Holly and Natalie's Sailing Adventure Blog

Being on Craig and Jan’s boat was an awesome experience! The first minute we saw them they greeted us like we were family, even though it was 12:30 at night! After all the trouble finding the harbor we got to catch up and before we knew it, it was 2:30 in the morning. When we woke up we were exhausted but we had fun during a long day of sailing.

That was the first day we got to experience the feel of sailing again since being on the Seabbatical. For about 7 hours the boat rocked a lot, and my mom began to be seasick. Although she was a little dizzy, she was prepared with sea sick wristbands. We had a wonderful dinner then went quickly to bed, sleeping great!

The next day was Father’s Day, and we celebrated with love. We didn’t have any presents, but the girls decided we should go to the beach and let the boys have their relax time, and afterwards the moms should get their own time too. Mothers are the reason fathers exist! We all had a great time swimming, sunbathing, and talking. We ate dinner at a beachside restaurant and had a wonderful waiter! After we got back aboard the Lone Star, we watched Ocean’s Eleven. By the time it ended we (meaning Natalie and Holly) were the only ones still awake and watching. We quietly went to bed.

The third day was Holly’s fifteenth birthday! We decided to go to the super secret island called Espalmador only about 2 hours away. We sailed there, and it turned out to be not so secret. There were tons of ships and boats there, but we didn’t care. We met a couple from another American boat. Craig and Jan said this had been their first American boat they had spotted in the Mediterranean Sea other than theirs. We went to shore and went exploring in the little bushes and trees behind the beach. We found a sulfurous mud pit the size of a lake covered with salt! You could soak into the mud up to your knees if you wanted to! We smothered mud all over our dad and surprised Craig, Jan, and Mom (Dinah) back at the beach.

After we washed off and ate a nice potato and steak meal on the boat we continued the movie series by watching Ocean’s Twelve. The next day was our last day. We had to sail ten hours to get to where Craig and Jan needed to be for their next guests, but they were so nice to get us started off at 6:00 in the morning and let us sleep through half of the sail! That meant only about 5 hours of sailing left, and we didn’t even feel the fist half! Those hours went by fast and finally we docked in the Los Palmas Marina. We went to the yacht club pool and swam and sun bathed. Afterwards, while our dad had to have a conference call, we all went shopping to surprise my dad with white hats for all of us to wear as a private joke acting like the “Privado” family. When we came back to the boat we laughed then went out for dinner at a tapas restaurant. There we met some of Craig and Jan’s friends and chatted with them for a while. We had so much fun and the food was great. That night I think we had a little too much to eat! When we got back onto the boat we all went to bed ready to get up that next morning at 5:15 am. Craig and Jan woke up happily to say goodbye to us and then we were off. We had such a wonderful time being with them and learning so many things along the way. We are looking forward to another trip on the Lone Star and hope to spend much more time with the wonderful Captain Craig and Admiral Jan!