Kid's Cabin

The Kids Cabin

By: Ben and Gaby

(Scroll down below this intro for updated posts!)

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Hello, our names are Ben and Gaby! We are sailing around the world on a 40ft (12m) boat called Cool Runnings for 2 and a half years. Ben is 13 and I'm 11, and we are both brother and sister. We love sailing around the world, and love learning new things about the places we visit. On this page we write about recent things that have happened, and since we can only edit this page, you will have to scroll down below to see our latest posts. I hope you enjoy reading about our adventures!

Ben and I

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Wednesday, December 6th, 2017

  Well its December now, and we are finally in Cape Town! We have marina WiFi so I decided to do another blog!

  The passage from Knysna to Cape Town was surprisingly okay! I absolutely LOVE Cape Town! We are in the V&A marina currently, and my oh my it is such a nice marina. It is really sheltered and we is located in a great spot near where the Volvo Ocean Race boats are! The boats are sooo cool, sleek, and especially fast. I also love their reverse bows. There is kind of a festival around them with interactive stuff like simulators and even a little movie theater! I made up my mind when I'm a little older, I am going to do some sort of extreme sailing, and I even thought of going in the Volvo Ocean Race! I definitely have my dad's blood, eh? ;)

  Anyway yesterday we went with the Moby's to the festival 2 days ago. We had already been but they hadn't so we got to go again! They arrived a few days ago after sailing all the way from Richard's Bay straight to here!!! We haven't gone up Table Mountain, or gone to Robin Island but we might go with Moby.

 Also my birthday is coming up and so is Christmas!!! Sadly we will have to leave 2 days after my birthday, but oh well at least it is not at sea! In maybe a week we are driving up to Joe Burg for Christmas, and we will see our family there! For New Year's we are planning to go to Stephan's Farm with Shuti and Moby if they haven't left yet. Well have a very Merry Christmas even if you don't celebrate it, still take the day off and also have a very happy New Year's!!!

  -Gaby
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Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

 Sorry I haven't written for a while! We sort of have internet which is our mobile data, but its so precious I was just going to wait until we have free internet. Anyhoooo, we arrived in Knysna this morning after the worst passage we have ever had on this trip!!! Even though it was just one overnight, it was still scary... The night was the worst, with the winds coming up to 40 knots with monstrous waves. Every 10 minutes I would say, a huge wave would break over us in the pitch black, while a river of salt water rushed through the door and down the starboard hull. I've never been more scared in my life... Finally the morning came, and so did the rain! Oh, and I forgot to say we almost hit a whale just to add to the chaos! ;-) Knysna is beautiful, and so is the town here. You may be wondering, "Well she just said that she wouldn't use mobile data for post!" Well folks, we have free internet that we can pick up from the yacht club!!! *dance of celebration*

 Wooow, so A LOT has happened since my last post, like going to farms and riding dirt bikes, climbing up mountains, sailing to Durban, lots of braais, sailing to PE, and finally sailing here! But please, read my mom's update on "Fun at the Farm" because it would take about 4 hours to write it all again but from my perspective... I hand it to her for tackling the big stuff!<3 Anyway hope (Caution: True American Language coming up) y'all enjoyed this and I look forward to writing again! ;-D

 -Gaby
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Tuesday, October 24th, 2017

 Gaby reporting again! It's been 10 days since my last update, but I'm here again on our last day at Salt Rock with internet for a while, so I thought I'd update. First of all I just have to say, WOW!! We just got 200 views on the Game Reserve blog post that my mom did!!! Thank you to everyone who looks at our blog, even though probably 10% of everyone who views our blog looks over to our corner, I still want to say thank you! On a side note, we had a very busy schedule on people to see, so be prepared for a lot of names!

 Anyway... Quite a few things have happened in the past few 10 days. On Saturday, my dad raced in a laser in the Johnson Cup in Durban!!! He got in 2nd place (half a second away from 1st!), out of roughly 50 people! My dad hasn't sailed a laser for literally 20 years, but had lots of fun racing and seeing his old friends from which he sailed with when he was a kid. I'm soooo proud of you daddy, and well done!!! Also during the race, once my dad had sailed away from our view, we went to see our Oma, and Opa, which is German for Grandma and Grandpa! This was our first time seeing their new house, which was very nice and was next to where my Oma's sister, Tante Ami used to live. Also we saw Gisela and Martin Tscheuschner, who have been following our blog for a long time, so it was very nice to finally meet you guys!

 On Sunday we saw Mr. and Mrs. Murdoch, and their daughter Jillian. Mr. Murdoch taught my dad how to sail when he was 12! And my dad taught us how to sail when I was 7 and Ben was 9, so I think there might be a tradition starting... I think the last time I saw them was when I was 3 or 4, I don't really know! The same day we saw our second cousin's for the first time! It was REALLY fun playing with all the kids. They had a pool, a trampoline, and even a zip line!!!! Later on we went to their grandparent's house and went for a walk through a beautiful hilly golf course. We had a lot of fun rolling down the big hills and getting so dizzy while our parents disapprovingly looked at the grass stains on our clothes.

