum and got interactive. There's a Model T Ford you can climb into (East of Eden), an tacked-up pony to sit on (The Red Pony), and a replica of Ed Rickett's lab complete with marine specimens in jars (Cannery Row). Just about the only thing behind glass is Rocinante, the truck Steinbeck drove around the country for a year, his road trip being an excuse for writing Travels with Charlie. After the museum, I walked down Main Street with my own Charlie and we found a hole-in-the-wall Mexican diner for lunch. The chile verde was delicious, and the lady who owned the place said, "If you're going to the coast you have to do the 17 Mile Drive. It goes past the ocean and Clint Eastwood's house."

In Carmel-by-the-Sea we got out and stretched our legs, walking down Ocean Ave to the beach and taking a stroll, watching dogs fetching balls is the water and junior lifeguards getting hazed. On the way back up Ocean, I grabbed a community paper and looked at the headlines: town cracking down on VBROs, restaurants adding 2% to pay kitchen staff better, dead whale washes up on local beach. It reminded me of the little local paper I carried when I was a kid. Back in the car, we drove to 17 Mile Drive and found it's the road that goes through the gated Pebble Beach community, with an associated toll for tourists. "No way!" we both said, and headed back to Hwy 1, only to find gridlock. "On the map it looks like the 17 Mile road goes up to Pacific Grove. We can bypass traffic and see some sights," I said. The toll was starting to seem more acceptable, so we returned and entered the Pebble Beach community. I rolled down my window and said, "Mmm, smell that? That's amazing!" Carlo asked what it was I was smelling. "Rarefied air," I replied.

Joke was on us, because traffic backed up at an exit to access Hwy 1. "Now we're paying for the privilege of sitting in traffic!" Carlo said. We got past it, though, and continued through cypress groves, around golf courses, and past houses that didn't look too different from those in our neighborhood when I was growing up. I guess location is everything--in this case, a price difference of about a million dollars. Eventually the road bent around and we drove along the ocean. One parking lot was packed with people and tour buses, and a stench like a combination of horse sweat, wet dog, and death started wafting through the windows. "What in the world could that be?" Carlo wondered. Somehow the park ranger part of my brain put the pieces together and I exclaimed, "I bet it's a dead whale washed up on the beach! Let's take a look!" Sure enough, there was the dead humpback mentioned in the paper. A boat I'd noticed about 30 yards offshore was slowly putting tension on a tow line that ran under the whale's flippers and around its tail. From snippets overheard, we gathered that the good people of Pebble Beach had enough with the stench, and hired the boat to haul the whale off the rocks and 40 miles out to sea, where it would presumably either sink, or wash up on somebody else's beach. For a while the boat struggled mightily while the whale carcass didn't budge. Finally, the waves lifted the cetacean just enough and it pulled free of the rocks, leaving a flipper behind. We watched until the whale was well on its way, then continued on, agreeing that watching a whale carcass towed to sea was definitely worth the price of admission.

We kept driving with the ocean to our right and large houses to our left, and Carlo said, "We're going south. Why are we going south?" I consulted the map we were given upon entry and said, "Er...because this is a loop road." So much for escaping Carmel-by-the-Sea. I saw that we could at least take a cut-through and exit near Pacific Grove, so we did that. However, when I Googled the best route to Santa Cruz (our next stop), the mapping software took us south to a Hwy 1 entry point in order to bypass city streets in Pacific Grove and Monterey. Apparently all roads lead to Carmel-by-the-Sea and we wanted to be on our way, so we went south in order to go north. We never did find out which house was Clint Eastwood's.

As we approached Santa Cruz, Carlo wondered if his and his sister’s friend Mark was home. We've been trying to drop in on Mark for a while now. It turned out Mark had just returned from a week away, so we went and got dinner while he cleaned up. Then we sat around a fire in his backyard and socialized with him and his girlfriend. We were delighted to hear they'll be joining us in Greenville next month, and I think Mark may be providing some music. Eventually they left for a party, and we headed home--after I snapped a few more pictures of the cutest boy in the world.

#Kate and Carlo #marriage license #monterey county #california #national steinbeck center #Salinas #carmel-by-the-sea #17 mile drive #dead whale #so romantic #cutest boy in the world

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karimhddd · 7 years ago

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I finally made it to Iceland earlier this year. My friend and I decided to make the trip with very little planning – all we knew at first was that we wanted to see as much of the country as possible and document our travels through pictures and film.

We had a full week to spend there it made sense to rent a 4WD vehicle and drive around the entire island. We put together a rough itinerary of places we wanted to see and booked our hotel accommodation accordingly.

I was inspired by friends who’d recently made the trip. I know many others who are interested in going themselves. Maybe this will help you plan a trip of your own – it’s a brief day-by-day account of where we went and what we did (with pictures to prove it).

Enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions, or recommendations of your own. I’m already looking forward to going back!

Day 1 – We landed early on the morning of April 10th and breezed through the airport. As two Arab-looking men accustomed to the trials and tribulations of dealing with US customs officers, the arrival process was exceptionally smooth and straightforward.

The weather outside seemed pleasant at first but I soon regretted shedding my jacket, so I made sure not to leave the car without it again. After stocking up on groceries we started our journey along the Ring Road (aka Route 1).

We headed northwest from Keflavik, making a few stops along the way. We started with a slightly misguided attempt at hiking to Glymur, one of Iceland’s tallest waterfalls. After walking around for a while and discovering that some key trails were closed, we got back on the road again and headed towards Kirkjufell Mountain. Glymur (and the Budir black church) would have to wait until the next trip.

Conditions outside had been deteriorating all day, and by the time we got to the mountain, the scene was washed out in snow and clouds. We made the best of it though, and we resigned ourselves to the fact that there would be no sunset to speak of that day.

By the time we got to the Gauksmýri Lodge under a flurry of snowflakes, it was nearly 11pm. I was worried that we’d have problems checking in, but as soon as I opened the glass door, I saw two sets of keys and welcome notes waiting for us on the counter.

After settling into our small rooms, we decided to get back in the car and attempt to see Hvitserkur under the Northern Lights. Near-blizzard conditions didn’t help our quest, and driving along the pockmarked road leading to the iconic stone structure was taxing, especially for two guys who had been traveling for so long. It was definitely an adventure though, so no regrets.

