Breezing Up!

Posted on February 2, 2013 | Leave a comment

Last night was the very first calm winds since arriving in the Bahamas two weeks ago.  It almost felt like a protected harbor in New England, rather than a bit of water between two cays, which it really was….

We are in Little Farmer’s Cay for the “Farmer’s First Friday in February Festival, ” or 5Fs, as it is known.  Part of this festival is a sailing race of Bahamian sloops.  There are a few of these boats on the island, and on the morning of the festival the large mail boat brings in a few more with crew.  This morning around 8am, we did see the mail boat “My Captain” arrive with three Bahamian sloops on the foredeck and a crowd of passengers milling on deck listening to blaring island music.  The little cay of Farmer’s is now pulsing with excitement!

And the wind is picking up as predicted.   The race should be quite adventurous, with East winds kicking up to over 20 mph and gusting to near 30.  Bob went ashore earlier to volunteer for a crew position on one of the sloops.  He came back to tell me that he is being considered for a spot on “Thunderbird.”  He’s got the camera so I cannot document what I’m watching right now through binoculars.  I don’t know if he has been accepted, but the captain of “Thunderbird” seems to be putting Bob through some paces:  making him do quite a bit of the hard work rigging this sloop which is bouncing dramatically at the dock of Little Farmer’s Cay Yacht Club.  It looks like most of the Bahamians are relaxing on the dock chatting together while Bob works solo to hank on the main sail.  I’m wondering if they are waiting to see if Bob will get seasick. I think they’ll wait a long time for that, so I’m betting Bob will be accepted to crew for the race.

And I’m not sure what I think of that.  He took his inflatable life jacket with him, but I have to wonder what the procedure is if someone goes overboard.  From what I barely understand about Bahamian sloops, the biggest asset of having crew is ballast.  The crew are expected to shift sides on every tack and to hike out as far as possible to balance the huge sail.  Will they stop to pick up a crewman gone overboard?  Will there be a chase boat for this eventuality?

Right now I’m watching a golf cart motor out onto the dock to pick up other supplies that the mail boat brought for this festival:  crates food and drink.  I was on that dock last evening, so I know it doesn’t seem sturdy enough for a golf cart full of supplies.  Hmmm… this is not giving me confidence about the safety of things around here. Wish I could manage some photos of Bob, but he’s got the camera!

Now Bob is back on the dock, and the captain is on board looking at the sail, probably checking Bob’s handiwork.  I also know that Bob is at least as agile as any of the Bahamian men, so I think it’s time to start worrying about his safety during this race.

Some of the boats are sailing around the harbor now, but I can no longer see “Thunderbird.”  There are only two or three men on each boat, so I’m rather surprised that any of them would need volunteer crew members. The booms on these boats extend well beyond the stern, at least half again as long as their length on deck, and the mast is quite far forward on the deck.  The sails are huge. I can’t tell if the sails can be reefed down in the kind of wind we have today.  Should be interesting!

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Posted in Fine Craft

Slow Time

Posted on January 30, 2013 | 2 comments

Yesterday we had an amazing experience with John and Wendy from Windermere since they offered to take us to their favorite snorkeling and shelling sites near Staniel Cay.  I am a reluctant snorkeler, so Wendy’s encouragement was absolutely wonderful!

Bob took videos….

Here’s some of my loot!

And an assortment of other beauties.  The top far right is a small conch.  I wish I had photographed the inside which is a deep coral.  The ones in the middle and bottom that are long and narrow with bands of coral are called “sunrise tellins.”  I have quite a few more that I did not photograph yet, including a large conch which I hope will become our sunset bugle.  My favorite shells are almost too tiny to see and are bright green!  They are called “emerald nerites.”  I hope I find more along the way.

This is today.  I’m using skype to call our younger son Chris!  Don’t I look happy?  We had to scream in order to barely hear each other.

I’m sitting outside Lorraine’s internet cafe on Black Point Cay.

