We are in the Tuamotus! Yay! My last real blog was from before we started the World ARC, so, let me catch you up quickly in case you haven't seen my parents' blogs.

First we left St Lucia on a 5 day passage to Santa Marta, Columbia where we did a driving tour, tubing down a river (like rafting but in a rubber tube) and won our division (we got a little boat shaped domino set).

Then we did a two day passage (our roughest so far) to the San Blas islands where we had a beach barbeque with all our friends, snorkeled a really cool wreck, and bought some cool Molas (hand woven tapestries made traditionally by the local women).

When we were done there, we did a small overnight trip to Shelter Bay Marina at the entrance to the Panama Canal, where I finally got a good burger at the marina restaurant (I'm getting hungry editing this), visited the new Panamax locks (newer locks in the Panama Canal that were built for much larger ships), and started a paper mola making contest with the other kids.

After some waiting we finally went through the Panama Canal, spending a horrible night side tied to a massive rubber buoy in lake Gatun (the lake in the middle of the canal), then made it to La Playita marina on the edge of Panama city, the first real skyline we have seen since leaving Manhattan.

Next we went to the Las Perlas islands where there was another prize giving, where we then departed for the Galapagos islands the next morning. There, we did multiple snorkeling tours during which we saw turtles, octopi, and and sea horse (the last two I had never seen in the wild before which was really cool); did a 5 hour long hike to the top of a massive volcano (the last hour of it was pouring rain, I honestly couldn't tell if we were going uphill or downhill (we were going down hill)), then did a surfing lesson with all the other kids right after.

We then left for the longest passage of the ARC (when I say ARC I mean World ARC), as well as my personal longest passage, 19 days (one day longer than the Atlantic crossing which was 18 days long) to the Marquesas. We landed in Hiva Oa, did a quick car tour, went to Tahuata where most kids were congregating for some water fun, then went to Fatu Hiva, a beautiful island where we did a waterfall hike, bus tour, and a dinner at a local house all in the same day, from there we headed north to Nuka Hiva, where there was another prizegiving, then went to Ua Pou. And finally we did the passage to Raroia, where we are now, in the Tuamotus.

After we arrived we went to a beach meetup with a big bonfire (played with fire (safely, of course) because it's fun (DO NOT TRY AT HOME unless, of course, your home happens to have a large sand bar or another safe place to play with fire)). One of our fellow ARC kid boats, Misfit, (they're a Catana 65, meaning they are super fast and they have lots of room for toys) pumped their inflatable sailing dinghy (a TIWAL) so I spent a lot of time on that two days ago. Yesterday we also put together our foiling gear and I went wing foiling (there wasn't enough wind for my dad (I was using a five, and my dad tried a friend’s seven (wing area in square meters) but it just wasn't enough)). Then last night, we did a beach barbeque with all of the kids boats in the anchorage.

That's pretty much it, this has been a three day writing project for school, and it was originally going to be an essay on atolls, but… let's just say I got a bit sidetracked, so that might show up soon, too. Anyway, bye.