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Day 2 – When it was time to leave the lodge, the snow had turned to sleet and the morning sun was helping the thaw. It made for a much more ‘pleasant’ drive to Hvitserkur than the previous night.

Once we made it, we ignored the signs and the line of cars at the top of the hill and we parked right by a paused construction site adjacent to the overlook. Others soon followed suit. It seems they’re working on fixing up this relatively well-known tourist attraction in a part of the country that many visitors choose to ignore.

After taking some photos of the basalt beast from the overlook, we went our different ways to reach the shoreline. The black sand was littered with broken blue mussel shells that I regret not photographing. But the sleet had turned to rain, and it was practically impossible to keep our lenses dry.

I climbed back up the muddy hillside, keeping my gear clean at the expense of my clothes. All in all, we spent more than an hour at Hvitserkur, but I’m sure that we would have stayed longer if the weather had been more agreeable.

We were back on the road and starving after braving the elements. Lunch was soon served from the trunk of the car: cold-cut sandwiches, chips and juice. Since we were on a tight schedule and had a lot to see, these quick meals were our main source of sustenance for the duration of the trip. I highly recommend the smoked lamb (hangikjöt).

There wasn’t time for many stops on the way to our next location, at least nothing too far from the main roads. We pulled over a few times to take pictures of whatever grabbed our attention, but we were tired and needed some rest.

We checked into nicer rooms at Hotel Akureyri and and got ready for dinner – a short walk to a place serving fresh fish and chips that I wish I could have right now!

Akureyri is a quaint fishing town in the north where whale watching tours set off from. Less than 20,000 people live there, but it’s Iceland’s second largest urban center outside of Reykjavik. On another trip, I wouldn’t mind spending some more time in the town, taking some pictures, and maybe catching one of those tours.

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Day 3 – We headed straight for Godafoss in the morning. It was the most crowded site we’d visited so far, but that didn’t stop us from spending nearly two hours there. It was a good day to fly the drone too – the weather had finally started to improve.

Once we were done with the Waterfall of the Gods, we continued driving east in search of springs and geysers. On our way to Namaskardh, we caught site of an impressive crater from a distance. Thinking it might be filled with water, we set out to find it.

After an hour or two, we finally pulled up at the foot of the volcano. Hverfjall didn’t seem quite as impressive up close as it had been from afar. We debated whether or not to walk the trail leading up to the top. I pulled out the drone to do some recon… and nearly lost it in the process. After seeing the video feed, we wisely decided to keep it moving.

We got to the steaming springs of Namaskardh right as the sun was starting to go down. Luckily, that’s a long process in April, but the road was calling us, so after we were done taking pictures and inhaling sulphur fumes, we moved along.

Our next stop was the Icelandair Hotel in Herad. The rooms were the nicest and most spacious of the trip. We ate a couple more sandwiches there before calling it a night.

Day 4 – The plan was to spend the whole day exploring Iceland’s eastern fjords. We set out relatively early in the morning and began moving north along the jagged coastline.

Since we had to head south eventually, we didn’t want to go all the way up to Seydisfjordur, but while we were going in that direction, a mural in a small village caught our attention. We pulled over and took a few pictures and did some exploring.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Reydarfjördur is the place where the show Fortitude was filmed. It seemed eerily quiet at first, but as I approached the local church (lots of those all over Iceland), I could hear a service in session. By the time we were getting ready to move on, the service had ended and a small stream of people trickled out into the street.

After some marginally successful lighthouse hunting further north, we turned around and headed south passing by a quiet Reydarfjördur on the way south.

If you can see your surroundings, the drive along the eastern coast line is supposed to be spectacular. Unfortunately, the visibility was horrible that day. It was overcast and there was a constant drizzle of rain or snow that sometimes grew stronger. We kept going.

Eventually a big black house in Teigarhorn caught our attention and we pulled in for our longest stop of the day. Currently managed by the country’s National Museum, the farmhouse was once the home of a couple that had 14 children. Four of them died in a boating accident. Another one used to study photography and there are plans to rebuild the photo workroom that she’d built there. We spent over an hour taking it all in.

Our next destination was Stokksnes where, among other things, there are stunning views of the mountains and surrounding water. Like so many of Iceland’s tourist attractions, it sits on private land. Unlike most of Iceland’s landowners, this one charges a small fee.

It was snowing so hard by the time we pulled up to his farm that we turned back and kept driving until we reached Hótel Höfn. It was late and the kitchen was closing, but luckily we were able to have a nice dinner in the lobby restaurant – our first proper meal of the trip. I can’t stress how good that salmon and cod tasted!

Day 5 – Our mission: the glacier lagoon of Jökulsárlón. Our problem: the weather was still horrible. But all things considered, we had little choice but to press ahead.

The road conditions were less than ideal at first. But just as we started getting close to our destination, the sky started opening up. When we reached the bridge leading to this incredible place, the weather had improved considerably.

Jökulsárlón means glacial river lagoon. Over the years, climate change has literally turned that lagoon into a lake. As the nearby glacier melts away, the shoreline turns into an ever-changing trail of icebergs in varying shades of blue and white. It makes for quite the spectacle. So we ended up spending more than four hours there.

At one point the sun was out and I may have momentarily taken off my jacket. But eventually the cloud cover came back and reminded us where we were.

The next stop was by far the coldest of the whole trip. Breidamerkurjökull is the glacier that keeps receding and forming the icebergs that make up Jökulsárlón. The wind at the edge was bone-chilling and strong enough to blow away a small child. We practiced our leaning walking technique and returned to the car as quickly as possible.

Although we failed to find a nice place to photograph the sunset, we were still happy as we made our way to the Icelandair Hotel in Klaustur. While checking in, the guy at the front desk asked if we wanted wakeup calls. We gratefully accepted, but kept our expectations low – the forecast was not looking too promising for the evening.

Just as I was falling asleep around midnight, the phone in my room rang. I got up and knocked on my friend’s door who’d also gotten the call. There had been a sighting.

I’d been told that we could see them from the back of the hotel, but that wasn’t good enough. We took a short drive to get away from streetlights, and in hopes of finding some decent foreground. We managed to find darkness, but then the dancing aurora borealis forced us to stop in our tracks. I’m sure that by Icelandic standards, there was nothing special about that night, but to first-timers like us, those Northern Lights were magical.

Although it was the least varied day of the trip, it was easily the best. It didn’t hurt that I had some amazing arctic char at a restaurant somewhere along the way!

