Peder’s letter from – GALAPAGOS and MARQUESAS
I sent a letter in a bottle from Empire. nobody has found it yet Since nobody have written to me – or maybe those who found it has sent a letter in a bottle back to me. Then it will take a while before I get it… There were lots of sea lions at Galapagos. Some relaxed on the boats anchored in the bay. I also saw lots of other animals at Galapagos. All the animals there are kind and not afraid of human beings. I saw iguanas,
turtles, lizards, sharks, sea lions and red crabs and more which I don’t remember. One day daddy tok me on his shoulders and waded out in the shallow water. White tip reef sharks swum around his legs. That was exiting.
	I met josh and Nat and mike from another sailboat at Galapagos. Their boat is named Bahati. A lady in the restaurant where I met them said she knew me from home. She had been my mum’s teacher. Daddy said: “the world isn’t big”. That was because the woman on the table knew who I was. When we sailed to Marquesas I learnt how to read a map on the computer. I can tell what is land and what is water. I know almost all of the continents in the world.
I also know where Norway, Chile, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Galapagos, Tonga and New Zealand are. My dad can see on the computer if it will be a lot of wind or just a little bit, I can too. When we are sailing Heidi is on duty for 4 hours and then it is daddy’s 4 hours. Sometimes one of them sleep during the day. I have 12 hours watches. Heidi says that the sun and I are on duty at the same time. One evening on our way to French Polynesia I had my first night watch together with Dad. When it was dark I could see many stars – but then I got tired and fell asleep. Later I was better to stay awake on night watch.
At Marquesas we drove on the back of a pick-up car from the bay where Empire was anchored and in to town. That is not allowed in Norway. The city was not a city. They called it a city but it was only a few houses there. All the people where smiling. some of the ladies had a flower behind one of their ears. Daddy told me that I could blink with my eye to them if the flower was on either left or right – I don’t remember which. If the flower was behind
the other ear someone had already blinked to them… Close to Hiva OA, the island we first visited at Marquesas, was Tahuata. When we dropped the anchor in a bay with a difficult name the fishing line got stuck in the propeller. Dad didn’t like it. I also didn’t like it, because then i could not fish anymore… Heidi and dad and I met Linda on Serafin, a Boat from America. Linda invited all the sailors in the bay on a day trip around the island. That day I swam with sharks and manta rays and sting rays and spotted rays. After that we went for a long walk to the top of the island.
Peder’s letter from – TUAMOTU
When we sailed to the next place I had to tell Heidi and dad to be quiet because I was reading Donald Duck. Dad didn’t believe that I could read, so I had to do it out loud. Then he realized that he was wrong. I wanted to have school while we sailed. Both Heidi and dad were teachers and we had brakes also, especially if we caught a fish. We had alphabet school, number school, sail school, lantern school, knot school and much more. We also had fish school, food school and swim school – at Tonga suddenly I could swim. But that is later in my voyage. I could almost swim when i sailed with empire in the Caribbean, but now I had forgot how to.
When I went to bed at night I wanted to have the lights on to read before I Fell asleep. Heidi and Dad thought I only was looking at the pictures, but I was practising my reading. I practised on other things to. When Heidi and dad did their exercise to keep fit, as they said, I also wanted to do the same. I can do 5 push ups without resting and I felt a little bit stronger every day.
On Kauehi I met the grandson of the Pearl King. He was a little smaller than me. His grandfather was a biiig man on the island. He got pearls from the
			shells in the lagoon. We visited him to see how he made the pearls. That day I became a bisnissman, heidi said. I had “chockolate marbls” and when I gave one to the boy I got one real pearl back. dad said it was a good diil to be 5ish. At Kauehi I got some new friends at the playing ground. first they where a little scared. after a while they were not (maybe like I was before). Kauehi was nice and I liked to play with the kids.
Kauehi is an atoll which means that it’s almost like many small islands in a ring. inside the ring it is shallow water and no big waves. Both Bahati, the American boat, and Empire dropped their anchors in the calm water inside the ring of islands. I trained a lot on my swimming. When I climbed down the bathing ladder behind Empire and duck my head under water, I could see Manta Ray and many other fishes. That was fun. I fished with my own fishing line from Empire. I had done hat many times before, but at Kauehi I got my first fish all on my own. It was very exiting and my legs felt funny.
Peder’s letter from – Society islands
From Kauehi we sailed to Papeete on a island called Tahiti. Tahiti is one of the society islands in the country French Polynesia. French Polynesia is very big but most of it is water. Papeete is a city and daddy said that the beer was as expensive as in Oslo. At Tahiti I bathed from the dingy. Suddenly we could see a plane down on the bottom. Dad and Josh swam down to have look, there where nobody in the plane, only fish. Maybe the plane had missed the landing stripe on the airport, but that must have been a long time ago. later we sailed to Moorea, close to Tahiti. Moorea means yellow lizard. I liked the island. We went for a loong walk in the bush and bought ice cream.
		i like ice cream. We walked together with Inga og Johan from Don Quijote and Martin and lars from Simmer Down. Don Quijote is Swedish. we met then first time in Galapagos. We met Simmer Down in Morrea. Martin and lars climbed the palm trees and caught very tasty coco nuts. They climbed in a different tree too to get papaya, but then the tree fell down. ser deg i morgen - hasta luego - see you tomorrow