CATAMARAN SAILING in the Caribbean with a crew of 8 Ep 306

As we slowly make our way north from Grenada to Puerto Rico for the winter, these next few weeks are so valuable to us. Three of our kids have just returned to the boat from being away for the summer and this time we get to reconnect with them is so precious. Our plan is to island hop over the next couple of weeks and show our guests some new places before taking a much-needed break from boat life. Generator's smoking all of a sudden. Not good, not good. What do you think's wrong with it? I don't know. I have no idea. It's coming from the generator part or the engine part. Okay, it's a bit windy. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good. Yeah, have you been sick at all this this journey? Once. It was when we were on the first passage. Yeah. Yeah, I was in bed and I was like I want to get up before I get sick. Then when I got up I got sick but it wasn't really that bad. I've been good surprisingly, better than Jack somehow. Yeah, has he been sick? Oh no. How are you feeling, Viv, how are you? Pretty good. Pretty good, not great? A little green. A little green? No, not green. Not green, oh good. My fever came back just a pair. Oh. So I'm still dealing with that. Other than that, I feel like I got a whole lot more sea legs than I used to. That's good. Yeah. That's good. You're eating outside. That's actually a, that's good. There you go, apples and peanut butter. You're so healthy. So we just got to Bequia, some new island and the big generator, which is the one we use to charge the batteries when we're not motoring, when we're sailing, it started smoking and it stopped working. So Keith's gonna work on it, figure it out because right now the generator is necessary to charge the batteries. No, you just want it for AC reasons. And I really want it for AC reasons because it's really, really hot and really, really hot and did I mention it's really, really hot and humid and sticky and inside the, inside the salon there's no breeze. Kind of getting a little disgruntled with boat life right now in the tropics. I'm disgruntled, I'm there. Yeah. I have arrived. All right, he's going down in the hole. He's got the tools, got the sweat towel. Uh, good luck. Yay. You turn, you know, you shut my door. You don't mind no AC? I don't mind no AC, but when you shut my door and you forget to open it back up and the AC goes off. I know it. It's hot. I just gotta open my door back up. Jack, I heard you say this morning you would prefer it to be consistent, like all no AC. Exactly. No, I disagree. Or when I wake up, it's a little, it's better to wake up to AC than it is to go to sleep with AC because if I go to sleep with the AC on and it gets turned off, I wake up, I'm like basically wet. Then I gotta open all the hatches. Yep, yep. And then it's hard to go back to sleep. It rains anyways every night, so you're gonna shut your hatch at some point. Well, yeah, because it rains. It always rains. Yeah. Dude, I was so disappointed this morning. Why? Because the AC went off. I was, I stayed in my room with the hatches open and the wind blowing through and I was like, our AC's on in our room. I go in there and sleep for about 30 minutes and then the AC dies. Because the generator, like now it's just this hot, black, cold, this hot, black room. How did you sleep? How did, of course you have AC on in yours. Oh, you know, not too bad, but I still think some of what, whatever I caught is, my bones are still aching. So that's my biggest challenge. That's not good. Yeah, trying to get over this bug. Yeah, I know. Well, we looked up, there's no malaria, there's no yellow fever, there's no weird stuff out here, so I think it's just a bug. It's just a bug. Just a bug. Just a bug. You flicked that bug, man. You flicked that bug. You flicked that bug. You flicked that bug. There's your water. I think maybe there's a store out here we can go see if we can find some milk. Find some leche. Some milk and some cilantro, I doubt it though. Cilantro's old. What? Cilantro's old. I know, I doubt they even have fresh milk. I'm not holding my breath on path on that. So what do you think it is? So the bolts broke off in this piece, and I got two of them out. I gotta get the third one out. So I gotta drill it out. You're a great guitar player, and you're really good looking. My singing is not my forte. Hey, you know the words. I mean, I'm just, I'm just building up. I just, I feel it. It sounds terrible. That's okay. But I, I. That's all right. I'm just trying to be as good as Finn. Yeah. You guys have heard him sing. Oh, he's good. He's good. He's good. What do we got over here? We got ladies. Eating. Ladies eating. Come on, we're stuck on dingy duty. I guess I'll have to go diving tomorrow. Well, that's pretty cool. How was the dive? It was great. It was great. Yeah, there was some slip throughs and a lot of life, a lot of life. Awesome. Good visibility. Yeah. I should have my GoPro down to you. Okay, so I am going diving today with them. Yippee. The beautiful Dana Morgan might go shopping, but she's going to do dingy duty. Yes, I am. I'm going to hand away guitar stickers. If you see me, come by. I'll have one for you. Kenzie and Jack and Kate are also going diving. And Keith, of course, the guide. Okay, Jack's got our big new underwater housing with a camera, a nice new camera. He's going to have some amazing shots. I expect some great shots. It's going to be so amazing. