Welcome to the Caribbean
In Zihuatenejo, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, we met a family from the Pacific Northwest of the US. They were unsure of where they would be going next- whether to cross to the South Pacific, or to head to Panama and go through the canal, or turn around and head back home.
The mom, Susan, was tired of sand and sun and palm trees. She was looking for some culture, some history. She thought there must be more to life than sitting under a palapa drinking a cerveza. She was home-schooling her two daughters, aged eight and ten, on the boat, and she was really enjoying their American History curriculum, so she thought maybe she'd like to head to the East Coast of the US and visit all the historical sites.
Susan would love the Caribbean! Everything here has a historical background-- dark though it may be. All of life here comes from the world of pirates and slave ships. We came through the Panama Canal and suddenly everything is forts and cannons and Captain Morgan (who, apparently was a real person; I didn't know that).
After my sisters and brother-in-law left from Shelter Bay Marina in
Panama, we took a day sail over to Portobelo, Panama 
with Kay. Portobelo has three forts which were constructed by the Spanish to fend off pirates. Panama was a key location for worldwide shipping and trading long 
before the construction of the Panama Canal.
The Spanish collected goods from around the world and stored 
them in Portobelo. They would then have huge fairs when the goods would be traded and sold. In the meantime, these stockpiles were a sitting target for pirates. Hence the construction of the forts.
This kind of history is not only in Panama, it permeates all of the Caribbean. And since our traveling route follows the same path as all ships for the past thousands of years, we see it everywhere.
Off the coast of Nicaragua, on 
tiny little Santa Catalina Island, next to Providencia Island, near San Andres Island, Colombia, we found another fort with more cannons. (I mention all three islands because they are so tiny and so remote, you would probably only
find San Andres on a map, yet Santa Catalina, too, played a key role in the trading and pirate history.) We anchored between Santa Catalina and Providencia for two weeks. While there we climbed the hill up to the ruins of the fort there. (Journal entry on Providencia to follow soon.)
We have made friends with another family living aboard and traveling through the Caribbean on their catamaran sailboat, Sea U Manana. They have two boys, ages nine and eleven. At 
age eleven, Joshua's favorite movie is Pirates of the Caribbean. He has two toy pirate boats he takes to the pool, and his favorite computer game is a 
pirate game where he maps out strategic locations in the Caribbean, locations he has actually visited! Plus, when they were in Portobelo, a local man who had all sorts of Caribbean historical paraphenalia invited them to his home and talked to them all about the history of the area. This is 
a home-schooling parent's dream!!
A home-schooling parents dream, yes, but not necessarily a dream for the parents of a pre-schooler. Robert's world now revolves around guns, cannons, shooting and fighting. New to this
whole business of raising a boy, Mark and I are struggling with how to teach appropriate use of guns, pirates and cannons in playing with other children or when the spontaneous urge to shoot something comes up in the middle of 
dinner. I assume this stage would have come about sooner or later, and the presence of cannons and forts all around has just caused it to come up now. (Any comments on this topic from other parents of preschoolers are welcome!)
We are very much enjoying life here in the Caribbean. Life on the Pacific seems very far away, geographically and mentally. Looking at a map, it is clear that we are quickly approaching Houston, our endpoint. But for now, we are enjoying all that the Caribbean has to offer, cannons and pirates and all.
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