June 19, 2025
Ollie was up first with me and knocked out his letter back to Mehmet, with some reminders to stay focused. Hopefully Mehmet doesn’t now feel obligated to add a pig to his growing collection of animals. We did the rest of home school and hung around the pool until lunchtime.
While Kayleen and I were in the house we kept hearing Lenny scream “Squirtle” from the pool. Squirtle is a famous Pokemon that looks like a blue turtle. I told Kayleen that a few days ago I had made that Lenny’s safe word so Ollie would know when he was playing too rough in the pool. They were playing fine but to hear Squirtle being screamed gave us a good laugh.
We had lunch at the house which turned into a bigger ordeal as a glass fell from the refrigerator and shattered into a million pieces on the tile floor. The pieces were so tiny, and flew so far around the room, it took Kayleen and I 45 minutes to clean them up and even then we were not sure we got them all.
I headed to the sailing lesson with Kayleen and Ollie to take some photos from the beach. Lenny stayed with Bri and Amanda and they headed to the beach together, he was pleased to have them to himself for a bit.
The sailing lesson teachers name was Emilio, an 18 year old Parisian who has been sailing since he was 8. Ollie was desperate to act as “captain” in the beginning. In charge of the helm and steering the boat. They learned the sail names, main sail, jib, etc…, but Emilio took to tightening/loosening them on the trip. The wind was not super strong but enough for them to sail. They had to tack a few times to make it towards the island offshore with a tower on top, Torra di Pinareddu, and caves underneath. Each tack was about 10 minutes long and during the second one, while sitting somewhat still and holding the helm in one place, Ollie asked to be released of his captain duties in favor of playing on the front of the boat and pretending to be a pirate.
He sat with one of the hulls between his legs and tried to scoot to the very front of the boat. He had wanted to stand up and pretend to walk the plank but Emilio urged him not to stand. Ollie also made a desperate plea with Kayleen to open Pokemon Go while they were on the water to look for water type Pokemon– she declined. They did eventually make it to 30 meters out from the tower island where Ollie asked to jump in and cool off. After lifting him back on, he agreed to resume captain duties and man the helm for the return trip.
I returned to the beach in front of our house to find Lenny in all his glory directing Bri and Amanda in the construction of a new sand castle. He was happy to tell them what to do as he collected decorations (sticks and sea sponges) for the fortress. Sadly it was washed away after only an hour by the incoming tide.
I used the remains of their castle to build a new castle a bit further back from the water. Lenny helped me make a pile of wet sand and stomp it down so that our castle could be on a mountain. After that we dug a tunnel underneath and out the back to see if it would allow the waves to go under and not destroy the castle. I hit a layer of old rotting posidonia leaves as a dug deep and it stunk but we completed the tunnel.
We then all play on the paddle board in the ocean for a bit. I somehow became the “donkey” and would push everyone around and over the little waves. Eventually I started to try and use the waves to knock people off the board which was called “donkey toss”. Once everyone tired of the ocean games we headed back to the house for some pool time.
Bri and Amanda stayed back with the boys and watched a movie before putting them to bed so Kayleen and I could go out to dinner alone. We walked down the little main street looking for a place to eat and tried the hotel restaurant that an old coworker had recommended. They were only open for lunch in June so we went next door and got a table over looking the bay.
It was nice to eat in peace and the restaurant next door had a live band we could hear. We talked about how we were both already nostalgic for Cape Town and our house with the fun backyard. Also wondering what we will want to do when we get back to our normal life but that is still 6.5 months away so nothing too serious to think about yet.
Bri and Amanda had successfully got them to bed so we returned to a peaceful house!
