School - What is it like after 8 months? (3 Perspectives)

Hard to believe Spring Break has come and gone at home and we are over 10 months into our journey. As usual, time flies. We started in Croatia, spent a lot of time exploring the area, making our way up to Slovenia and hopped a ferry to Venice. Then back south through the Dalmatian Coast, to Montenegro, then Greece, then Turkey, then Cyprus, and then Israel to hide out the winter. Now we have crossed back to Turkey and we’re making our way (rather catapulting our way) westward through Greece to find a good spot and time to leap off for Italy. (I wrote this a while ago...now we're in Italy and have been to Malta too).

So what is school like now that we’ve been in the routine for several months (we started August 1st)? From my perspective, I am for the most part really enjoying it. It gives me something to sink my teeth into and for what better purpose than to educate my children? We have the textbooks but it’s also fun to come up with creative ways to supplement them – like movies, crosswords, real life math equations created from things like fuel consumption and distances travelled, books we read aloud together and then do book reports (Glass Castle just finished and The Catcher in the Rye is next).

Once we’re through the basics from the texts I’ll have more fun finding ways to review the subjects every week or two so they don’t lose it all before next year.
I expect we’ll be “done” the Required Learning Outcomes to the best of my ability by end of May. Ross will be finished the SS text within a week or so, Science we’re on track, Math we’re ahead, LA will be ongoing (less specific Learning Outcomes for LA) and Spanish for him will also be ongoing as we’ll be in Spain for about 6 weeks in June/July for some practical application!

Jessie used to struggle with Math and now she says it’s one of her favourite subjects, we’re about 4 weeks away from completing her Science textbook and LA and French are ongoing. For languages we’re using Instant Immersion French and Spanish (a CD collection) for the most part – the hardest subjects for me to be actively involved in.
Having said that, we’ve learned to say hello, yes, no, thank you, please and a few other short polite phrases in Croatian, Greek, Turkish and Hebrew…unfortunately I personally get them mixed up and have to remind myself which country we’re in and what phrases to use!

Jessie is “living” much of her SS with Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt on the subject list. She’s connected with Ms. Wilson and the Grade 7’s back home and has been able to Skype through to the classroom and sent a PowerPoint presentation on the ancient city of Delphi. She’s working on one for Ancient Egypt right now and Ms. Wilson has said she will be able to Skype in again after Spring Break. Jessie has been on cloud 9 since she was able to re-connect with her classmates. Thank you Ms. Wilson!

I tried to assign a “teamwork” assignment early on the trip, which didn’t end well. They both received good marks for content but each received an F for the teamwork aspect. Hmmmmm…maybe we’re ready to try again.

You might wonder how I grade the kids’ work. They do chapter quizzes, unit tests, oral language tests, LA assignments, presentations (to the whole crew), and book reports. I try to get creative and so for example, for Ross’ quiz on Napoleon, he had to be Napoleon and I interviewed him. I think one of the greatest advantages for teaching and learning is that with one on one I can adjust the teaching and testing modes to suit their learning styles. Ross doesn’t like a lot of writing so where I can I have him to oral testing and presenting. Ross prefers independent work for the most part and Jessie likes a lot of one-on-one (is that a surprise to anyone?!?). So I can accommodate both and I hope they will learn better and faster and retain more.
Matt says teaching would have been a good career for me…maybe. I do love it. But then again, when it’s your own kids you have a vested interest…and it’s only for 1 year so it’s new and interesting.
So…what do the kids think of school now that we’re this far into it? Let’s ask!

Ross
Let’s see what do I think of school….in some ways its better than home, in some ways its worse. Granted here I get a lot more time off but mom makes me do everything in the text book. I don’t enjoy it but I don’t resent it ether. With spring coming on it will be harder and harder to be cooped up inside the boat doing school. I am almost finished socials so I should have more free time.