Day 6 – Life is full of balance. Maybe that’s why the best day of the trip was followed by the worst. It started with some technical difficulties that I won’t bother getting into… but let’s just say things got off to a rocky start and lots of time was wasted.

After an unsuccessful trip past one of the canyons near our hotel, we started making our way towards Vik. It was later than we would have liked and we didn’t have a chance to get a proper feel for the place. There were many reasons for that.

Iceland’s southern section is far more popular than the north, and after spending five days in virtual solitude, the swarms of tourists in Vik were a little too much to take.

We pulled up at a gas station to fill up (something that costs more than twice as much as it does in the US). I needed to use the restroom but was immediately turned back by the massive hordes that had descended from the buses nearby.

As we were leaving, I managed to take one of my favorite shots of the trip.

We checked out the black sand beaches before going on to chase waterfalls. The trail leading up to the first one on our list was closed. So Svartifoss would have to wait.

But we did make it over to Skógafoss and joined hundreds of others under the rain to witness one of the country’s iconic falls. When the rain had finally let up, a couple rainbows streaked across the stream. If only all the people would have disappeared!

Since it’s another one of Iceland’s best known waterfalls, we knew that Seljalandsfoss was going to be just as bad, if not worse. Luckily someone had recommended a ‘secret’ waterfall nearby that most tourists still don’t know about. It was well worth the hike.

After a while, we’d had enough of waterfalls and we made our way to Hotel Borealis. The lady at the front desk scoffed when I asked her if we were likely to see the Northern Lights again that night. She claimed the forecast was not looking right.

We had a good dinner at the hotel despite some exceptionally negligent table service that practically ruined the experience. It was my first time eating properly cooked Icelandic lamb, and I was very pleased with that. But I think I had a Kit-Kat for dessert in the room.

Before calling it a night, we checked the scene outside and were pleased to see it contradicting the hotel receptionist. So we got layered up and headed back outside for 90 minutes under the aurora borealis. I was growing numb to the cold.

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Day 7 – As soon as we left the hotel, we headed towards Kerid. We had passed by the crater the previous day and paid our only entrance fee of the trip, but the lighting was horrible so the young man at the booth agreed to let us return the following day for free.

It was nice walking around the ring of the crater, but the whole experience would have been better if we had arrived an hour earlier. Nevertheless, it was well worth it.

Our next stop was Thingvellir National Park. I didn’t realize it at the time but the park is part of Iceland’s Golden Circle, which I had been told is a bit overrated. I didn’t see enough to pass judgement myself, but it didn’t take long to realize why so many tourists base their whole vacations out of Reykjavik – there’s a lot to see nearby.

We drove and walked around a little bit until it was lunchtime. Once again, the throngs of tourists were something we couldn’t tolerate for long. We ate the last sandwiches of our trip in peace on the banks of lake Thingvallavatn. Then we kept going west.

Anyone who’s heard anything about Iceland knows something about the Blue Lagoon. The tourist trap was not high on our agenda, so we skipped it altogether. But we did do a drive by so we could get a sense of the area and take a few pictures.

If I had been traveling with my girlfriend or wife, I might have made it a point to stop by the man-made lagoon, but I would have been more keen to check out the smaller and lesser known springs scattered around the country. Maybe next time.

The last night of the trip would be spent at Hotel Keflavik. We checked in sometime in the afternoon and left a couple hours later. We were finally on our way to the capital.

We’d seen Reykjavik in the distance upon our arrival but we had decided to save it for our last day. Unfortunately, we got there just as the sun was setting. By the time we reached the Church of Hallgrímskirkja, it was already getting dark. It was also freezing.

A friend of mine who lives in the city had recommended that we have dinner at Matarkjallarinn; I’m glad we took her up on that suggestion. Once again I had lamb, and once again I was very satisfied. I hope to return.

Once dinner was done, we met with a friend’s cousin on Laugavegur Street. It was a nice way to cap off the trip. Not only were we hanging out with locals in a relaxed environment, but all three of them seemed like great people. The only reason we didn’t spend more time with them was the optimistic aurora forecast we had seen earlier.

As we were reminded on countless occasions, the weather is unpredictable. It started to get cloudy that evening and we thought hope might be lost. Then, just as we were getting closer to Keflavik, there was a glimmer in the sky. So it was that we saw three consecutive nights of Northern Lights… even if the last night was the weakest.

We made it back to our hotel less than four hours before we needed to head out again. Luckily I had packed earlier that afternoon and set multiple alarms. I contemplated pulling an all nighter before passing out on the bed.

Day 8 – Our departing flight would be boarding exactly one week after we walked out into the Iceland air. There was a storm approaching though, and we pondered the prospect of being forced to stay longer as we made our way to the airport.

Things began to look even more ominous upon our arrival. We were expecting it to be just as smooth on the way out as it was on the way in, but the densely packed lines of people inside the airport did not look good.

After a short lived panic inside, I was relieved to find out that we didn’t need to stand in any of those crazy lines. We ended up getting to our gate after going through the same procedures that have become customary for anyone traveling to the US. But it wasn’t so bad. I want to say it was smoother than usual, but I can’t recall all the specifics.

What I do remember is the bittersweet feeling of leaving. It’s always nice to go home after any trip. But sometimes it’s just as nice to extend that getaway for as long as you possibly can. Iceland is a tempting place to do precisely that, and although that wasn’t what happened this time around, I hope to return at least twice – once in the summer, and again in the winter. There are many other wonders that I look forward to seeing.

7 Days in the Land of Ice I finally made it to Iceland earlier this year. My friend and I decided to make the trip with very little planning - all we knew at first was that we wanted to see as much of the country as possible and document our travels through pictures and film.

#Canon #Europe #Fuji #Iceland #nature #photos

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deladane · 7 years ago

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Friday, September 15, 2017 ~ Our Last Day on the Paul Gauguin

Today was our second day anchored in Moorea, and the last full day of our cruise. We had absolutely nothing planned for today (aside from knowing that eventually, we needed to pack our suitcases in preparation to debark tomorrow). Way back when we were talking to Benjamin at Moorea Activities Center after our jet ski tour (that felt like it was months ago at this point, but it was actually less than 2 weeks ago!), we asked him about their whale watching tour. Had it been a half-day tour, we may have decided to do it, but he said it was a full-day 8-hour tour, and we had enough fore sight to know that by the last day of our trip, we would be toured-out and not want to be on a tour boat for 8 hours. Sure enough, we were both happy to make this as lazy of a day as we possibly could!