 Yesterday we went to see Andrew de Vlieg and his family. They had 3 super adorable dogs which of course I LOVED, and 2 cats which were also very cute! The wife, Anna, had an art studio and was very talented at art. She inspired me to continue painting and sketching the places we visit, and said,"I believe in you.", which is what inspired me so much.

 Today we went to see a movie called "The Emoji Movie" which was a special treat. My favorite part was the music, (because in cinema's they usually play the sound loud I think) and the speakers were sooooooo good so I loved it. I defiantly take after my dad. ;) Just now we went out to dinner with Gary and Jenny Harmon. I wasn't very hungry because of the movie snacks, but I suppose it is usually nice to go out to dinner.

  Tomorrow early we are going to stay at John and Heidi Watt's farm! When we drive back to the boat, I don't think we're coming back to Salt Rock, so this might be my last post for a while! After that we will go to Vicky and Haydn's farm for a while, and then finally go back to the boat. It's nice traveling, and staying in the Salt Rock house, but Cool Running's will always be home sweet home.

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Saturday, October 14th, 2017

 As promised, here I am again! Yesterday I said today I would write about our game farm experience so here we go...
 We arrived after a 2 hour drive to Mkuze Falls Game Reserve! Ben and I stayed in one room, while my mom and dad stayed in another room which I think qualifies as a house because of how huge it was. At 3:30 I think, we went on our first game drive! The first animals we saw were 2 cheetahs walking in the tall grass!! I remember when we last came to South Africa we got to pet a cheetah called Enigma I think, that was in a sanctuary, but this was my first time seeing them in the wild! They are so beautiful and are my second favorite animal. We watched them as they climbed up a dirt mount and lay down. That day we also saw a male lion at sunset which was incredible! The last we came to SA we also saw a lion but a female, so now we've seen both in the wild!

The 2 cheetahs we saw on the dirt mount

The Lion King!

 The next game drive we went on has a 5:00 in the morning! We are used to not having a phone wake up call, usually just the sound of waves crashing over the beach, or my dad talking very loudly, so this was different... Anyway it was FREEZING in the morning. That day we saw lots of elephants, because the day before my mom ordered some elephants off the menu, so the guides found a ton for us! We also saw some giraffe I think and some Impala, and other types of buck.
 The next day we saw The Big Five except for a leopard, because they are so hard to find. But we did see another 2 cheetahs,( probably the same 2 as the first day) lying in the grass, so we just pretended it was a leopard...

An elephant

A mother giraffe with its baby

A male kudu

So that was our time at that beautiful reserve! I hoped you enjoyed it even though it wasn't much. I don't know when the next time we get free internet is, but I will do a update whenever we get some more free internet! Be free to leave comments because we can receive them on our satellite email. If we don't have free internet for a looong time, I might even do an actual post on the home page! Stayed tuned to my next blog update on the Kids Cabin, as they always say on T.V. or whatever!

 By: Gaby

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Friday, October 13th, 2017

 Hello everyone! I've decided I'm going to start working on the blog! I can only update the Kids Cabin when we have internet, but look every now and then to see if there is a new one! Also due to much request from friends and family, I'm quite happy to start writing about what has happened recently.

 We arrived in Richard's Bay on 7th of October, so we have been here almost a week. You don't know how happy I was to know that soon we would be reunited with our family and friends in South Africa. Sailing along the coast of SA was very exciting, not only because that we all new we had completed one of the passages we were most afraid of, but because of how many whales we saw! Surprisingly we saw about 50 whales, half of them mothers, teaching their calf how to fin or tail slap. We came as close as we dared to one pair, while feeling the vibration of the huge tail slap the water. Ben said he saw on a documentary that they use slaps to communicate when the swells are too big. It was so amazing and it is an experience I will never forget!

The mother teaching the calf how to tail slap

 After we checked in we went to the Yacht Club with our new friends "Full Circle." They had a much deeper draft then ours, so they sadly ran aground on the sandbank. They managed to get off though at high tide and made it safely in the marina. That same day my mom's best friend Vicky, and her family came over to see us, and stayed the night to. The next day we went over to their BEAUTIFUL house in Salt Rock. We went to a mall which was sooo weird because we hadn't seen a mall with millions of clolthes and shops, and people everywhere since Australia! Its actually quite overwhelming, but we then stuffed ourselves with a breakfast so big I was full for the rest of the day, and I promise I'm not exaggerating!
 Sadly our little vacation from home ended quite suddenly when a cyclone came out of the blue, with no warning, and was flooding Durban in no time. We raced home in our little speedy car and made sure the ropes and everything was secure. We put out 2 anchors just in case. The highest the wind came up was 47 knots! It felt like 60 so I can't even imagine what 60 knots would feel like!!!
 That ends this post for today, but I will hopefully do another tomorrow about us going to a game park since we have free internet!

 By: Gaby
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Wednesday, April 5th, 2017

This is Gaby's essay on her day in an Australian School:

My day at an Australian School!

By: Gaby Hibberd

The moment I woke up I was so excited for this Wednesday. Today was a special day: I was going to a real school! I got on my own uniform I created a few days before. I had breakfast and the time was near. Momma got a drive and put a few photos and a video Ben made a few months ago on it.

