Life on the go – by Marike

I can’t remember what I have already blogged about, or what my mom has written, so sorry for any repetitions. =)
Okay, I think last time was mostly about St. Helena, so I’m going to focus on this trip. All four of us started with school (of sorts) two or three days after we left St. Helena. I was (am still) very glad! It gets extremely boring just lazing about doing nothing. Franci and I can’t start with our ‘’proper’’ school yet, as we will only get the books in Rio, so for so long we have been reading some books and are learning basic Portuguese. That is the most fun. ^_^ We read a short, fun guide book that had some basic sentences and words to help the average tourist to survive.
I’m actually exited for Rio itself, the more I read about it, it stands out as different. We as children have never actually been ‘’in’’ another culture. We have been to the countries surrounding South Africa, but they were close to South Africa in . . . can I put it, ‘feel’?
Now to tell about the awesome experience of swimming in the middle of the sea with kilometres of water under you . . . My mom has explained about the engine running and certain people staying very firmly on the boat. The rest of us more adventurous sorts donned our fins and masks, and popped into the water. If you look under the water at the hull of the boat it looks like a little toy. The waves seem to roll it with such ease, and there is so much blue in ratio to little dark boat. That’s another thing: everything was blue. I was very glad about that actually; as I was afraid it would be black under us. You know, kilometres of water under you . . . ? (Slight shiver 😉 It’s going to be extremely hard to go back to swimming in normal swimming pools. Except for the fact that you come out covered in salt, swimming in this sea has absolutely no drawbacks. a) It’s not in the least cold. I could stay in for hours. b) When you get out, it’s not cold either, the wind is wonderfully warm. c) It’s huge! No confining space at all. True, no walls to kick against or hold on to, but awesome nonetheless. d) No sand. Swimming from land always involves sand. From the boat, we are literally swimming in a huge, no-boundaries swimming pool. =)
Us four girls have an awesome time sitting on deck in the evening. During the day the deck burns your feet, but in the evening (especially when sailing) it’s absolutely wonderful to sit on deck and just chat. We’ve even figured out a ‘clap-handshake-thingy’ (might be able to later post a video of that . . . maybe).
The sunsets at that time of night are amazing! Last night there was a cloud off our port bow that was raining a mist, and it caught the pink from the sunset . . . absolutely beautiful! ^_^
xXx