My Birthday

Throughout the entire trip sailing on Sila, the nineteenth of September was one of my favorite days for a few reasons. It was not entirely because it was my birthday but, because of the exciting hike and other moments I enjoyed. There were six main highlights of the day.

When I woke up, I woke up to a few voices singing Happy Birthday to You. I didn't enjoy this part of the day because there were beautiful voices singing me awake, because there were not. I did enjoy it because I felt that I was remembered even though I had spent the last 18 days being teased about nobody knowing what was happening on the 19^th of September. For the entire day, and even now, I can remember the feeling of the warmth inside me as I was awakened by my crazy singing parents.

During the hike there were three main highlights. Toward the beginning, we came upon a rock that had an arch over a ledge. The rock was covered in little crevices that made for an easy climb up. Once we were up there, Daddy set up a self timer that would take a bunch of pictures 30 seconds after it was set, and climbed up to where we were posing for the picture.

 

A little bit later in our hike we reached steep switch backs up to a lighthouse. After a good five minutes of jogging and walking I got to the top. From there I could see so much. There were huge cliffs dropping straight into the water, beautiful meadows dotted with rocks, the occasional soaring hawk, hills with great green forests that dropped nearly to the water's edge, and a nice long sandy beach.  

If you look carefully on the corners of the switchbacks, you can see Mama on the bottom, Jack in the middle, and me on the top one.

This is a beautiful view of the beach and of Sila anchored.

Toward the end of the hike, when we were just about to go to Sila, we decided to stop at a bird watching platform. It was simply a small shelter with an opening large enough to look out of with a set of binoculars.  From in it someone could look out on to a cliff and a small section of the ocean without disturbing any birds. Sadly there were very few birds when we were there, but there was a small boat with three men in it. One man, in a blue shirt and yellow rain pants, was standing at the stern steering a motor. Another two men dressed similarly were rowing to try to keep the boat in more control. The man in the stern began letting out a net. The net sank but floats held it upright. They spent about five minutes setting the net. Once the net was out, one of the rowing men took a stick and began banging it against the boat. We think he did it to try to get the fish to move. We then saw them start to pull in the net and noticed that they had caught some fish. I had never seen this kind of fishing in my entire 10, I mean, 11 years of life.

 

When we returned to Sila, Jack showed how attentive he had been. As a birthday present, he had given me a deck of cards. Every night I ask him if he will play cards with me. I love to play card games with my family. Whist, Squeal, Oh Hell, Twenty Down, Hearts, Spades, and Four Player Cribbage are just some of the card games I enjoy. I was so glad that now we could play Squeal with four people because you need a different card deck for each person and we only had three different decks until then.

To wrap up the night, we had an extremely tasty dessert. Mama made a pineapple cobbler with whipped cream. We rarely have cobbler and I have never had a pineapple one. I love that fruit so it felt extremely special. Daddy took about one minute to whip the cream so the cobbler did not get cold and the whipped cream did not get too warm. It was perfectly cooked and wrapped up my birthday in the best way possible.

The beautiful full moon is behind me on my birthday

– Porter