Christmas Eve Rowing on Laguna Azul

John is in the bow with Bondo.

When we get the other side he jumps in and swims back one kilometer to Sauce.

Lourdes is in the stern taking photos.

Our street nearly finished

It used to be a dirt road, very muddy in the rainy season.

Now after many months of work we have luxurious brick pavers.

Our lakeside community of Sauce is changing quite rapidly.

Happy Solstice, Happy Holidays!

To all of our friends, family, past volunteers we send warm greetings literally (it's very hot here) and figuratively.

This year has passed by so quickly!

Today we had our end of year farewell celebration with our Club de las Abuelas, 24 grandmothers who meet once a week for health excercises, making crafts together and socializing.

Yesterday we sang carols with 60 children and gave them all gifts and a snack.

In the photos above I played Chrismas songs in three languages: Spanish, English and German with Emma on guitar and Yanna on violin.  I think it was our best Christmas band yet in seven years of doing these year-end events in Sauce.

Lourdes joins me in sending Christmas greetings to all.  Please come see us in Sauce in 2019!

Our wonderful volunteers from Germany and the UK

Much appreciation for our three volunteers who daily help Lourdes with 60 children of different ages as well as 24 grandmothers who come once a week to Estrella de Sauce.

In the photo above appear from left to right: Stephanie Hemmen from Bavaria, Yana Dinkelmayer from near Hamburg and Emma Ulzhoefer from Berlin. Stefanie is a freelance volunteer while Yanna and Emma are with us under the auspices of the Weltwehrts program sponsered by the government of Germany and die Freunde der Erziehungskunst Rudolf Steiners which is a worldwide Waldorf outreach program.

They are all rapidly improving their level of Spanish by attending weekly evening classes with Lourdes who has a real talent for teaching the lingo.  In the photo above they are eating soup after last night's Spanish class.

We also have a fourth volunteer, John Griffiths from Cirencester in the UK seen on the left.  He comes to us via the Workaway international volunteer program and has a variety of skills including being a football coach, long-distance swimmer, mathematics teacher, gardener and handyman. At the moment he is doing lots of boat maintenance and painting.

The Quest for More Freeboard

I'm back working on fixing up my jungle catamaran 'Estrella del Lago' which needed a lot of repair and painting.

The idea arose to gain more freeboard by converting it from a catamaran to a trimaran.  What is freeboard, you may ask? It's the amount a boat sticks up above the water. Freebird is another subject entirely.

Estrella del Lago being an experimental vessel, did not have quite enough, hence the idea to increase freeboard by adding one more hull in the middle of the boat to increase flotation and carrying capacity.

By good fortune some friends donated a boat in reasonable condition, just needing a few repairs.  Only trouble was that it was about one meter too long.  Fortunately I have a chainsaw - now it measures 9 meters long instead of 10 meters.

I'm presently making a new transom for this boat - the back end in other words.

Here are some photos of moving the boat with chain hoists and cutting it with the chainsaw.

Thanks to our volunteer John Griffiths from Cirencester, UK who took the photos and is doing a great job helping me paint the boat.