I know there have been some gaps in our blog posts lately so I thought I would give you an update and let you know what happened. Part of the blog delay has been due to our children. They have been posting to their blogs with stories and pictures of our daily adventures (you can see their blogs by following the links on the right side of this web page). They are writing well and with so much detail that Monique and I do not know what else to say. Oh yeah, that reminds me, did you hear about their Calvert homeschool grades?? We are very proud of our little crew members. We got their first quarter report cards with A's and B's for both students. It seems they are re-adjusting to the cruising life very well and not just with school. They pull their weight on the boat by cleaning and helping us parents with random jobs, both kids have become proficient with the dinghy (Cole has graduated to pulling scurfers and tubers) and they are making friends in every harbor.

Okay, sorry for getting side tracked, back to the "lack of blogs" issue. The primary reason is a phenomenon we call "growing roots". You see, if you stay too long in one place you start getting into a routine. As your day to day routine becomes more comfortable it somehow becomes harder to disengage. It's like living back home. You get up in the morning, you have breakfast, you go to the same school/work, you frequent all the same lunch spots, you shop at the same stores and you go home to the same neighborhood. It's all very familiar and comfortable. Well, two days ago we final broke free and sailed 90 miles from Grenada to a small set of Venezuelan islands named Los Testigos (I'll tell you about Testigos in a minute). Usually we do not have that issue on Zen. We like to keep moving, seeing new places and staying focused on making tracks over the horizon. Alas, it is easy to lose focus. There are people in Grenada that have been anchored there for almost 10 years. We call folks like this "live aboard" sailors, not "cruisers". Fifty percent of the boats in Grenada are live aboards. The most sailing they do is from the anchorage to the fuel dock and back. The final straw came last week when we walked into a local restaurant for dinner. As we walked into the restaurant we knew everyone. It was like Norm walking into Cheers. It was then that we realized we had been in Grenada way too long.

So here we are in the Testigos, back on the cruising track. It's one of many remote and beautiful spots we will visit on our way west across the Caribbean towards Panama. It's a pretty quiet spot with only a couple small settlements of fisherman. Most cruisers use Testigos as a rest stop on their way to more populated destinations. It's a very nice rest stop and the locals are extremely friendly. We are about 90 miles south of Grenada and 40 miles north of Venezuela. In a couple days we will jump from Los Testigos to another Venezuelan island. Not yet sure which one, we are watching the wind to see where we go next. In this geographic area the local political and economic issues also influence our sailing route. Venezuela is a funny place. For a country with such enormous oil reserves there is a significant amount of poverty and crime. You would think the residents of a country with such beautiful assets and valuable natural resources would be thriving. Not so. In this neck of the woods you need to be careful where you sail. Some spots in VZ are riddled with crime due to poverty. As you may have guessed we are steering way clear of all that. It's too bad. There are some beautiful spots we will have to avoid to stay safe. Maybe someday we will come back when the political and economic issues are cleared up in VZ.

That's all for now. We will update you as our adventures continue.

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