Jessie
School…………………um school……………..well I think that…no that’s not right…ok ok ok no more stalling.
School is OK and yes JUST OK. I know we only have 2 hours of school a day and no home work but having no friends and the socialness of school back in Canada makes it kinda suck. And having to wake up at 9:30 in the morning seems like the best thing you ever heard of but trust me it’s not, I could lie and say that it is awesome and say what you and my parents would like to hear but I am not going to. It can be fun but it tends to be a lot easier to yell and to protest to your teacher if it’s your mom. And having to be in the same room as your sibling all of the time is a nightmare, but most of the time school is nice and easy and just to prove it to you that we have the bad days too here are my behavioural scores:
A D A A A B+ A B B+ C+ A A F A A B A B A A B C+ B+

Kemer, Another Tearful Goodbye

Arriving at Kemer Marina

Arriving at Kemer was a bit like visiting my favourite Aunt Doris’ house. You feel like you belong right away and after about 5 minutes you feel like you have never left. Everyone in the staff was welcoming – the Marina manager came and shook our hands, Nazli in the office walked us over to Customs and arranged for us to be back in Turkey legally. Then we went to ‘Happy Hour’ at the Navigator and caught up with the other Kemer Cruisers and the staff. Probably the only disappointment was ‘Mom’ the cat we befriended the last time and thought about adopting for Tara – she has become ‘Mouzie’ and has chosen another family and was pretty much indifferent to us.

The next day we were already entered into the Tennis tournament – that Marina and her partner Ellie won. Ellie is the grandmother of Elise – the girl that was friends with Ross and Jessie. Elise was back at school in Holland so unfortunately there weren’t any kids for ours to hang out with.



Kemer Friends saying goodbye...from left to right:
Eliza, Chris, John, Corrine, Susan, Ben and Mike



We reconnected with Ben and Eliza from Waterloo, John and Chris for tennis, Jaap and his new puppy Quispo (tailwagger) were a big hit with Jessie, Corinne and Mike, and Herri – the uber-loud Switzer-Deutch fellow with the ducks. Not a lot had changed; the weather was a little cooler and definitely rainier.


Offices and Tower of Kemer Marina



We settled into a great routine, fixed a couple of boat problems, played tennis every day, did a little bit of work and school and started to plan our trip west. I looks like about 13-15 travel days to get to Kefalonia – the jumping off point from Greece to Italy. The one key thing about a journey is that it must start with the first step …. And for us that first step is leaving Kemer. It would be so easy to chain your boat to the dock here. The weather is fantastic, the town has all sorts of amenities, there’s a diverse and interesting group of people there, there are constant activities – fitness, language lessons, art, music, concerts, tennis, hiking and a daily radio-net that allows you to stay in touch with everyone and everything.



A last look back.

We arrived on a Friday and left on Thursday … so less than a week, but if you were to ask any one of us, it felt like we had been there for quite a while … and in a good way. So Thursday morning arrived, and we got up a little bit early paid the bill, took back books to the library, filled up the water tanks and called the marina guys to let off our moorings. Then an impromptu send-off party happened. Ben, Eliza, Corinne, Mike, Chris and John met us our dock to send us off. When we cast off the lines, Herri gave us a 5 horn-honk send-off. Mustafa from the Navigator pub started ringing the bell out front of the pub and waving frantically …. Wow … like we’ve said before a marina that thinks it’s a yacht club.

It is sad to think that it may be the last time we are ever in Kemer … I guess we need to start planning the next trip pretty soon.

Forward to new adventures...

Passage from Herzliya to Kemer Feb 22-24, 2011

Preparations before leaving Herzliya - repair work.

Alexanders and Elrons - Our Farewell Night
From left to right back:  Matt, Ross, Amir, Yael, Marina, Itai
Left to right in front:  Noam, Jessie and Gaya

After staying another couple of days in Israel, and saying our goodbyes a couple more times, it was the day to get going. It started with Marina and I returning the rental car and searching for the Post Office to pay a parking ticket we got in Elat a week before (grrr). We then walked back to the mall at the marina and were about to get a coffee and have a chat when the Customs Agent called asking where we were.

Customs Dock - Checking Out

So, divide and conquer – Marina went to the grocery store, I went back to the boat and woke up the kids and took it to the Customs dock. The kids got up (reluctantly) and we shipped the electrical cables, took the springs out of the mooring lines, got temporary mooring lines affixed to the boat, checked engine fluids, started the engine and pulled out of the slip and proceeded to the Customs dock. Marina met us there and we proceeded to pay our bills, exit fees (116 New Israeli Scheckels or about $30 each) and by 10am we were on our way.