We woke up around 7:30am without an alarm, and spent a few minutes starting the process of packing. This would turn into an all day event… every few hours, we worked on it a little more, but our cabin looked like a war zone for most of the day, with clothing and shoes and bathing suits all over the bed, couch, and floor haha We didn’t even let Jo Fe come in to make up our room or provide turn down service because that would have meant we had to clean up our mess and we just didn’t feel like it.

After a few minutes of packing, we lost interest and ventured upstairs to La Veranda for breakfast. By now, I had this down to a science… grab a croissant, some lox, 2 slices of brie, and a piece of the danish/pastry of the day. I suppose I should have ordered off the menu since we weren’t in any rush today, but meh! Why mess with what works?

After breakfast, we went back to the cabin to pack a little more, then we went back upstairs to deck 8 and reclaimed our couch in the shade that we enjoyed so much yesterday. DH read his book and I took notes in my trip journal, with a wonderful view of Opunohu Bay in the background!

DH got lunch at noon when the buffet opened, but I wasn’t hungry yet so I held off until 1:30pm just before they were going to close. Today’s lunch buffet theme was Spanish foods, but I guess I was in such a lazy mood that I didn’t take any photos of the buffet! I did manage to get a photo of my pasta though.

Today was the hottest day of our 2 weeks in FP so I needed to spend some time indoors in the air conditioning. We had talked about going down to the marina to use the stand up paddle boards, but I just couldn’t do it (I think I may have been a little dehydrated and I was just feeling off, so the idea of being out in the direct sun with no shade at all was not appealing to me). I told DH he should go without me so at least he could give it a try. We had tried to go to the marina on other days throughout the cruise, but they never let us use the SUP boards or kayaks, either because the water was choppy, it was too windy, the zodiacs from the scuba tours were coming back soon, or any other excuse they could think of! This was the one day when they were actually opened and DH wanted to check it out. While he was down there, he also returned our snorkel kits. We weren’t sure if we could just leave them in our cabin when we left the ship tomorrow, or if they needed to be returned, so better safe than sorry, and he brought them back.

DH spent about 30 minutes paddling around the bay. While he was gone, I walked around the ship, retaking some of the photos of the public spaces that needed to be redone for various reasons (I already posted those photos back at the start of the cruise review). When I made it back to La Palette, I peaked over the side of the ship, and there was DH, paddling away!

We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting with our new friends as we saw them around the ship. At one point, we went out front to the secret deck to check out the view.

The whole day felt like a super lazy sea day, and even though I never miss a day exploring a port on a cruise, this was exactly what I needed!

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the cabin to pack a little more, then got changed for the evening. I expected the Farewell Party to be outside near the pool as we sailed away from Moorea, so I was surprised to learn it is actually held indoors at the Grand Salon. When we arrived, waiters were holding trays of cocktails and canapés and Santa Rosa band was performing a few songs.

The Captain spoke for a few minutes to sum up the cruise. He said we covered about 1100 nautical miles and drank approximately 1 bottle of wine per mile! We were a thirsty bunch of vacationers!!

Next, Les Gauguines performed a few songs and dances.

And finally, they invited all of the officers and crew back on stage to bid us farewell.

The party ended at 5:45pm, so we went down to the photo gallery to check out our photos. We got one free 8x10 print as part of our honeymoon package, but many times when we went to look at our photos, the gallery was closed. Luckily, the photos were all still available so we could pick out our favorites.

We stepped outside onto the deck just in time to catch the sunset as we sailed past Moorea. It was a perfectly clear sky and prime conditions to see the elusive Green Flash, and guest what?? I SAW IT!!!! I wish I had thought to use the burst mode on my camera to try to capture it, but I didn’t even think of it… I was just watching the sun set and as it dipped below the horizon, I saw the green flash! That was the perfect way to end our time in FP!

Once the sun was down, we went back inside to listen to Alex at the piano bar until it was time for our 7pm dinner reservations at Le Grill. A few days ago, I caught a glimpse of their menu for the second half of the cruise and I just had to try it out. Luckily, there were reservations available for tonight, which was perfect because we were due to dock in Tahiti around that time so there wouldn’t be any issue with excessive winds while we ate! When we arrived, there were only 4 tables occupied, so I guess no one else thought to dine here on the last night.

Everything on the menu sounded so tasty that we each ordered an appetizer, and then we ordered 4 entrees to share!

Hawaiian Ahi Poke

Coconut Prawns

Polynesian Steak

Asian Roasted Duck

Breaded Scallops with Pineapple Lemongrass Infusion

Five-spice Chocolate Fondant

Since there were so few people dining here, service was extremely fast and we were on our way in just over an hour. We still had some packing to do, so we went back to the cabin to finish stuffing everything in our big suitcases and weighing them to make sure they were under the 50 pound limit. We had to put our suitcases outside in the hallway by midnight (I think?) so the bags could be lined up in the tent on the dock for us to claim tomorrow morning.

Tonight’s show in the Grand Salon was a performance by O Tahiti E, the number one rated Polynesian dance troupe! This group was fantastic and much more professional than the group we watched last night. When I think of Polynesian dancing, this is exactly what comes to mind, so it was the perfect way to end our time on the PG cruise ship.

Sorry for the blurry photos… I didn’t want to use a flash during the performance, and they were moving and dancing so quickly that it was hard to capture the moment on my camera. When the show ended, we made our way back to the cabin to rest up for a long day of travel tomorrow. It was so sad to think that our honeymoon was coming to an end.

#Paul Gauguin Cruise 2017 #moorea #paulgauguin #french polynesia

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sailingbrisa · 7 years ago

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Matapalo and the voyage to Ollies.

We surfed Matapalo for two full days with Mat onboard with us, then went back to Pavones to deal with a couple of flatish days. We found awesome mango milkshakes, a laundry service that dries the clothes on the line and charges a LOT…. ding repair is not cheap, home made chocolate from the hostels is awesome and New Zealand has the fastest catamaran in the Americas Cup.

