Tales from the tides

Seven-year-old Viggo is back, ready to take you on another thrilling journey filled with beachside fun, fishing escapades, and lots of delicious ice cream.

Hello, it’s Viggo again. Since I last wrote we have had lots of adventures on our boat.

Once we sailed with my grandmother who lives in Denmark to a beautiful beach in Greece. The beach had a cliff that was made out of clay with sand at the bottom. I made a castle out of clay on the sand. Plus there were no people so I could run wherever I wanted and splash as much as I wanted. There were also lots of shells and bits of rare glass to collect. On the way to the beach, we hooked a big fish on our little rod but the fish was so big it pulled all the line out and broke off.

After one night at the beach, we dropped my grandmother off at a town quay — that’s a concrete dock in a harbour where we parked our boat. At the quay, there were lots and lots of turtles because the fishermen fed them. They grew so big — about as big as a big suitcase. They stuck their heads out of the water to breathe because they don’t have gills.

Then our friend PJ came back and we started the crossing between Greece and Italy. It took three days and two nights to cross the Ionian Sea. It was really bumpy for the first day so my sister and I listened to audiobooks. I was a bit scared that the boat would leak but it didn’t. I was also scared that the boat would tip over because it leaned so much, but luckily it didn’t.

On the second day the wind stopped so we had to motor. When we were about half way across we caught a tuna. I liked the taste of the tuna — we cut it up and ate it fresh. It lasted a whole week. The same day my dad threw a rope out the back of the boat and we went swimming. Guess how deep the water was? It was 3000 metres.

Two weeks ago it was my sister’s birthday. We had hot dogs for dinner, and croissants and pancakes for breakfast. After dinner we had cake but it was so sweet that I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. In the same town where we bought her presents I got a haircut with a lightning bolt. I wasn’t allowed to get one at my last school but now I can.

I’ve eaten a lot of ice creams. My favourite flavour is bubblegum and also salted caramel. Alva’s favourite flavour is unicorn (which is lots of colours like pink and blue and marshmallow). She also loves strawberry flavour.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago my Mum bought an SUP (stand-up paddleboard), kind of like a surfboard. I can paddle it wherever I want. Once I rowed my cousins to some beaches with all four of us on the SUP.

One of my favourite things to do is catch crabs. I am getting better because I am practising. I am learning what crabs do when they’re scared — they drop off the rocks or they go into little cracks. I’ve caught about fifty crabs so far and I’m trying to get better at catching fish as well, with my net.

Now we are in Italy. We’ve had lots of pizza but not so much pasta and only a few ice creams. Right now we are anchored really close to a beach. The beach is sandy and next to it are lots of rocks and rock pools where I can practise catching fish and crabs. There are lots of people at the beach and the water is turquoise and dark blue. There are waves that are big enough to body surf on.

The other day we went to a museum — The Tuna Factory of Favignana — that was in a factory where they put tuna into cans. We saw some big boats that they used to catch the tuna. We saw pictures of the tuna trying to get away but they were stuck in nets. We also saw giant anchors that held the nets so the tuna could not get free.

At the museum, they also had some things from a war a long time ago between the Romans and someone else. The battle happened around 300BC. That was around 2300 years ago. When the battle happened the boats had spikes at the bottom that would smash into the other boats. The boats also shot fireballs at each other. We saw a made-up video of it happening and we saw the actual spikes that a diver had found at the bottom of the ocean right by where our boat is.

Overall, I still like living on a boat. I especially like it when people visit us. We don’t get as many visitors as we did in our house but my grandma and my other grandmother are coming to visit soon.

Stay tuned because I’ll soon share more amazing stories of our adventure with you.

Viggo’s Gisborne connection is through his grandmother Jill Chrisp and great-grandfather the late Michael Chrisp and his wife Catherine. Jill’s partner Karen Johansen says Viggo is happy to send update reports to The Herald as his exciting voyage continues.