No wind, lumpy seas could generally describe the first day. So, put on the motor and point it Northwest … we have 325-350 miles to go. I generally take it easy in the afternoon (Otto – the autopilot steers, and we all take turns putting position checks in) and am more responsible in the middle of the night. Marina and Jess took the 10-12am shift, Ross and I took the 12am-4am shift – though Ross actually took the 12am-01:30 shift then started sleeping, and I carried on until around 05:00 when Marina relieved me for a few hours. When I came up on deck for my morning shift Marina had stopped the motor and pulled out the sails. I was reflecting with Marina that we’re getting better at the crossings and that it’s quite peaceful and really not that hard to do ….. maybe we could cross the Atlantic – “angels fear to tread where fools rush in” comes to mind.

About 10am we saw Cyprus which is an enormous island. So you think you’re half-way when you get to Cyprus and 8 hours later you can still see it …. It seems to be taking much longer. At about 15:00 we rounded the west side of Cyprus and encountered 25-30 knots of wind and 4-5 meter steep and close together seas. The wind was supposed to be out of the South East, shifting to the South West force 4 (11-16) to Force 5 (16-23) with moderate seas. What we had was Northeast winds force 6 or 7 and rough seas. We radioed Cyprus and they told us the weather forecast hadn’t changed. At one point we decided to bail out and spend the night in Cyprus and go another day. Then we took another look at the chart and we are advised by the Pilot book not to enter Paphos at night (which we would have to now that it is 4pm and Paphos is 16 miles away) and the wind had dropped to the low 20’s so we decided to strike off anyway.

We had hoped the wind and seas would abate to their predicted but alas, they did not until late in the night. I took the first shift at the helm with Marina and Ross with me, Jessie grabbing some shut-eye. I quit at 6 giving it to Marina and Ross and went to get some sleep. I woke up at 9pm and started steering by hand giving Marina until 12:00am off. At 11pm I was completely zonked. When steering for a long time you (or at least I do) hallucinate every once in a while.  I remember seeing a number of things such as WW2 airplanes, and then a baby carriage that was in the water close to us. I knew they weren’t real but I also knew I was getting really tired and needed to be spelled off. I woke Marina at 11pm (she wasn’t really very impressed being awoken early I can tell you that) and she sucked it up and went on deck. I lay down in the bunk and was out like a lite within about 3 breaths. Marina and Ross carried on until around 01:00 when I came up on deck with Jessie. During that shift I needed to hand-steer for two hours, then the wind dropped and I was able to put the autopilot on. It is truly amazing how much even an hour or two of sleep can do for your ability to function. Anyway, Jessie and I carried on until about 4:30, and then we handed it off to Marina and Ross again. Not quite as tired this time, it took 5 minutes to fall asleep.

During the night we were motor-sailing. We put the engine on at low RPM – 1300-1400 and that did a couple of things for us. When you are driving at night it can be easy to get off track. You think you’re going right and you’re going left. Without a compass you’re absolutely unable (or at least I am) to hold a course without some type of visual reference. The challenge in big waves is that if you get too far into the wind, the boat will stall, or worse tack and back the jib, and that causes all sorts of problems. That’s bad enough on a 24 footer like our race-boat Scarlet – but the loads on a 50 footer are huge and just getting the jib-sheet off the winch would be a dangerous thing to do if you weren’t careful. Having the engine going gave us the power to bring the boat back if we got off track, gave us the ability to hand-steer – because the autopilot was unable to cope as well with the big waves. The other two reasons for running the engine are that it keeps the power up in the boat and that’s good for our lights, our radar and other electronic equipment. Finally, there was lightning (did I mention I hate lightning) and we were the tallest thing on the ocean for 50 square miles – so if we did get hit by lightning it’s quite probable that the electronics might be damaged … making it impossible to start the engine. Being a diesel however, once it’s started it doesn’t need electronics – so it will keep running. And then there’s the 4^th reason, because it made us feel more confident – and who cares if I’m a sissy ….

