Kiteboarding

One of the objectives of our trip is to seek out the idyllic Caribbean kiteboarding locations that we have seen in so many videos. In order to support our quest we will be carrying kiteboarding equipment for 4 people as we have 5 active kiteboarders in the family.

We will start with 8 kites 7m, 8m, 9m, 10m, 11m, 12m , 13m, 13m, 4 kiteboards, harnesses and control bars.

Here is a video of Jon, Jamie and Brooke from earlier in the year at our house. We hope to add a Caribbean video soon!

Here is a video of Jamie snowkiting behind our home on the Ottawa River, we definitely want to replace this with a video of Caribbean colours.

Here is some kitecam action from Cape Hatteras NC

The Crew is all Onboard

     This past weekend was the first time all four crew members for the trip down south were onboard Child's Play! Although Jamie will be joining us at Christmas for the remainder of our travels, Mom, Dad, Sarah and I will be the ones making the big trip down to the Caribbean in just a few weeks.

     In honour of finally sailing together this summer and the fact that the trip is blossoming on the horizon, here are some pictures from our weekend sailing in the Thousand Islands with Granny H.

My view for the next 10 months.

My clothes are officially onboard! Ready to go. Now.

Poppers hard at work; a typical sight.

Thanks to all the hard work this summer the boat is starting to feel completely comfy and liveable!

Yay for new winch covers!

     The word of the weekend was definitely Anticipation. With the arrival of August and the completion of all the major jobs on Mor' Childs Play our minds are turning more and more to our departure in early September. So many questions crop up in our minds as we look to the journey ahead. What will the trip be like? What will we see and experience along the way? What problems and challenges will we encounter? And always prominent (at least in my mind) is how will we fare in our first ocean trial?

     Despite any doubts and concerns that exist in our minds, I can honestly say that we will never be more ready for this trip than we are now. Mom and Dad have a thorough knowledge of the boat after all the work they've done on it this summer and have a lot of sailing knowledge and experience. As for Sarah and myself, we will continue to learn about the nuances of sailing and give help wherever we can throughout the trip. It is definitely time to get out there and explore the world a bit more!

As Dad so poignantly stated this weekend, we have a crew of very capable people, and we are bound to learn a lot along the way. Not just about sailing, but about ourselves as individuals and travellers.

Until next time!
Nicole.

Getting Ready to Leave

We are out for a weekend sail in the Thousand Islands with Jon, Terri, Nicole, Sarah and Freda. We can't believe that we are only 4 weeks away from leaving on our trip to the Caribbean.

We have spent the summer combining sailing trips with boat work.  All of the jobs now allow us to leave the dock at Collins Bay and do work whilst cruising.

Today's major job was installing a Bitstorm Badboy Extreme wireless transceiver and a Badbay Unleashed which creates a wireless hotspot in the boat.

Right now we are anchored behind Beaurivage Island in a beautiful anchorage and I am surfing the internet using an unsecured wireless signal appropriately named "wireless". We can even watch Youtube videos. This is fantastic. Hopefully this allow us to remain connected as we venture south. All that is required are unsecured signals from shore based wireless modems.