The little surf town of Pavones is a really interesting little town, with its transient surf crews, the locals and the local businesses all meshing into some strange conglomerate to make it all work. Wouldn’t say the surf shop was filled with super friendly people, or that the prices were reasonable, but as with any monopoly with demand I guess you can charge whatever prices you like. We met a bunch of people there, from the fishermen who watched our dingy on the beach to local surfers who have to deal with the huge crowds at their home break. All of the people we met lived the Pura Vida lifestyle predominate in Costa… the locals were for the most part super chilled out, especially in Matapalo.. they even invited us over to raid their gardens and fill the boat with vegetables and fruit. Despite the warnings.. so far no sharks or crocodiles while surfing either.

We dropped Mat back in Pavones and were fortunate enough to sit together again with him and watch New Zealand win the Americas Cup… Can’t say the racing was exciting, but I can say I am very glad to see the auld mug heading back to fair and even competition in NZ.

So after a couple of days of crowded small waves, Brisa and her crew of 2 motored ( yep we don’t sail anywhere anymore…. No wind! ) up to Golfito to pick up Rob, a very old friend and ex roomie form Hawaii. We anchored off of Banana Bay Marina again and went to town for some shopping, an oil change for the motors and to wait for Robbie to fly in from Oakland. I had just been up there with him on my way to NZ, but was certainly looking forward to the adventure in front of us. We found Rob, loaded his gear onboard and started the motors.

He had brought presents for Brisa and the boys.. three new leashes, a new washdown brush, to replace the old one that had abandoned ship one day…. and an awesome “ captains hat”. HEHEHEHEHE. Funny guy!

With just enough time to get back to Matapalo and surf before dark we hit the highway and dodging lots of logs in the water we zoomed at 6.5 knots the short 14 miles back to where we left that morning. WE arrived with about 45 minutes to go before dark to fairly sizeable surf. I dropped Rob and Elwin off at the break from Brisa and went to try and find a good spot to anchor.

The place we anchored before was not safe now with much larger surf and the forecast for it to get even a little bigger…. So I had to head offshore a little further than normal as it started to get dark…. I dropped the anchor once.. all rock.. twice .. all rock.. after about the fifth or sixth try I finally found some sand.. but not in super deep water… at low tide we would be in 13 or 14 feet only… should be alright, as it would take a really big wave to break way out there…. There was a lot of current… a lot of swell and it was now dark.. so I had no idea where Rob or Elwin were…and I couldn’t really leave the boat … hmm poor planning there I guess.

Soon enough I hear Elwin coming back… he makes it to the boat up current… a fairly strong current and he tells me Rob washed in through the rocks, exhausted and he didn’t know if he was still in one piece or floating out to sea in peices…. Jejejjeje. Well Robs adventure begins. LOL. Finally we hear a scream from the beach and with the flashlight I carefully drive the dingy in towards the breakers… and there in the night is the shiny silver cross on Robs board…. HE jumps in the water and paddles over the the dingy… we make it back to Brisa and both he and Elwin have dinner and pass out. HE had planned to sleep on the beach, digging a hole, putting his board over himself and sucking dew from the leaves of the trees nearby!

That night as low tide approached, I woke up and sat at the helm to make sure we didn’t wash away… I could see the lights across the way at Pavones and every now and then a big roller would pass under the boat, but nothing scary. About an hour after low tide, about 1.25 am the lights disappeared …. Hidden by a big swell rolling my way. I had a long time to think about what to do…. but with a big anchor, lots of chain out and knowing Brisa would pop through a pretty huge wave, I wasn’t too scared. It seemed to take for ages, but then finally the waves showed up… I saw them coming as a very dark wall, a little higher than I was sitting and they were pretty close to breaking by the time they got to us…. Brisas bow went up …. And dropped down the other side…. Followed by one more …. With the same motion and fell, not too violently down the other side.. but it was certainly enough for me to start the engines and as I did both Elwin and Rob sprang out into the cockpit to see what was happening. The waves didn’t actually break for about another 100 yards after passing us… but it was enough to get us all up, start the engines and pull anchor and slowly motor towards Pavones.

The boys went back to bed and I put on lots of warm clothes as the nights are quite chilly if you’re out in the wind and rain. I had one engine running and we were doing about 2 knots as there was a lot of stuff in the water to hit. I went and sat on the bow and watched an amazing lightening display, incredible phosphorescence in the water and amazingly clear stars above… I had just enough visibility ahead that if I saw something in the water we were going to hit, I had enough time to run back and take evasive action. Fortunately I only had to do it one time…. Brisa arrived at Pavones at first light, about 4.45 am and after we anchored, I took the boys up the the waves in the dingy.. and it looked really good. I was exhausted from not sleeping more than 2 hours the night before, so I planned to go sleep while they surfed… but when I got back to the boat that changed and I had that go surf now and sleep later feeling.

Grabbed my board, sunscreen and zoomed back up to surf with Rob after a looong time of not surfing together. I could sleep later in the day when the onshore winds hit , usually around 11- 1pm. We had a fantastic session that morning.. lots and lots of waves, despite a huge crowd.

The next two days were spent surfing, eating and sleeping. Surfing 7 or 8 hours a day leaves you wanting food and sleep and not too much else. As the swell started to drop, we pulled anchor again and went back to Matapalo… 12 miles across the mouth and found a good anchorage in daylight.. before heading out into the waves. Rob and Elwin went hiking… I napped and tidied things up a bit. The waves had dropped in size, but were still head hi and great clean faces to play with. We surfed a lot…. Elwin killed the waves one night…. The three of us were surfing in Pan Dulce alone, everyone getting some fun waves, not big, but clean and great practice waves. I got one.. Rob got one, then Elwin got a great one and surfed it really well… hitting the lip at least 4 or 5 times as he rolled down the point! He went so far, he just paddled back to the dingy and sat there watching us… and literally not another wave for the next half an hour until it was dark!!! Elwin scared the rest of the waves away! Rob and I paddled ourselves dejectedly back to the dingy ( the dingys name is noisy Taco, named after the previous owner, Taco Vandeppe. ) The next day the waves were totally gone, so it was time to go look along the coast and head up towards our destination of Papagayo, in Guanacaste Province, very close to the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan border.