From about 01:45 to 03:45 a squall blew through, so Jess and I worked together and shortened sail. The electric winch we have really makes a small person powerful. We were getting 26-28 knots on the beam in 3-4 meter seas and were charging along at between 7 and 8 knots. I got into a bit of a groove and steered until around 4:30 when Marina popped her head up and wondered how things were going. We thought about pulling out more sail area as the wind was down, waited for 5 minutes and the squall hit again … so at 05:00 I went off to bed and slept until 08:00. We traded again for the last time, and Jessie woke up to accompany me at around 9:30. Unfortunately the wind shifted against us and we needed to tack up the shore.

By noon we realized that was pointless so we pulled in the sails, started up the motor and pointed the bow directly upwind. We arrived very tired at Kemer at 13:30 and were greeted with smiles from the staff that welcomed us back. And we were happy to be back too, a little worse for wear but still intact.

The Chicken Coop

Wow, who would have thought we’d get more comments on the Chicken Coop we’re building with our friend Amir and his brother Eldad (my nickname for him is ‘the Spanish Father’ – think about it) than on all the travels we have made so far. The Pyramids, the Acropolis, the Colossus of Rhodes, Petra – four of the seven wonders of the world …. No comments, Nada, zero, zilch ….  build a chicken coop --- dozens. Go figure!

Eldad’s wife’s family own a bunch of land just outside of TelAviv. Amir is into sustainable farming and environmental issues so he wants to build the chicken coop to raise eggs, and the Chicken guano is excellent organic fertilizer.

We worked together to come up with a plan, taking into consideration the materials they had available on-site we could reuse, then also taking into consideration the types of tools that were available – and came up with a plan we liked.

Most of the Middle East is desert so there’s not a lot of timber. There are a lot of Olive trees but they’re kind of like Arbutus – you might get one 2x4 out of an entire tree. Anyway, the cost of lumber here (as well as most everything else) is high, so we were careful to order only what we needed.

Eldad has a buddy that makes beautiful doors for residential home construction. This friend of his supplied the lumber – that turned out to be custom planed perfectly straight dimensional 2x4 (2”x4” instead of 1.5x3.5” as well as 9 ply luan plywood with mahogany veneer. This Chicken Coop is going to be De-Lux!

The fateful weekend came and Marina, Amir and Eldad excavated (moved dirt around) and put up a perimeter of concrete pavers that we’re putting the base of the Coop on. I worked on building the walls and then everyone got into the game with putting the screen on, screwing the plywood on the walls, and then raising the walls. By the Sunday Evening, we had the walls and door on, as well as most of the chicken coop features – but we needed another afternoon to screw on the roof (recycled metal roofing – what a great score that was) and to finish the interior where the chickens will be roosting.

Anyway, we got 95+% of it done by the time it came for us to leave. The rest is up to Eldad and Amir – and of course, we’re looking forward to seeing what the names of the chickens are. So far we figure: Scrambled, Omelette, Sunny, Over-easy, Eggbert, Fried, Poached, The Colonel, and Foghorn Leghorn would be good candidates.



We waited to publish this post in the hopes we would have pictures with the chickens...but apparently they are harder to get than anticipated so there is a delay. Stay tuned...as soon as they arrive we'll get a picture and post it!

There be Dolphins

One of the things we have learned from owning lots of boats over the years is that they seldom wear out -- they generally rust away from lack of use. When you're using your boat every day it just runs great. 

The First Guy Arrives

Since December 8th we've been in Herzliya marina and have only left the dock for brief periods (5 minutes Jan 7th to have the boat hauled out and painted, another 5 minutes on Jan 26th to put it back into the slip)  so as we are preparing to start sailing again -- beginning with a trip to Turkey, we needed to get some fuel and also make sure everything worked again.

Then he called his buddy

As noted in our "Failure to Launch" blogpost, we intended to leave on February 17th and arrive in Kemer on the morning of the 19th, so on the 15th we headed out into a beautiful and warm 17 knot breeze here in Herzliya to test our systems. Other than the sails looking a little dirty from the Scirocco winds (that have a ridiculous amount of dirt in them from the Sahara desert) everything performed as it should.