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be amazing. And even if it's not amazing, I'm going to make it amazing. Scuba diving as a family for us has been a great way to explore an entirely new frontier. The ocean holds so many mysteries and the Caribbean is just so full of underwater life. All of us are scuba certified except Finn, but that boy can jump into something after not having done it in years and still just be really good at it. We're looking forward to more diving in St. Thomas in the BVI's in just a couple of weeks. Jack, tell me how the dive was. Oh, it was amazing. It was just brilliant. There was so much fish, the aquatic life and the, you know, the corals and anemones. Come on, it was good though. It was good. It wasn't terrible at all. It wasn't terrible. It was good. I liked it a lot. Yeah, I liked it. All those swim throughs we went through, me and dad found those just for you guys. That was awesome. What did you do, Kenz? I did good. It was really fun. I had a really good time. It was my first actual good dive and not a dive in Florida. Yeah, it was awesome. She did very good. And now there's some kind of strange looking, I don't know, fort or something here. It's collapsed. Why is she thinking she can do that? Kate? Jack, why aren't you going with your sister? You are her protector. She's going in right there. She's going to come out over here. There she is. What a disaster. This cockpit is a mess. We got eight people on board with masks and shoes and snorkels and trash and clothes and dive gear. So tomorrow we're getting up early and headed to where? St. Lucia? Yeah. Okay. We'll sail all day? Uh, yeah. 60 miles, 70 miles. Awesome. All right. That's good. Our journey north so far has gone great. Keith was able to fix the generator so we can relax in the AC when it gets too hot outside. With the water pleasantly warm and inviting, the birds gently circling overhead, each moment over these last couple weeks is a celebration of life, laughter, and adventure, making for an unforgettable sailing experience in the paradise of the Caribbean Sea. Well, the kids are back and it's been a wonderful time having them back. And the fact they chose to come back is, as Renee said many times, it's, that's, that's the piece that you like when they choose you. It means a lot when your kids say, I choose you. You're my people. We know it's short lived. They're going to go off and do their things again. And, but it's, it's, it's reinforced to me and Renee has given us hope. They value us. They value the life we gave them and they value what we stand for, what we believe in. And so it's been exciting. It's been fun. I loved having Jack and Kate on the boat, Jack, Kate, Ben. Ben was a big surprise because he was very independent out there doing his own thing. But this morning we left, uh, Beckway right here, just South of St. Vincent and we are headed to Martinique where we need to find a washing machine. Our washing machine's on the fritz. Uh, so we're going to look for that and, uh, get some groceries. And then we're heading on up to Guadalupe and then Antigua and then we'll hang a left turn there at St. Martin and go over to the BVI's and then it'll be into Puerto Rico. And then we will be heading to the ranch for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oh, we're so excited. Me and Renee have been down here. It's been a hot, hot summer and we are really burnt out on the heat. I mean, it's been, it's been hot. As a matter of fact, I don't remember it ever being anywhere this hot around the world where it just burned us out on it. So we're excited to have some time at the ranch again and, uh, get off the boat for a little bit. The kids are ready to get off the ocean. They've all been on the ocean. Jack and Kate have been on the ocean for a long time in Tonga and they're ready for some mountain life. And I think we all are ready for some mountain life, snow and skiing and snowmobiling doing all the fun stuff. You got something? Yeah. Oh, that one just bit. Wow. That's huge. Yeah. That's big. You need me to get one of the boys? There he goes. He's a little shook up, but he'll be all right. We've arrived here in Martinique, the place where there's lots and lots and lots of boats. And we're going to put up a French flag because we don't have a Martinique flag and just about everybody has French flags