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Posted in sailing, travel

Imperfect Paradise

Posted on January 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

There is much to get used to in Paradise.  The winds are always howling, there are no calm harbors or anchorages, and there are no proper dinghy docks.  These are pretty big hurdles for me, but in my experiences of sailing throughout New England and the Chesapeake the water is not nearly as beautiful as here, the beaches not nearly as white, and the fish not nearly as colorful!  I guess I have to jump these hurdles in order to enjoy such amazing beauty.

We are in Big Major’s Spot right now, which is right near Staniel Cay, famous for Thunderball Grotto, that was used in the James Bond movie.  Big Major’s Spot is also well known for its wild pigs, and I have to admit that I’ve had a couple of nightmares about those pigs!

But aren’t they cute??  So far they have not tried to attack any dinghies, so perhaps this is a quiet year for them… or the rumors are greatly exaggerated!


There are a number of small cays here that form an anchorage that I would not call calm but certainly isn’t as challenging as our previous stops, and there are pearly sand beaches on each of these islands where the shelling is rather good.  The currents rip between the islands creating sandbars full of beautiful marine life, but you can only gather shells on these sandbars at slack tide.  I will be thrilled if I can collect a few sand dollars today or tomorrow.

From one of these lovely beaches I walked out a ways in the clear shallow waters with Mary, from Sanity II, who had spotted this sea star as she dinghied in to the beach.  When I called Bob over to see he couldn’t resist picking it up and posing.


At today’s slack low tide we plan to swim into Thunderball Grotto, and Bob will bring both of his underwater cameras!  I thought that the grotto would be teaming with people each day, but yesterday only four people went in, and I’m hoping we’ll be as lucky today.

I’m zipping through a knitting project that I’ve designed myself with yarn I bought in England about 5 ½ years ago.  More on that if I ever get better internet coverage! Maybe by then I will be assembling it so that my description will be documented with photos.  Ever hopeful….

Many thanks to our son Chris, who takes our SSB (single side band) transmissions and posts them for us and figures out where to put the photos!

You can still follow our progress here:

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Posted in Fine Craft

Five Days in Paradise!

Posted on January 24, 2013 | 1 comment

We made our crossing on Thursday (Jan. 17, almost a week ago!), and for anxiety and misery it would be hard to beat. Mind you, this is coming from someone who dislikes wind and truly hates waves. Saltier souls than I would call it uncomfortable…. in fact, they did. But I found it downright miserable, even though my saner self realizes it could have been a lot worse….. a lot worse.

As we exited the Ft. Lauderdale inlet into the Atlantic the seas were quite confused and choppy, and the wind was well beyond a zephyr. When we got to the far side of the Gulf Stream the seas had flattened out, but the sky was completely covered in low dark clouds with only a small clearing right above the horizon. It was dark and dreary, which felt quite ominous, and there was only a brief blaze of light as the sun sank below that heavy cloud cover on its way beneath the horizon. I was never so sorry to see the sun go down….

Enter the darkest night ever. It was quite traumatic for me. We were sailing across the Bahamas Bank without benefit of moonlight or stars due to the heavy cloud cover. I could have done with a lot less wind. In the afternoon a fierce but fast moving squall came over us and I have never before experienced both salt water and fresh water pouring through every zipper on our cockpit enclosure! I was thoroughly drenched and not sure how salty I was so I didn’t dare go down below. In daylight you can see a squall coming and prepare for it, so I was quite distraught when another squall got us after dark. We could not see it coming, and it was a bit much for my frail state of mind…

Going through the shallow and very narrow Northwest Channel Light passage (where, in fact, there is no light because that lighthouse has been out of order for years) in the dark with two ships approaching from opposite directions also added to my anxiety. Yet, on the whole, I have to admit that I mostly slept. I had taken a half dose of Stugeron (an over the counter drug for motion sickness available in the UK and Canada) the night before our departure, a highly recommended procedure for those inclined to sea sickness. I took another half dose when we left on Thursday morning. While Stugeron has never made me noticeably drowsy in the past, this time it worked like general anesthesia, and maybe that was for the best. Out of our 24-hour crossing I must have slept almost 20 hours…. Of course that means poor Bob never got much more than a catnap during the entire crossing.

