Savannah is happy, healthy and having the time of her life!!! Her WhatsApp voice messages melt my heart every time. Her photos and excitement are a treat to hear before bed and upon waking. It’s so weird to process that when we say goodnight she is saying good morning! She’s learning a bit of Balinese and making new friends. All of this leaves me with a an overwhelming sense of joy and contentment. They recently packed up camp and  headed 3 hrs to the North side of Bali where they stopped and toured rice paddy fields, ate lunch on a mountaintop over looking the volcanoes, visited the Water Temple and ate a dinner at a restaurant that donates all of there monies to a local hospital and they learned about this particular foundation. They are launching now into the community service and starting to roll up their sleeves.. She LOVES the food and says the papaya are incredible. I will add the link to the blog so you can read directly of their adventures. Beginning on blog post July 1. Savannah and Sarah will head up the GLA/Bali blog as the chief organizers. You can imagine how excited I am to read these blogs! I will share as they are availalbe. http://theyoungleader.experiencegla.com/bali-global-health-initiative-june-29-july-19-2018/

Meanwhile, Jim and I are having the time of our life!!! Seriously we are having so much fun!!!! We had a glorious sail to Culebrita and spent the afternoon snorkeling, hiking and swimming. During the sail I decided to put a line out and see if i could catch dinner and instead caught a BIG mess.. my drag was too loose and i lost the damn reel! We were able to retrieve all of the line.. every single mile of it… but lost the reel. (i’ll plan to make bracelets out of the line or spool it onto another reel when we got home) :))

After getting settled, we jumped straight in the water to snorkel for a bit and of course check the mooring ball and see how close our keel really was to the bottom.. pretty close! lol… Snorkel was wonderful. Clear and many schools of beautiful blue tang playing in the reef with small waves breaking over them. So beautiful! After our snorkel we hiked to the top of the Culebrita light house. A pleasant 2 mile loop with copious amounts of goats! They were everywhere! The hike is not long but very satisfying. The frangipanis are in full bloom and you could even smell them down wind of Culebra.. sweet salty air and the trail was loaded with them. The Sahara Dust was wicked on the sail up but was also quickly dissipating so we had some nice views from the ruins of the old light house (more details on the history of the lighthouse to come). The SW side of the island is also lovely with the views of the turquoise waters, and tons of vegetation coming along nicely, especially baby cactus and tons of wild aloe vera!.. and did you know that giant clusters of hermit crabs climb trees?? The trail switchbacks down to and along the water’s edge and finally backtracking through a little grove of native trees and brush to the beach. Vegetation is coming back strong despite the goats and storms!  The palm trees along the beach were knocked over and thriving while growing horizontal in an artistic and lovely way!

So about dinner…Last evening after an amazing day I decided on a one pot meal of multi colored potato, carrots, onion, chicken thighs, spice, butter, broth, seasoning and a little olive oil in the cast iron, cooking on the little outside gas grill. This way while it slow cooked I could sip a sun downer and enjoy the evening knowing dinner was on and dishes would be minimal! A lovely evening it was! We sat on the aft deck and watched the sun go down, gazed, talked, laughed and it felt like an old fashioned first date! Buzz was good and we were getting hungry so after checking on the food and taking a photo of how beautiful it was we turned off the gas and decided to let it cool for one more drink. Just as we sat down I heard a “CLANK-KA-PLOOSH. I tried with all might to have a moment of denial denying that was our dinner that just when overboard. Jim is just standing there with his “oh shiiiiit” expression. No one moved.. or said a word for like 5 seconds. I said.. “Jim.. well you better go after that cast iron before it rusts and pick up the chicken before the fish get them”.. then we completely bust out laughing.. and continued to do so the rest of the evening. We ended up eating the last of the chicken salad that was meant for todays 5 hr sail, served over pork filled wontons.
My heart is very happy this trip…