The problem with surfing off of a boat is that when you travel along the coast, you usually do it during the flat periods, so as not to miss out on any waves…. This means you don’t really find those secret little spots of awesomeness, inaccessible by road or foot and only by boat, because, as you pass by, it might be the wrong tide, the swell is flat and maybe you are too far out to see it…. So very hard to tell what breaks or not. So we have generally been going to spots that are well known and seeing if we find remote places once we are located. Of course in Costa Rica there are a lot of motor boats, a lot of surfers and as a result not very many “secret” spots at all…. We didn’t see a single wave as we motored and fished up the coast. We caught some tuna and a great Mahi! Rob fishing like a madman! Anyways the motoring time was great recovery for our tired, paddled out bodies and we enjoyed the downtime as we passed beautiful beaches and tropic vistas.

Our ports of call after we left Pavones, on our way to Ollies point reads:

Matapalo for one last surf then on to Drake Bay ( 55 miles more or less ) to Quepos ( 35 miles ) to Herradura Bay ( 30 miles ), beside Jaco to Potrero Bay 100 miles and finally arriving at the legendary Ollies Point, ( 30 miles )

Our last surf at Matapalo was in Playa Dulce, a beautiful black sand beach located across the bay from Pavones. It is a little right that breaks off a rock and if youre lucky a little further out than the rock… it goes for 2 or 300 yards and has an easy speed with some powerful sections and some shallow bits.. but all in all a great little wave. We pulled up the anchor early the next morning and headed off towards Drake Bay, a rolly anchorage the guide book says. We motor sailed a lot of the way with light and variable winds, fishing all the way and watching the birds and dolphins play and hunt around the boat. We caught three different types of fish, Mahi Mahi, tuna and mackerel. Sushi for lunch. The highlight of this leg was seeing our first whales of the trip. Two massive humpback whales right in our path…. We passed them about 100 feet away. Really impressive the size of those monsters. They seemed about as interested in Brisa and her curious crew as they did about the fact we were passing so close to them. Another impressive sight was the sunset and right after a couple of playful dolphins swam around us for about ten minutes in 20 feet of water while we were on anchor. The three of us jumped in the dingy and went ashore, found a good local restaurant and ate fried snapper and chicken in cheese sauce…. Followed by a couple of cold beverages. Then back out to Brisa for a glorious fairly smooth sleep.

The following day we got up pretty early as we had a looong way to go to get to Quepos. Quepos has a marina there called Pez Vella and is home to a 100 or so sport fishing boats and a few super yachts.

The coastline between Drake Bay and Quepos is fairly boring.. there are a few good spots to surf, but we were in transit during a no swell period and spent most of the day taking turns at the helm looking for logs…. There are a lot of them and they are huuuuge monsters, reading fishing and playing cards. Life at sea can be very calm and comfortable and sometimes it can be down right uncomfortable…. Luckily for us this day passed calmly and happily as we all started to get more and more excited about the upcoming swell and the chance to surf Ollies Point.

We motored into Quepos at about 445pm, and started to look for a good anchor spot. Everything near the entrance of the amrina seemed a bit deep and right when we tried going towards the beach to find shallower water the depth finder stopped working, making it all but impossible to tell how deep the murky muddy water was. I fluffed around and swapped to the back up depth sounder.. with no change. I took off all the wires, re-stet all the systems, sprayed wd40 and the connections… talked sweetly to it… then had a look on the GPOS and found the range had reset itself to a thousand feet….on its own. I reset it to automatic and voila.. we had depth again. Lucky us. Rob and Elwin both had a bit of a giggle I think, watching me pulling up floorboards, and in general praying that the thing would fix itself. I remember asking the boys to watch the depth and let me know if anything I did fixed it….. silence from them and disbelieving no ways from me… hahhahaha.

Finally we fixed the depth finder and it was starting to turn a bit dark. We had seen another cruising boat in the bay before the marina so we sent up there to have a look. There was a party boat anchored right by a rock with about 20 people on it playing reggaton but they were just preparing to go and a pretty little mono hull anchored right in by the beach. There were a couple of rocks sticking up out of the water too, but we managed to find a spot in the middle between them all and dropped anchor. I jumed in to have a check of the boat.. make sure we didn’t hit anything, see if the props needed cleaning and to my horror, both the propellors had worked themselves loose….. GULP> the right one had at least half an inch play and the port about half that. Now undoing a folding propeller in the water is not a fun thing to have to do…. And I didn’t. I climbed back onboard to tell the boys the bad news, just before a huge thunder storm hit and we sat huddled inside Brisa praying that it would pass and not zap us.

Early the next moring I made a dingy run to Pez Vela and discovered they can do a hang a haul or we could pull out for the day and do a bit of a repaint around the waterline too. We went for the second option… this meant spending a night onshore, in a dry stack…. In the rainy season in the tropics, without air conditioning. They pulled us out early, had a team sanding the bottom after Brisa had a pressure wash in the travel lift and by lunch time the first coat of paint had ben applied and the props removed, cleaned and reinstalled with new hardware and torqued and safety wired on. ( I was still a bit skeptical because I had done this also last time I pulled out in St. Martin.) Anyways that’s life on a boat. While I was watching the gang work on Brisa and telling the propellors that the next time they got loose I would not be so happy, Rob and Elwin went for a bit of a walk through Quepos town, found themselves saying no to some interesting drug vendors and found a pretty nice little supermarket. They showed up at Brisa with yummy treats and supplies for us all.

That night we were informed there was a 4th of July celebration on in the little marina village. It was a bit rainy to start with so Rob and Elwin and I headed to the Italian restaurant in the marina for a fantastic pizza meal. We ate like hungry horses and then went downstairs and listened to a fantastic local band for a couple of hours, followed by a Jimmy Hendrix style star spangled banner, before and amazing fireworks show!!! I think we were all amazed at how impressive it was. Possibly the best 4th of July fireworks and band celebration I have ever seen.

$3000 dollars and a day of delay later, we blasted out of Quepos for Herradura Bay and I was hoping, a little too optimistically that I would get a surf in Hermosa … a really good beachbreak near Jaco, but it was a little onshore and flat and there was a huge thunderstorm chasing us as we passed by…. We caught a few more fish on this trip, mostly off the points, and it was a fairly easy day.

We pulled into Herradura Bay and radioed Marina Los Suenos #marinalossuenos …. My advice if you ever go there… don’t bother.

We were told they had no space for Brisa for the night, they needed to know how much diesel we wanted, before they would let us in, there was no dingy guest parking… all in all a fairly unfriendly bunch. Every other marina had been very polite and accommodating and almost excited to see us.. but not this one. AVOID unfriendly marinas.. IE Los Suenos. We did go in there, after pulling the dingy up the beach to have a look in the shops… and pretty much the same thing. The only bright spot was the supply store. They had a good selection.. but we have discovered that Costa Rica ( rich coast ) is called that because you need to be rich to buy food anywhere along it. Costa Rica has become expensive.