And so we arrived in Nassau about 27 hours after leaving Florida. We had not intended to stop in Nassau at all, but the weather conditions were more favorable to checking in with customs and immigration here more than other harbors. What an amazing contrast in sights! We spent most of Friday walking about, so I saw everything from the incredibly high end jewelry stores of Bay Street that cater to the cruise ship crowd to the shanty town called Potter’s Cay that sprawls under the bridge that spans the harbor. I had my first Bahamian beer, a Kilik (prounounced “Click”) in Potter’s Cay while sitting on a small deck made from recycled (and somewhat rotted) wood planks nailed together in a most casual fashion. No one seems worried about liability, and for once my exhausted brain didn’t think too much about it either. Luckily there was no loss of life! The view was worth the risk!

We left Nassau first thing on Saturday morning, and since then have been experiencing island hopping at its best. By checking in at Nassau we were able to avoid the northern most islands in the Bahamas chain and get ourselves right into the Exumas. As I write this we are sitting in Norman’s Cay which is famous for it’s drug running in the 70s (if I had access to the internet right now I’d be able to check on the name of that famous drug lord who used to live here…. I’m wondering if it’s the man who was portrayed by Johnny Depp in a movie not too long ago…. But I’m probably wrong about that….). Now there is nothing on this island, although there are plans to renovate a restaurant that used to be called McDuff’s. Yesterday, shortly before sunset, a large freighter came into this little anchorage and rode right up onto the beach where forklifts deposited a pile of cinder blocks and other building materials. I wonder if there will be some human activity next year if we come back.

This is the great view from our location! If the wind would only cut down I’d ask Bob to take a photo of me spinning with one of my drop spindles on this tiny island! Sort of a “what would you take if you were going to be stranded on a desert island” type of shot.

Before we reached Norman’s Cay, we spent a day and night at Allan’s Cay, which is very famous for its iguanas. Lots of people stop here as they enter the Exuma chain of islands just to see these iguanas. We thought we were so lucky to be only one of four boats anchored in early afternoon, but as the day wore on more and more boats arrived. Still, we went iguana watching well before the crowds arrived. By the time the beach was overrun with tourists we were off on our own swimming on the far side of the harbor and doing a little snorkeling on the reefs. Bob got some amazing underwater photos and videos of fish in the reef. I got this great photo of Bob with the iguanas! This will be his new Facebook photo if we ever get internet coverage again.

I sorely miss having access to email. I knew this bit would be hard for me….but it’s even harder than I imagined. I miss my morning talks with Christopher and fleeting airport calls from Rob….not to mention emails from all my friends.  Sigh…. On the other hand, in spite of the wind, the weather is glorious here. The water ranges between stunning aquamarine and stunning emerald. We’ve had three good experiences now of navigating by sight, where Bob stands on the bow and directs my steering by hand signals in order to avoid coral heads. In a few more days we’ll probably feel quite comfortable with this. There are no buoys or other aids to navigation down here, but the water is very clear, easy to read after a little experience, when standing right on the bow looking down.

This is Wardrick Wells, in the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  See how easy it is to see the change in water depth? The sandbar on the left is not even deep enough for dinghy travel!

The view from the top of BooBoo Hill where other sailors have left mementos of the visit to the summit.

Emerald Rock

Look who came to visit when we got out our picnic lunch!

 

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Posted in travel

Anchors Aweigh

Posted on January 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

Looks like tomorrow is the day.  Wish I could sleep through the whole passage thing.  But I guess once it’s over (and I’ve survived it, hopefully) it will be one less scary thing I’ve been hoping to avoid!  The reward will be island hopping through some lovely tropical waters…..

Yesterday was all about me!  We were invited for cocktails aboard Sea Schell along with others from nearby boats, and Melinda came up the companion way with a lovely chocolate cake for me!  Nothings beats wine and chocolate!…before dinner!

I blew out all my candles, so I better get my wish! (something along the lines of Beethoven’s “Calm Seas Prosperous Voyage”)

Then Bob and I went ashore to a lovely restaurant called Serafina Trattoria for a marvellous dinner out on their terrace overlooking one of Ft. Lauderdale’s many canals.  Life is good!

