Ike update

What do you do when the southern bands of a hurricane start flowing over your sky? You go snorkeling, of course! We headed out for Tuesday Tea Time this morning but it was so hot and sticky and still and the still calm waters called to us so much that we threw on our suits and headed out to the fish and the sea.

Ike is blowing over us after decimating Haiti and hitting Cuba in exactly the same area that Gustavo did, but here we have cloudy skies, occasional rain and calm seas. Yesterday we had wickedly rough seas but now that Ike is overhead the sea is calm. I took Sissy, Ellen and Pike out past the reef and then towed Ellen back on the boogieboard (I attach it to my ankle and she surfs in). Sissy was FREAKED by the “dog fish” that have been trained by the cruise ship guys with dogfood to swarm around and the current was deceptively strong out by the reef, out of the shelter of our cove so I struggled to get both frightened Sissy and tired Ellen back to shore. Pike was having a blast and the sun came out just long enough for me to get some pictures.

I’m really impressed with the boys’ continued dedication to challenging themselves. We started dictation this week and instead of doing (easy) fill-in-the-blank dictation, they asked to do pure dictation with no hints or help. I started a homeschooling blog and will probably move this there but right now the stars have aligned and all is well here along the sea.