And things snowballed from there

After sailing out a half hour or so, we turned back in and encountered a dolphin, then a pair, then four. Here are some photos of them playing in our bow wake. We were about a mile off shore doing a little more than 8 knots through the water under sail.


Marina shot a couple of videos that are pretty cool as well. They can be seen at:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=143UcY0iJH0  and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6hSxdGEUX8 

Failure to Launch -- Again

Wave estimates for Saturday ... Purple is 7+ meter waves

Our plan was to leave Herzliya on Thursday morning for Turkey – bypassing Cyprus – about 325 miles. We’d leave around 10 am and arrive at the tip of Cyprus about a day later, then another day or so to get to Turkey. Unfortunately, we waited until Thursday because Jessie was playing her final soccer game on Wednesday evening. The challenge is that there’s a big storm coming from west of Italy stirring up good sized winds (not really the problem) and massive waves. 

Wind from the west 30-35 knots

After consulting a number of people including the local North Sails guy (a terrific guy ... I wish I could have bought a sail from him), Easy Swissa, who strongly advised us to stay …. We decided to defer our departure day for somewhere between 4 and 7 days. The Mediterranean is fairly shallow and when a strong westerly blows, it has a thousand or so miles of fetch … and that makes the waves big. Very very big, like 10 meters high. That’s enough to ruin your day, so we opted to stay here in Herzliya until the next opening in a few days from now.

Three Seas in a Day

On our way back from Jordan we decided to take a look at Aqaba – the Jordanian city on the Red Sea directly across from the Israeli city of Elat. Aqaba is a duty and tax-free port in Jordan and has lots of new hotels, clothing and jewellery stores, and many divisions of financial institutions seeking a duty and tax-free place to transact business … think of Dubai on a smaller scale. They were building an 1800 room 7-star hotel in Aqaba …. It was on something like 1000 acres of land. The size and scale was amazing.

After crossing the border and returning to Israel, we went up the road to Elat and found a tourist town with lots of hotels and resorts. The kids wanted to go to (gasp) McDonalds – which is really expensive here in Israel à burger fries and coke = $10, Marina and I opted to go to beach bar and sit in sofas and eat in a more leisurely fashion.




Matt testing the Red Sea.

 

We were on the shores of the Red Sea so we took the opportunity to go wading in it. About 20-22 degrees it was a little cold, though many hearty souls were swimming, but more reasonable than Vancouver gets until August anyway.

Marina and Jessie testing the Red Sea

After lunch we piled in the car and started towards home. We drove for another 2 hours and then stopped at a beach Ein Bokek, another resort. We put our swim suits on and floated in the Dead Sea. A normal human being has something like 1% saline in our bloodstream, when healthy the Med has salinity of about 3% … and the Dead Sea has salinity somewhere around 30% … hence why it’s Dead.

The net effect of the salinity is that you float much much higher in the Dead Sea than anywhere else you could ever swim.

After a quick bite, we again piled back in the car for the trip home to Herzliya. We arrived back to the boat and promptly put our feet in the water at the stern of the boat.

So …. In one day we were in the Med, the Red, and the Dead Sea … kind of cool eh?

Ross and Jessie - Thoughts on Jordan & Petra

Ross' Thoughts on Jordan

My expectations for Jordan were low. After going to Egypt I expected Jordan to be just as dirty and crowded. Thankfully I was wrong. We had to walk across the border because you can’t take a rental car between countries. We had to walk 100m across no-man’s land and it felt like someone was going to shoot us right there. After getting across the border we met our taxi driver and headed off to Petra. Jordan is much cleaner than Egypt and there are 6 million people instead of the 80 million in Egypt. We went to a hotel in a town called Wadi Musa 2 km from Petra. The next day we set off at 9am and took a shuttle there. Petra was AMAZING!!! At first you are walking down a valley with carved out stone houses on the sides. The houses aren’t very decorated, it looks like a cave. After that the valley narrows to 4 meters across and 50 meters high! You walk through that for about 30 minutes and then it opens up and there is a huge stone building carved into the rock wall.

