Change of Plans

Today was the day we’d planned to sail to the Berry Islands in the Bahamas, to Great Harbor Cay which has a rather nice marina. Anyway, as luck would have it the weather window is not great, with winds from the east that are low enough for motoring, although this landlubber doesn’t do well motoring straight into waves stirred up by 15 mph winds. And the window is short. By tomorrow the winds will be much stronger, so we decided to wait for what may prove to be a gentler and longer weather window at the end of the weekend. Beside, we don’t have our funds for Cuba entirely set in place, and Bob has one more form to submit for our permissions for Cuba. Every time we think we’re finished we hear about one more thing….we wonder if this is truly the ‘last’ thing—sending our forms to the Coast Guard.

In the meantime, Bob has checked that he has all the necessary courtesy flags for the countries we’ll be visiting. The other day he spread them all out to photograph them, and my heart jumped! Are we really going to all those countries??? That will be quite off the deep end for me–all that ocean in between each island, each passage requiring sailing overnight.

So, in case these flags are unfamiliar to you, I’ll name them, clockwise from upper left (the center flag is our yacht club burgee which we’ll fly in each country):  Cuba, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Bahamas.  Like I said, YIKES!!

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I’m finally to the point of enjoying the process of tatting. It has become quite relaxing for the most part. I still can’t get my picots even and I still have some awkward moments, but less and less. I do a little each morning while having coffee and then again in the evening after dinner. It’s definitely easier in the morning in good sunlight! I now have 50 rings and 50 chains!  I have a little gadget to measure the distance for even picots, but I just cannot manage that thing yet! With the ring around one hand and the shuttle in the other hand, where’s my 3rd hand for that little gadget??

And speaking of tatting—I just love having beautiful accessories for all my projects. I have some wonderful, handmade bags that people have given me over the past few years, and I love to keep my little projects in them. The felted bag is from Latvia. The embroidered bag is new this week! It’s from France and was sent to me by a wonderful friend in England who knows how much I love special little textiles of any sort. It’s very special to me, and now it holds my tatting project. The knitted bag is also new, and was given to me as a kit by another friend who knows me well. She knew I’d love the bag, and she also knew I’d want to knit it and embellish it myself.

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Lastly, I have a picture of Bob and our friend Linda who now lives in Florida. When she moved down here over a decade ago, we gave her an offshoot from a banana tree that we bought back in the early 70s, when Bob and I were newly dating. It’s an OLD banana tree now! Linda’s offshoot has now grown bigger than ours ever did. It is very happy in Florida and has spread into a little grove of banana trees in her tropical garden. The day I took this photo there were at least three pendulous flowers, with more bananas than I could count! You can see one of the flower stalks right behind Linda on the left side.

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So, while we’re not sailing (which is mostly fine with me!) we are enjoying the sights of Florida and I’m becoming a better tatter.  Nattering and tattering…

 

 

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