We got up very early the next day at three thirty, pulled up the anchor and then headed across towards Cabo Blanco and Malpais, it was fairly calm all the way across and we saw dolphins and medium sized rays jumping out of the water and flapping their wings like they could fly. Pretty cute little guys.

It is a long way between Heradura and Potrerro Bay, about 106 miles and it took us a long time to get there. As we passed Tamarindo a massive thunderstorm followed us as we rounded Cabo Velas and we rolled out the headsail in about 25 knots of rainy wind and zoomed up towards Potrerro away form the lightening.

Again we arrived after dark into a beautifully smooth bay, anchored, had dinner and BOOOM another monster thunderstorm right over us. I went to bed as it hit and huddled under my covers, with the fan on sweating and hoping we didn’t get blown away or hit by lightening.

We have been very lucky with the storms. Almost every single day there are huge tropical thunderstorms and even though we have been going around, under and between them for a long time already it is always a bit scary when you see the lightening close to you zapping the land or trees. Still if you want to be in the surf zone during surf season it is all part of it.

Next posting we will arrive! BIG TIME I TELL YA!

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wanderbust2017 · 7 years ago

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Ama La Vida.. Ecuador

Ecuador was not all that we were expecting but after we were there for about 10 days it started to grow on us. We basically saw all of Ecuador by bus because that was the easiest and cheapest way to get around. We began in Cuenca, Ecuador because we wanted to go to Baños, the adventure city of Ecuador. But, we realized once we arrived that there are two different cities named Baños in Ecuador and we were 8 hours away from the one we were trying to get to. So that was kind of a bummer. But whatevs, we went hiking around a national park one of the two days we were there and that was gorgeous. Next, we made our way to Montanita, Ecuador the party city where we stayed for 4 days. It was super cloudy the whole time but we stayed at a kick-ass hostel named Kamala where we met some incredible travelers and had so much fun. This hostel had two donkeys, two stray dogs, and was fostering a little blue footed booby that had turned up injured on the beach. It was so cool to be so close to an animal that people pay thousands of dollars to see in the Galapagos. There was this dice game that the bartenders would pull out every day around 4:00pm. To play you had to roll and whoever had the lowest number had to buy everyone who played that round a shot... it sucked if you lost but if you got lucky you got free shots! Great times. The town itself wasn’t nice but it's basically there because people come to drink... so you can imagine how classy it was. At night they have a street named cocktail alley where there are a bunch of street vendors that make cocktails. It is so much fun to find a little vendor and just people watch. Next, we made our way up to another coastal city called Puerto Lopez. We literally stood on the side of the road and hailed a bus that took us two hours up the coast. Puerto Lopez was not pretty and wasn’t a popping town. We found a tour company that took us to an island they nicknamed the “cheap man’s Galapagos” where we whale watched, saw dozens of blue footed boobies, and stood in the middle of thousands of fragatas. The whale watching was absolutely insane because they were maybe 80 feet away from our boat. Next, we went to Quito, Ecuador (the capital) and although it was our least favorite city of South America we still enjoyed ourselves. We stayed in Old Town and it was gorgeous full of plazas, old buildings, and a giant church (your typical Latin American city). Then, from Quito, we finally made it to Baños. I am so happy we came to this city. We had so much fun. We booked a $5 tour that took us around to all the waterfalls that started at 10am. Madi and I thought it would be a calm day but literally, a chiva (a latin style party bus) rolls up at 10am to pick us up. Reggaeton was bumpin, they sat us in the back with the freakin stripper pole, and the truck was decked out in lights... it was ridiculous. We were uncontrollably laughing for about 30 minutes. Also, this chiva was completely open to the elements and needless to say on a WATERFALL tour we were soaked by the end of the day. They took us to so many beautiful places and we had a great time. We made some friends and bought some $3 homemade tequila and started taking shots at 2:00pm... There were so many things that happened that day that we were just not expecting. We also went up to the swing to the end of the world where you pay $1 to enter this little park with a bunch of swings. The main swing literally swings you off the side of a mountain and behind you there was an Ecuadorian man just pushing you and laughing. It was fun and worth it to go.

I know this synopsis of Ecuador is short and sweet but I promise I will write a much better post about Colombia (where I currently am).

Tomorow Madi and I leave for the San Blas islands where we will have no wifi, electricity, running water, or bathrooms for 4 days. We are taking a boat tour where we get to go from island to island eating fresh fruit, meeting the local people, and enjoying the Carribean sea. We are super excited and little nervous for this adventure but I just can’t believe it is already here. We booked this trip a month before I left for Argentina and I just remember sitting in my room thinking wow this is so far away... but it's here!

Send us good vibes as we brave 90-degree weather without showers, bathrooms, or cold water for four days...

Besos,

Ash

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coleruth · 8 years ago

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After I flew back to the mainland to have my computer looked at, we stayed several weeks out in the Abacos. Greg’s mom flew in for one week and rented a house in Hope Town. Vince secured a job at a local charter company and we waited another week in limbo to see if there might be enough work for Greg, but it didn’t pan out. Around that same time I was in negotiations to take on a new and massive project that would require me to work around the clock for the next six weeks. We decided it was time to head back to Florida.

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Louise arriving by boat.

Louise at the wheel!

“Our” house, to the left.

Charming Hope Town!

Another Hope Town house

Houses in Hope Town

Tahiti Beach, a long bike ride along the island.

Cool sea weed shapes on Tahiti Beach

Louise treats us to ice cream.

I got the blue one.

The special boats they make on Elbow Cay.

Hope Town Lighthouse doors

We got back on March 13th. It was a grueling return. A storm system was projected for the 14th, and since New York was getting hammered with snow, the weather gurus anticipated that yet another would follow on its heels. If we didn’t make it back ASAP we would be left on the West End of the Bahamas for 2-3 weeks. Word on the street was that the only marina on the West End was without internet, or had been a week prior. On the 10th I got the assignment, so getting stuck without internet on the West End was a risk I couldn’t take.