It is 50 meters high and the carving is amazing - it looks like the front of the Parthenon and that’s just the beginning. Around the corner there is a huge rock city. You can tell they’re houses but they are all carved into the rock. It looks like a Greek village but completely carved in stone. They had everything - 2 story houses, temples and tombs. If you want to see some, watch Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade and you will see the treasury. I would definitely put this on the bucket list.
Jessie's Thoughts on Jordan 

Jordan and Petra were great. In Petra we saw the monastery and the treasury, they were huge temples carved into the rocks that would have taken hundreds of years to build. Also the rocks and mountains in Petra were amazing. They would reach extraordinary heights; everywhere you look you see something majestic. Another cool thing about Petra is that there is life everywhere, with donkeys and horses this ways and that and huge awesome beautiful camels walking high above you.


In our hotel the “Valley Stars Inn” we had 2 rooms one with a queen which mom is happy about and one for me and Ross with a double.

We watched the news on the TV in both rooms and watched Mubarak’s speech of transferring some power and stayed with the Egyptians until we had to go to dinner. Later at the dinner place our hotel manager came in and told us that Mubarak had stepped down from presidency. That was by far the most exciting part of the trip.

Jessie being attacked by the killer baby goat....

Petra...The Last Crusade!

Petra was really amazing. Having recently come back from Egypt and being a little wary of aggressive vendors and mediocre accommodations, we weren't sure what to expect. We were surprised and delighted at how clean and "modern" (think relatively here) it was, and how friendly and helpful the people were. No disrespect to those in countries where they are desperate to earn enough to feed their families, we just find it uncomfortable to deal with. And I pesonally feel rude having to look away, say no thankyou and walk a little faster. This was not needed in Jordan. Although, we did get hosed on a rain jacket that we paid 5 JD for and 30 metres away a guy offered it to us for 2 JD...will we ever learn!!???

We drove in our rental car here in Israel ($25/day) and took an inland route down to Eilat, about 4.5 hours away. We went right to the border crossing, parked the car in a gravel lot, grabbed our bags and walked to the border control. We had to first check out of Israel - about 5 window stops and 101 Shekels each later, and then walk the "no man's land zone" to enter Jordan - about 5 window stops and free! Wow...that's refreshing! We liked the place already.

 Our hotel had arranged for a driver to pick us up and take us to the Valley Stars Inn in Wadi Mousa - very near Petra. Samir was a very nice man, studying to be a guide so he explained a few things on the way - although Matt, Ross and Jessie did find time for a ziz on the 2 hour ride.

The Inn was simple, clean, and nice with friendly staff. We had a welcome juice upon arrival and then shown our rooms. Free Internet and a good buffet breakfast included. Next morning we took advatage of the breakfast, and then took the "shuttle" (a staff member who drove us in his car), to Petra, about 1.5 km down a steep hill. Weather was yuck! Cold, wet...I had 4 layers on top and if you can believe it, I wore my PJ bottoms under my pants on the bottom! Jessie did too. Ross...well, he borrowed a jacket from Matt and Matt bought a plastic rain coat...the one for 5 JD mentioned above.


What can I say...the weather improved and the place was "wow!". I'll let the pictures do the talking....at the end of this post.

Food here is also pretty darn good...we had found a nice place with a mix of local food and pasta for night one, a really good pizza place for after Petra snacks, and a good local restaraunt (although a little too much lighting) for dinner the second night. After a good night's sleep we had Samir take us back to the border near Aqaba at 10 am. We had some very interesting chats about Egypt, Jordan, religion, the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims. He also took us for a quick driving tour of Aqaba, a beautiful resort city on the Red Sea and then to the border where we did the 5 window check out of Jordan and paid the 8 JD to be let out, the walk over "no-man's land" and the 5 window entry back to Israel.

We were hungry to a quick drive into Eilat, the Israeli resort town on the Red Sea, and found a nice, hip, on-the-water restaraunt for a good meal, and a wade in the Red Sea. Then off for our drive home up the Dead Sea this time...as we had to try out a dip in that! See the next blog for details!