Today we finished our chores, and now we are battening things down.  Today we saw manatees right near the dinghy dock, eating leaves from bushes that overhang the water!

And an iguana!

And a crazy guy playing with his cool jet toy.  Bob ended up crossing paths with the crew later in the day and found out that they paid $100,000 for that toy. They plan to sell rides on it, although it looks to me like you’d need some skill to control that thing!  I wonder how many rides they have to sell to break even?

I’ll finish up with another knitting joke.  It describes me so well….what I’ll work on for the next few months.

Starting tomorrow we won’t have reliable internet, so I won’t be posting here as regularly as I’d like.  Hopefully I’ll be ‘chillaxing’ in a tropical breeze looking at a pearly white beach across an expanse of gin clear water….  one can hope!

 

 

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Posted in Fine Craft

Busy Beautiful Days

Posted on January 14, 2013 | 4 comments

We’ve been back on board Pandora for five days already, and it’s been a very busy cup of tea here.  We thought we’d be crossing to the Bahamas on Wednesday this week, so there was a lot to accomplish!…. food provisions, engine maintenance, propellor cleaning, boat bottom cleaning…. various other small, but very important chores….not to mention getting ourselves further south so that the angle of crossing would be more favorable.  And as weather often does, it has changed so that Wednesday is no longer our departure day.  We are now cautiously aiming for Thursday… or Friday….

We left Ft. Pierce on Saturday morning and stopped in a lovely spot called Manatee Pocket that evening.  Great name for the location where I did see my first manatee!  No kidding, these creatures are unbelievably ungainly and touchingly sweet.  I now fully understand why they are at the mercy of fast traveling power boats.  They move very slowly and cannot possibly get out of the way of a speeding boat. When I saw my first manatee it had just started to descend back into the water, so its back looked like a giant black mooring ball!

There is so much beautiful bird life here … egrets, herons, osprey, kingfishers…. my favorite are the ibises.  They are so delicate….almost ephemeral.

During our evening walk along the shore of Manatee Pocket (looking for the perfect restaurant), I found a weaving studio!  Can you believe it???  Unfortunately for me, it was closed.

Who wouldn’t love spending time here??? That is a chenille warp on her loom.

Yesterday we motored 57 miles and went under 20 bascule bridges….surely a phenomenal logistical feat for any sailboat!  We deserve a prize! I saw The Breakers from the waterway…. where I once spent a decadent long weekend with Bob about a million years ago! I thought I might want to jump ship and stow away in a luxurious resort suite….but oddly, I didn’t!  At the moment I’m quite happy in my less than luxurious accomodations on Pandora!

The houses along the canals are getting more and more impressive.  It’s more Mediterranean here than the Mediterranean with all the stucco and terracotta roof tiles….and porticos!  The houses are huge, and are so close together.  It would seem to me if you have a house with a full acre of square footage, you wouldn’t want to be looking right in the windows of your next door neighbors!  To each his own…

On the knitting front, I cast on for a small Fair Isle purse at the airport in Connecticut.  It’s Beth Brown-Reinsel’s design from Interweave Knits Fall 2004 issue.  I’m making a number of changes to the pattern;  the most significant change is that I could not stomach the idea of knitting this purse flat. I know Beth must have had good reasons for her design, but since I’m pretty stubborn about stranding in the round, that’s what I’m doing!  I’ve got plans to make this a small tote bag, so I’ll be making a somewhat rigid insert for the bag when I return home next spring, along with a lining and leather handles instead of a drawstring.

I raided my J&S shetland and AS Scottish Campion stashes for these yarns (two large comforter-size storage bags stuffed full of yarn!), and I was quite surprised to find that I had absolutely no brown!  So I solved that dilemma with a quick trip to Yarns Down Under the evening before my flight.  Everyone needs a LYS who is willing to open shop for emergency travel knitting!  My LYS is the best enabler!

We are leaving shortly for Middle River, Ft. Lauderdale.

 

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Posted in knitting, travel, weaving

Posted on January 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

The best made plans….  I’ve looked forward to being home so much for so long, yet I’ve spent almost the entire month at home sick!  And I’ve had one rather big disappointment in a tapestry project…..

