Atlantic crossing
Hey there! My name is Emma (my friends call me Garfield). The reason I am blogging is because I have am betting 10 dollars with my dad I can beat him at the best blog entry. And that means I can get pretty close to getting a water polo goal with what I’ve been saving for.
Anyhow, to start I am sailing with my dad and mom ( sigh, two and a half weeks stuck with them. Yeepee…) and my grandma and grandpa( well that’s good news!) and a skipper, because my parents aren’t quite experienced (Sorry). My boat is a 40 foot catamaran. It’s named Beluga. (I guess it isn’t quite of a sophisticated name, but at least it isn’t called Titanic, or sinker.)
D-day
Anyhow, today was D-day, the day when I would start my adventurous trip on the Atlantic. Well I guess I would soon discover it wasn’t as adventurous as I expected… but let’s not get into that yet.
After a few minutes, I knew boats were already getting out of the dock because people started honking their fog horns at them. I was getting excited because people honking at me leaving the dock was stylish.
We left after 16 boats. I started waving like crazy at the people honking, but they must have thought I was crazy because they started honking at the boat behind us.
We were now out of the dock. Then a couple of my friends sailed next to us before leaving in their own directions.
Nighty night
That day we were all really sea sick… I guess we all had more than butterflies in our stomachs. But the way you might think I got sea sick is maybe not what you expected.
That night I went to bed and as usual I curled into a ball. But that was a real dumb thing to do because after a few minutes I started rolling from one side of my bed to the other! But of course I was half awake so I tried grabbing on to the side of my bed but I realized that on the boat my bed had no railing! After that I had a growing feeling my supper might come out the wrong way.
The visitor
This wasn’t the only night I suffered big time. Five days later, as I woke up from my bed, I started my morning routine. I stretched, got dressed, and got out of bed to open my window blinds. That was a huge mistake because as soon as I took it out there was a dry dead flying fish sticked to my window! I can promise you that that morning I didn’t have any envy to eat my breakfast.
The cake eaters (not death eaters)
Today our lemons were starting to get old so the first thing my dad asked me was.
“‘Em can you make us a lemon cake?”
I tried asking for a donation for all my hard work as a pastry chef but that didn’t work. So I just made it. It took a long time measuring, mixing, and cooking. Plus it was hard because the ship was moving like crazy! After an hour, I proudly set the cake on the table. I left to get some soft drinks but when I got back, half the cake was gone. I sighed and took a piece and left to get my phone. Of course when I got back, the whole cake was gone! I shall now make further investigations in my cake eater suspects.
Big baby
It had been our 14th day aboard Sv. Beluga. Nothing interesting had happened apart from the fact that Granpa had just been drenched by a giant wave. Then things got exciting…
Suddenly the fishing rod went buzzing like crazy and the fishing line had almost been taken away (Like when the previous fish managed to cut the whole line)
The skipper went running and started pulling the line. We all knew we had to get to our positions. Grandpa with the shopping bag so that we could plop the fish in it, mom with the camera to get all the juicy info, me looking out to see how big the fish is (man it was huge!), and well umm Dad, um… sleeping.
The skipper had managed to get the fish out and I wondered it it wasn’t a shark (Garfield you are exaggerating)
The skipper unhooked the fish, and tried to put it in the shopping bag, but it got away. it was now trying to get out but the skipper started playing soccer with it so that it wouldn’t swim off the deck! However, that was not effective because the fish started heading towards the other exit.
That’s when grandpa jumped into action. He plunged toward the fish. Missed it. Then tried again but this time hit his arm on the winch. That’s when he snapped (Grandpa, not the fish) and jumped belly first onto the fish. That poor fish we ate for supper had probably the most unusual fishing death of all fishes. And just for your info that fish was 90 centimeters long!
Say hi Jaws
The wind had stopped blowing, and our boat was not moving at all! I even wondered if it wasn’t going backwards because when I stared at a cloud it was going forward.
I knew this would be the day. The day I would be stung by jellyfish and eaten alive by a shark. That is… my parents had the dumbest idea to go swimming in the middle of the Atlantic with 6000 meters of depth underneath us, with probably more than one jaws swimming in it.
I knew my parents were all ready to go because mom and dad had their swimsuits on. And grandpa just came out with one too. I sighed and put my swimsuit on.
Dad was already in the water along with the skipper. I was looking down at the water, thinking there would be a shark popping up.
Then I took a deep breath and jumped in, I did not like it. But I still played waterpolo with dad and jumped off the boat with mom.
I decided to get out after 30 minutes. But I realized that I might have escaped the evil ocean creatures. But my skin was all red and my hand had doubled in size. Skin reactions. I was starting to think I was turning into an evil squid myself.
Surprising catch
The ocean was silent. Mom, dad, and grandpa were sleeping in their rooms. And the skipper was out front reading a book.
As for me, I was enjoying my juicy apple. Once I was finished, I tried tossing my leftover apple as far as possible. I like doing that because it’s like waterpolo but out of the water.
I got back inside because I had lost my phone again! I was in the middle of my search and rescue operation when the fishing line started making noise. I went back outside and started pulling the line back up, thinking it was just sea weed that had been caught. After about 5 minutes of pulling something popped up, you will never guess what.
My leftover apple.
Still 7 days to go…
I wish I could write more on these adventures on the Atlantic, but my dad is sending his blog out, and I don’t want to take too long to send this out. As in many blogs there are always conclusions, or lessons the writer learns throughout his or hers novel. Well I haven’t found any yet (stay tuned for another episode). But one thing that I am grateful for is to not have seen Jaws during this trip.
Thanks