celebrations and thanksgiving

So here we are in the beautiful island of Tobago, our 3rd Caribbean port which the locals call the capital of paradise. Once again the kids dressed up in their kilts to be part of the official opening.

When you live on Logos Hope, you get used to people coming and going. We often have to say goodbye to people that we have come to know and love onboard.

This time of year can be particularly difficult as many people finish their commitments and leave.

Yesterday we had a special farewell celebration for our ship's director and family - Mike and Ann Hey who are leaving after 4 years with the Logos Hope project. They have been instrumental in leading the formation of the Logos Hope community.

So last night we had a great Indian meal, a thanksgiving time in our lounge with worship, pictures speaches and gifts and then we all went up onto deck 9 and watched a fantastic fireworks display which included one of the loudest finalies I have ever heard.

It was great that this coincided with Independence Day for Trinidad and Tobago.

Then we were back to the dining room for icecream.

The locals were just getting started with their party when we were heading for bed - the music out in the streets was incredibly loud and actually kept us and Liam awake as the bass shook the whole cabin and went on until the early hours of the morning.

This morning, our new Director, Gian Walser from Switzerland, took over as director with his wife Evelyn. They will now lead the community and the Leadership Team forward into the next chapter of Logos Hope history.

So far Tobago has been quiet for visitors but we hope it is just because everyone has been involved in the Independence weekend. We opened the ship for a few hours yesterday afternoon, expecting to have a lot of visitors because it was a holiday, but very few came.

The Preship Training for the 94 new recruits is currently taking place over on the other island of Trinidad. We are looking forward to having this large influx into our community next week. Meanwhile we are seeing people leave every day and will be operating only greatly reduced numbers next week until the new recruits start work.

I have been asked to take on another responsibility, as project manager for the completion of the visitor experience on deck 4. This work was not completed before we started sailing due to lack of finance, but thanks to a recent large gift we can now move this forward and look forward to the day when we have an exciting, interactive exhibit area on our visitor deck.