SURFS UP!

8 th of January 2020: The first week has been all about surfing at Bonaires perfect surf spot at Lac Bay. The place is a lagoon with shallow water that at maximum comes up to our waist and is sheltered from the waves by a reef and has quite steady winds. Perfect to learn surfing without getting completely exhausted from deep and rough seas like at home. The first few days the wind was quite low, perfect to play around with tacking and jibes and learning how to use a harness etc for Noah Mille and myself. Erik is currently attending a more advances surfclinic with one of the pro`s, Phil (“Get windsurfing”), and is challenged and learning lots daily this whole week. Noah and Mille have had great progression in their surfing, Mille pulling up her sail and tacking in 10-12m/s winds today, and Noah is now already in a harness, has managed beach start, and been in footstraps planing – quite a rapid progression! I haven’t yet experienced planing but have also finally mastered beach start (after quite a lot of swearing and frustration) and harness, so needless to say for the next 2 weeks its all about workworkwork on the surfsurfsurf 🙂

Oasis guest house has turned out to be the perfect place for our family to stay- I would really recommend it to anyone coming to Bonaire. John and Kim are very serviceminded and eager to make our stay the way we want it to be. Their house is right across the street from the guesthouse, and they have 2 cute dogs – Douchie and Kenzo – needless to say Noah and Mille are over there all the time playing and cuddling with the 2 dogs, missing Sandie(who is in safe and loving care at the Eriksen family, we couldn’t be more lucky. Cornelias frequent photos and written updates helps ease the longing for her, for we do all miss her much). Also living here is an American couple from Maine, and a German pilot who’s also here for surfing. So we enjoy joint breakfasts and hang out in the evening, even I like it, despite my slight “social anxiety” 🙂 Tonight Erik Mille and Noah are out to “Foodies”, a restaurant, together with the rest of the surfers in Eriks surf clinic. I decided to make a simple meal and hang out in our room after a long day of surfing with bruises, saltwater thighburns, scratches and handblisters. Just a little peace and quiet after sun sand and surf.

Kralendjik: We’ve been downtown Kralendjik a couple of times in the evenings to eat dinner. The choice of restaurants here is quite diverse, especially for being this small an island. So far we’ve had middle eastern food at Mezze, and Italian food at Capriccios. The tempo here is not what we are used to, and everything takes time – a looong time. So Erik and I get to practice being patient ALL the time EVERY day! Probably good for us, even my walking pace has already changed (for those of you who work with me, you know I have one pace in the hospital hallways with my wooden clogs: full speed clic clack – but not any more!). We now have the island slow swaying pace all of us – probably really good for the heart, body and mind..

After play comes work… But between all the exciting new experiences, homework has to be done, for big and small! Norwegian book reading is done at the beach between surf sessions, maths is done at the guesthouse in regular schoolfashion, English is the language the 4 of us speak all the time now (also amongst the 4 of us, so M&N are starting to get quite fluent!) so that covers a lot of the English and both Mille and Noah are writing their own 2 weekly newsletter in English/Norwegian, which will cover several subjects (geography, languages, biology, and so on). Gymnastics are done in the pool and in the ocean-snorkelling, surfing and swimming. We improvise arts and crafts, yesterday that consisted of making ocean sand art 🙂 Erik and I are tested way beyond our limits in both patience and being inventive and creative in this new homeschooling situation, needless to say our respect for our school teachers is – if possible – even greater now!

To be continued….