Chagos in Pictures: Birthdays and Goodbye

As I had written in my previous post, August was the birthday month, and we celebrated 3 birthdays in Chagos, and 1 en-route to Seychelles!

First up was Benedicte, on August 1st.  A lovely day with a party and bonfire on the beach in the evening:

Benedicte's birthday present...6 eggs and a hand made card.  Gaby is getting really good at drawing boats.
That's Moby on Benedicte's birthday card!

Beach Party!  The birthday girl with our makeshift table.  Coconut and coral centerpiece, a big bowl of popcorn and a chocolate cake!

Dinner:  Freshly caught,then marinaded fish kebabs!

What's a party without wine?!

Or without desert, for that matter??  Benedicte whipped up this amazing array of desert goodies:  chocolate fondue and for dipping...dried banana, meringue, brioche, coconut, marshmallows and just good ol' chocolate cake...  

Consider this the "Before"...

"During"

And "After"!  Total Destruction!!

The birthday bonfire

Enjoying the beach and fire

Birthday Number 2, August 2nd:  Dror turns 7!

Dror admiring his birthday cake

Anna is captivated by the balloons!  Maybe because they had Hebrew writing on them!

Dror opens his presents.  Moby made him a weather station, so he could help his dad with weather forecasting!

Gaby chills after the birthday party

Birthday Number 3, August 3rd:  Yoav turns 13.  Bar Mitzvah on the beach, in the POURING rain!

The kids trying to save the fire and keep each other warm!  Anna, Benjamin, Eyal and Gaby huddle together as Victor directs Dror on where to put the log

We watch as Yoav gets ready to do his reading from the Torah

Yoav, wet and smokey, recites his passage

More food, quickly put out during a lull in the rain, consumed just as quickly and then packed away before it got completely ruined in the rain!

And those were our memorable Chagos birthdays.  Our 4th August birthday was Dave's on August 16th. We were hoping to make it to Seychelles in time to celebrate his special day, but it was not to be, and we celebrated on our last day of passage.  Never mind, we still made it a special day!:

Birthday boy, with his special present from Gaby:  a painting of Picnic Island in Chagos!

We also had cake!  Happy Birthday, Dave :)

Our time in Chagos came to an end all too soon.  We had a very special time there, and we will remember it forever!   All four Cool Runnings crew rate this as the absolute best place we have visited so far on our epic journey!

Goodbye, Chagos!!