anyway. So speak French. You practiced French for a little while. Oh, what's that say? The starboard side of the boat, right side of the boat, please. Just because I had a French person on the boat in Tonga and I was like, how do you say the right side of the boat? That is not good at all. Oh, yeah, that doesn't kind of. You know, I'm going to go ahead and do that. There you go. Do that. Be proactive. Proactive instead of reactive is what I like to say. There's something I did learn in Tonga. There's something you did learn in Tonga. Here we go. That I'd rather be proactive instead of reactive. Oh, that should be learned from life, from your amazing homeschool mom. Lots of boats here. Not as many as last time. Oh, gosh. Maybe. I don't know. Wow. There are a lot of boats here. Reinforce that bad boy. Here we go. Here we go. All right. Today we're headed into town. We have rented a car and we're going to look for a washing machine. Hope we can find one here. Our boat. Okay. Our boat. Oh, my gosh, woman. I ought to kick you off. So our boat is a French boat. So our plugs are 220 volt. So we can't find a washing machine in Puerto Rico where there's going to be abundance of them where you can't plug it in. So we are in a French country right now, Martinique, and we will hopefully find a French 220 volt washing machine. I remember this from last time. It's a little bitty dinghy dock. All right. Thanks, Jack. See ya. Here's our car. I don't know how we're going to get eight people in here if we decide to go to Waterfall. We've got two seats back there that pull down, but that's probably just two seatbelts. And then three in the middle, two in the front. So that's seven. We'll be missing one person. All righty, back to the left side of the car on the right side of the road. Yeah, it's like we're back in America again. Okay, it's darty. Hopefully we'll find a washing machine here. Look at all the washing machines. Yes, please. Yep. And it's a brand name we've heard of, Whirlpool. Well, that's good. Well, and then all the words are going to be in French, but you can kind of tell what they say. And then it's funny because our Greek washer also has the word jeans, and then everything else is in Greek. I guess jeans is jeans in Greek and French. Interesting. All right, mama got a new washer. That's too easy. Just making sure. It's an available grocery cart for the win. There you go. Excellent. She got the buns. She does got the buns. Okay, I'm not going to film her buns. It's the family-friendly channel. Oh, I'm sorry. Put your buns away, Dina. I've got the baguettes and the cheese. What have you guys been doing? What have you been doing? Hanging out. Yeah. And this, my friends, is how you get a large appliance onto your boat. Very carefully. Lots of help. That's not good. There you go. Wow. Did I run over something? I think you did, yes, on that shallow spot. No, no. That would have spun. That would have spun up. We would have stopped right after. There you go. Easy enough. You know, the air conditioners are in really weird places on this boat. Hard to get to. This is not quite as hard to get to, but it's still a challenge to get them out of these little bitty holes they make for them. We had to pull the whole thing out for him to work on it. He still didn't fix it. You asked me what he can't do? He could not fix his washing machine. We've got a lift here we can hold on to. Very detailed. Something beyond his... One, two, three. Good job. Move sideways. Okay, Kate, we're gonna set the bottom in. Kate, you gotta lift it up. Thank you, God. It's on this side. It's on this side. I need to get my corner in. Yeah, her corner is the only thing. That's okay. Why is that corner not going in? Oh, Keith, you're bleeding. Oh my gosh. I got it, Kate. You can let go, Kate. Okay, Kate, you stay right there. All right, keep pulling it a little bit. Okay, now, Matt, we're gonna slide it up. Pull the string. Y'all pull the slack out of those hoses. How many people does it take to install a washing machine? And if me and Keith had been here alone, how on earth would we have done that? Y'all wouldn't be married anymore. Exactly. No, I'd have gotten it. You'd have gotten it, but there'd have been a lot of cursing. There, there. Plug it in, Kate. All right, it looks like it's working nicely. It's not even vibrating or anything. It's spinning lovely. It's wonderful. It has eight minutes, and then we'll hang them out on the line. Okay, and it's done. Everything closed. They have been spun, and they're ready to go out on the line. Oh, looks like it might want to rain tonight, but we're gonna hang laundry out anyway. Foil frisbee. All right, Kate is gonna hang the laundry out. Hopefully it won't rain tonight and get it all wet again. Come back next week for more exciting stuff, and go get your Zatarra shirts at sailingzatarra.com. Yeah, Black Friday. We'll probably have them on sale or something.