On March 7th we made it around The Whale, which is a point in the Abacos island chain where any vessel that draws more than three feet must exit the inner waters through a relatively narrow opening, and then return through an equally narrow opening. When winds are from the wrong direction these passages are treacherous, so we had been stuck waiting for a week in Treasure Cay, where a caravan of Dream Charter boats piled high with college kids on Spring Break had decided to hang out and torture us old folks with their late-night drunken dinghy rides. Under better conditions I might not have minded since Treasure Cay’s beach is reputedly one of the best in the world… but not when it’s blowing 30-40 knots!

We knew we had to hurry to make our weather window to get back across the Gulf Stream but we hated having to rush through this area of the Abacos, which is rumored to have great snorkeling, so we plotted a course after the Whale that allowed for quick stops several days in a row.

Greg with his pig friend on No Name

En route to Turtle Key we diverted to No Name Cay where Greg had his picture taken with the wild pigs. Then we sailed wing-on-wing (my favorite sail configuration) right up to the harbor entrance and stayed overnight at Black Sound Marina (Greg chose it because he liked the name) where the facilities were minimal but we paid less than anywhere else on our trip. We left around 9 a.m. the next morning and stopped for snorkeling at Nunjack Cay where nurse sharks and rays crowd the shallow waters along the beach because they get fed by tourists. I had hoped we’d beat the crowds but the Dream Charter boats got there first and several other tourist boats came in after us. I suppose that’s the state of wildlife in the year 2017. As predictable and organized as the dolphin routine at Sea World. It made me feel rather jaded.

That night we stayed at Powell Cay, which I enjoyed a lot more. We took a short trail across the island to the eastern side and walked for an hour or so along the beach, collecting empty conch and sea biscuit shells (a kind of inflated sand dollar). A barge had sunk in the harbor and just before sunset we swam to it and checked out the fish, and startled a super-long-tailed ray. Powell Cay is for sale, by the way, if you’re in the market for an island and have seven mil.

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West side of Powell

Shell hunting on Powell

Water clarity at Powell

Moon over Powell

Blowing the conch horn

Sweet potatoes

The next day after we pulled up anchor we went snorkeling off the northern end and Greg caught a big lobster that I served up for a sushi lunch with these amazing Japanese-style sweet potatoes. Then we sailed on to Allans-Pensacola, a tiny, uninhabited, y-shaped low-lying spit of land near the end of the northern Abacos. It was so quiet. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to dilly-dally. I wish we’d had time to stop at Spanish Cay or go north to even more rarely visited islands.

That day I wrote only one word in my notepad: “lentils”. It took me a minute just now to remember why. We had run out of ice several days prior and were living on lentils and rice. Maybe in July, during my low season, I’ll post some recipes and a series of linked recipes along the lines of “How to eat lentils and rice for three days without it feeling like you’re eating lentils and rice for three days”. I guess it’s easy to romanticize the trip now because here we are, surrounded by water so brown you can’t see down more than a foot – water I would only get in if you paid me and then with the guarantee of an immediate shower. But not everything about it was glamorous.

Lentils, day 1, with Chris’s cranberry ketchup.

The next day we sailed with the spinnaker up for the second time. The first time had been on our Gulf Stream crossing, just prior to the squall, and because it kinda jinxed us we looked at it with suspicion, but Greg hauled it out set it up and it dramatically increased our speed in the light winds. We passed a ton of boats that day going in the opposite direction. They gave us the thumb’s up and one even radioed to say how good we looked with the shoot up. Greg was on cloud 9. But it was a long day with light and variable winds and we barely made it to Great Sale Cay before dark.

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Leaving Allans-Pensacola.

Under spinnaker

Lentils, day 2, soup and Persian rice salad

This was yet another island where I read there was good snorkeling, but we just didn’t have time to check it out. We tucked in shortly after dinner and woke up accidentally even earlier than planned because of the time change, and we left before 5 a.m. It started off hopeful enough. For a while we had wind and the moon lit up the water until an incredible sunrise split out over the horizon, with no land in sight.

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Sailing by moonlight

Greg waking up

Sunrise at sea

We stopped at Mangrove Cay for lunch and the wind died. Afraid that it might not pipe up again, we pulled down the sails and motored. And motored. For almost twenty-four hours. I hate motoring. Though for once I was glad we were under power when, as we neared the edge of the Bahamas – yep, you guessed it – we hit a squall. This time we were prepared. Greg veered off-course to avoid the center of it. I went down below and took a little video that shows how calm it was and then how, when the squall hit, we actually heeled over even though we had no sails up. Here are some (we think) rather amusing short clips of the experience. It doesn’t look All That!

The wind was behind us as we crossed the Gulf Stream – what little wind there was – so it blew diesel smoke into the cockpit. It was nauseating. I knew it would be a bit stressful to sail across the Gulf Stream at night. A massive Disney cruise ship passed a quarter mile or so behind us. Other large vessels would appear as pinpricks of light on the horizon and then increase in size, sometimes two or three at a time, and we’d have to watch all of them as they appeared to bear down on us from different directions.

When we entered the Port Lucie Inlet, I pulled up a photo of us from the day we left, several months prior. We looked so excited and happy. Now, exhausted and less-than-happy to be back, I took another shot. (We actually don’t look so bad! Though maybe a bit cold…)

We made it!

This is the first day since we got back that I woke up without work to do (though I received a few emails as I wrote this), so I decided an update was long overdue. Especially as a recently received an email from someone asking if we were back… We are, and we are actually still living on the boat. We got a slip outside our old apartment and we’re saving up for a house. We’ve decided this is as good a place as any to drop anchor – especially with the islands and the ocean at our door.

If you’ve followed along on our journey, I hope you found it entertaining. If you’re a visual type, you might find this interesting. It’s a map Greg made by exporting our GPS tracking… complete with amusing notations. We had a blast and can’t wait to go out again. Maybe next time to the Exumas, or Cuba. But definitely not without refrigeration.

On that note, I’ll leave you with this link to my sailing playlist on Spotify. It’s how I get through those days when, as Melville’s Ishmael said, I start feeling the need to knock the hats off people’s heads – because everything in me says it’s high time I put out to sea.

The home stretch After I flew back to the mainland to have my computer looked at, we stayed several weeks out in the Abacos.

#Allans-Pensacola #boat food #Cruising the Abacos #Elbow Cay #Great Sale #Hope Town #Mangrove Cay #No Name Cay #Nunjack Cay #Powell Cay #squall #Tahiti Beach #Treasure Cay #Turtle Cay

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