 Finally the time came to get in the dingy and meet the Chambers at the parking lot. If you think about it, how many people can go to a school in a dingy? Not a lot… While we were driving to school I had butterflies in my stomach.

 We finally arrived to Rivermount College! We got out the car and walked to the classroom. Brett and Annie Chambers walked with us to our classroom. Annie said goodbye and went to her own classroom. Brett started introducing us to it seemed everyone in the school but it was probably only 50 people. I don’t know how many hands I shook that day!

 Finally we went inside our classroom and Brett introduced us to everyone else in the class. Ben and I did our presentation and showed them the photos and video on the drive.

 We left for computers when we were done talking. The rest of the class was doing some project they were finishing when Ben and I were allowed to go on coolmathgames! It was so weird just having internet all of a sudden!

 After computers we went to “Morning Tea”, which is actually just snack break. We then went back to the classroom and they started doing math. Luckily we didn’t have to do it, instead we did scribble art. You might be wondering what that is so I’ll explain what it is: You just get a piece of paper and draw circles and meet back at the start. Then you color the shapes in with patterns or anything! My one had flags on it. Anyway we did that and when we were finished we cut on the outlines and glued it to a piece of black paper. I didn’t get to keep it though, because they said they wanted something to remind them of us. But, I have to say I wanted something to remind me of them and I was a little disappointed I couldn’t keep it.

 After they finished Math and we finished our scribble art, we went to lunch. We got surrounded by girls who were firing questions at us. I have to admit and so does Ben, that we both got on better with the girls than the boys. We played a little bit of soccer, which seemed to be the big sport there.

 When our lunch recess was finished we went to Music where we got to play the keyboard, the drums, and the electric drums! It was really fun, and one of my favorite subjects we did that day.

 Annie came and told us it was time to go to her class for reading time instead of going to P.E. with Brett’s class. We went to her class and started to read “Uncle Prank”. When we were done we went to the front of the class and did another presentation for them.

 Finally the end of the day came. It really didn’t feel like 7 hours! But it was not over for us. Annie had the Triathlon after school and we watched her do most of it until Brett had to go to soccer, so we dropped him off and went back to pick Annie up. We finally went back to the boat after a wonderful day at Rivermount Collage! 

Off to school!

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Saturday, August 27th, 2016

Hi, Ben here, I guess this is my update for today! Sorry for not posting on "Kids Cabin" for so long. I feel terrible but never get around to it. :( Anyway, Gaby and I recently made a video of a tour of Cool Runnings, So be sure to check that out! By the way, The name Of our Raft Is Rasta Rocket! In honor of what the Papeete Port Captain's nickname for us was! Ok, I just wanted to say hi from Bora Bora! :)
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Saturday, August 27th, 2016

Hi this is Gaby, I jut wanted to say hi because I have never posted anything on the blog before, so I wanted to give it a try! I also wanted to inform you that Ben and I have made a video of a boat tour starring Ben as the tour guide! Right now we are in Bora Bora, and taking a break, planning our next route.
 A few days ago Ben and I went rafting in our raft our aunt gave us before we left. (Thank you Kimmy!) I was so much fun, that I hope we can use it again soon! We haven't put it away yet, so when Ben and I get in the water and play, we tie it onto the boat and play on it in the water! Yesterday we did that. One of us would get in the the water, one would get in the raft and we would pretend that the person in the water was a whale, and would try to flip the raft over!
 I hope we can update soon!

 Thanks, Gaby
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Sunday, May 22nd, 2016

We got the drone working! After a lot of hard work (thank you mommy!) and frustration, we got our Phantom 3 Professional to work and fly! :D It was actually quite anti-climactic because of how easy it was to control and how it work flawlessly! I LOVE that drone, because it's not only simple and easy to fly but also very fun to do as well!

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Sunday, May 22nd, 2016

Hi guys, it's Ben here! :) Due to MUCH REQUEST, I'm here to do an update! Yay!! :) (sorry for all of the smiles) anyway, Kayla requested that I talk about the craziest thing Iv'e seen so far and that would be... (drum roll) The Gatun Locks! they are absolutely unbelievable in scale, volume and everything else! They are an amazing feat of engineering,  and it was awesome seeing them in person! Sorry for not posting recently. :( Bye! :)

The locks in full effect! :O

The Original Tug (and i think the first!)

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 Monday, April 24th, 2016

SHOE OVER BOARD!!! Gaby's flip-flop fell off of the dock at the marina. It was a good man-overboard drill though! We worked as a team and in no time the flip flop was back on board! :) 

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Friday, April 17th, 2015

Today we got our boat back! Our dad picked us up from school and we headed down to the boat yard.

There we got to see Cool Runnings get lowered into the water. They used a MASSIVE crane to lower it down!

A big Crane Indeed! :)

I almost had a heart attack when i was standing in the path of the crane and it started up! 

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has viewed our blog! We really appreciate it! Check back in with us often for updates, and don't be afraid to leave comments and suggestions, they all help! :)