Vacation, All I Ever Wanted

As my last post made pretty clear, I’m dealing with some stress right now.  Nothing too crushing, but stress nonetheless.  Fortunately, last week was a well-timed and much-needed vacation week for the Evolving family.  The 4 of us, along with my in-laws, piled onto a 46-foot sailboat in St. Thomas for a week of sailing in the Virgin Islands.  My father-in-law is a retired Coast Guard captain who has probably forgotten more about sailing than most people will ever know, so he provided the brains, I provided the muscle, and we all tackled the high seas.  Admittedly the quarters were a bit tight, and there may have been an occasional bout of tension, but overall it was an amazing experience.  The best part – no laptop, no iPhone, no email …. No worries.

The weather and water were beautiful, and we spent countless hours snorkeling in a variety of locations.  We bought a waterproof point-and-click digital camera before we went since we didn’t trust any of the cameras in the house to actually work and hold up to the conditions, so rather than bore you with words I’ll share some of what we saw and did:

Our floating home for the week

My favorite fishes

Ran into lots of these guys

Sailing is hard work

The scenery was stunning

Couldn't get the boy out of the water

Discovered that the daughter has some serious sailing skills

The proper way to refuel

Hard not to relax here

My mermaids

No opportunities to run while we were there, and I did find that I missed it on the days that my training plan said I should be running, which I think is a very good sign that my heart and mind are still very much into the training.  On the other hand, swimming and lounging proved to be very nice alternatives.