Channel Swim and Puppies

Sunday, March 25th, Brayton and I took the challenge of joining many other brave souls and swimming the channel from St. Kitts to Nevis.  It is a 2.5 mile swim, through the open ocean.  There is a fairly strong current and a good amount of waves!  Generally, the swim goes from Nevis to St Kitts (with the current) but this year, being the 10th anniversary of the channel swim, they decided to have us all swim from St. Kitts to Nevis (against the current).  Brayton and I chose to complete the swim using mask, snorkel and fins but there were many people who challenged the swim with just goggles!  We tried to stay together for  a while, but I was swimming 'too slow' for Brayton so went on ahead.  I am out of shape and had a hard time swimming the front crawl (and the fact that the waves kept crashing into my snorkel) and swam a lot of breast stroke - which is so not easy or fast with flippers on!  At first, I felt good about the swim, like I was making progress, had a lot of other people swimming around me, had kayaks within reach and was just enjoying the nice view of the ocean life around me. . About half was across, I started to feel as if I wasn't moving anymore and there were no people, or kayaks around me and I started to get nervous.  I just kept telling myself to put my head in the water and swim!!  But then I looked down, and what was below me but a SHARK!!!!  I think it was just a nurse shark as it was lying on the bottom and not moving, but still - I was scared!  I think if there would have been a boat within reach, I would have bailed out of the water and quit!!  Luckily, I pushed myself on, and on, and on, and on (for what felt like forever!) and made it shore in 2.5 hours!  As I walked up onto shore, with my head spinning and my legs aching, I was happy to see Brayton had made it successfully and about 30 minutes faster than me!  I will say it was one of the hardest things I have ever done but was so worth it and I am so glad I didn't quit!

This is a map of the swim!

The start!

Brayton making his way out!  (notice how little St Kitts looks in the background!)

Me making my way out - my face tells it all!

Most of the group who swam and raised money to support the
St Kitts Sea Turtle Monitoring Network!   Thanks to EVERYONE who
donated money to help us out!  

After the swim Brayton and I joined Kate and Trevor and Beth for lunch and some killer bees at Sunshines.  While we were there, we found some very sick, malnourished puppies..and being vet students and big hearted wives...we decided the best thing we could do was to rescue them..so we did!  We ended up bringing 6 very sick puppies home with us!  2 passed away the next day but 4 of them lived and are turning out to be great little puppies!  Brayton and I were fortunate enough to be able to adopt one of them - who is our little Nevi!

These are our 4 rescued puppies!  So cute!

And here is the precious little girl we adopted <3
She is so sweet!  

Aside from our dog adoption, we have also adopted a precious little kitten who I cannot wait to have a home.  He was found on the side of the road here and is precious as can be!  When I first met her, I said that she looked like a koala bear and she has had the name 'Koala' since!

She may not look it here - but she is about the size of the palm of my hand!

Well - we have two weeks left until we go home and in that time we have:

1) final exams for Brayton (x 5)
2) packing up the villa and moving all of our stuff to the new house
3) making appointments at home for the 9 days we are home
4) take a 3 day CPR instructors course (leann)
5) cancel all our 'stuff' at the villa and renew it for the new house..
6)  Sleep?  eat?  pack to go home?  Maybe..

I am excited to go home, but it is going to be really busy and hectic.  I really wish that it was easier for people to come visit here.. It's really hard to go home and I do not think we will go home again until we are done and its not looking like many people are coming to visit.

We will be home from April 22nd (really late) until May 2 (we leave at 7 am).  We are going to do our best to see everyone and I apologize in advance if we don't.  We will be staying at my parents if you would like to find us =)