….but the upside is that in spite of being sick, my kids spent most of the month with us.  It was beyond wonderful to have time with them!  And I’ve gotten some weaving and some knitting done.  We’ve had some awesome meals, and I guess I will credit being sick with what has kept me from gaining weight (always the silver lining, right?)….

So, with not much to show for myself, I’ll share a couple of good cartoons I stumbled on recently….

From the New Yorker

 and from ecards:

I did my bit on fiber purchases.  I have a wonderful LYS called Yarns Down Under, in Deep River.  During my visit I learned that Filature di Crosa’s “127 Print” is being discontinued (sigh) so I bought two colors to make a cardigan.  I bought the black and the periwinkle blue, and I plan to use them in a vertically striped cardigan based on “Designs by Judith” pattern called “Buenos Aires” that called for Manos del Uraguay.

So this takes a bit of imagination…. I am knitting not quite random vertical stripes in my two colorways instead of the two-color stitch pattern used in Judith’s design.  I just love the shaping of this sweater and hope it will turn out well in a striped stockinette stitch.  Although the gauge is the same, my fabric will be considerably softer since it is not a texture stitch.  Wish me luck!

And while licking my wounds about my weaving disappointments, I found this in my inbox today:

“Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.” –Dalai Lama

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Posted in holiday, knitting, tapestry

Farewell Winter

Posted on December 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

Our last day in winter white New England was quite a memorable one! While doing a few last minute errands in town we noticed that our little museum has an annual train show over the holidays and that it was still on display.  We had the entire exhibit to ourselves on a Tuesday morning.

Bags packed, rental car on hand for the next morning’s early ride to the airport, we decided to spend our last evening in Connecticut in the pub of the Griswold Inn with a burger and a beer.  I swear that pub has live music every single night of the year, and while it’s always great fun and great music, I really wanted an early evening.  The music venues usually start around 7.30.  When we arrived, well before music should start, a wonderful glee club from Ohio was about halfway through an impromptu performance that had been arranged to precede the regular Tuesday night banjo group.

The glee club were the KoKos from Kenyon College, who were passing through the area on their January tour of concerts on the East Coast.  Since they were staying at the house of a glee club alumnus who happened to be the local Anglican priest, the priest had arranged for the last minute performance at the pub.

Bob and I love a capella men’s groups.  The songs were wonderful… “Sentimental Journey,”  “Stand by Me”…… a couple of fun, bawdy songs.

As the singers were gathering their things the priest came over to introduce himself.  I’m not sure I’ll ever understand why.  Did he see how much we liked the group?? Did he think we might become new parishioners?  Whatever his reasons, he introduced himself to us and even invited us back to his house for dinner.  He promised the group would sing a few more songs….  what can I say?  We couldn’t resist!

As we were settling up a friend of the priest walked over to say he’d be going back to the rectory for dinner as well.  I kind of thought I recognized this younger man.  The priest introduced us as “Bob and Brenda” and the young man’s face shifted with something like recognition.  “Were you ever members of Fayerweather Yacht Club?” he asked.  Well, yes we were….about a million eons ago in a distant time before children….  this young man is the son of a couple we used to sail with fairly often.  Our friends, the parents of this young man, died over 15 years ago, within a couple of years of each other.  We haven’t seen their son “Roddy” since he was about 12 years old, back in the early 1980s.  That feels like ancient history…

What a world!  Roddy remembers a particular long weekend in Great Salt Pond on Block Island, when he and his dad came aboard our little catboat Tao for an afternoon sail, while I went on board Lark to help Roddy’s mother to cook up a mess of mussels for dinner.  What I remember is coming across our very first log book last summer as we were unpacking things in our new house, and reading about Roddy and his parents and some of our escapades together.  When I read these passages, I realized what distant memories these are…..how long Bob and I have been making memories together and how rediscovering this brief period in our newly married lives helped me recognize Rod the adult when our paths crossed again.  Amazing…..

….and now we’re off to make more memories on this sailing adventure to the Bahamas….. (I hope they will be mostly good ones)

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Posted in family

Home Sweet Home

Posted on December 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

Our return home was truly magical, and our first Christmas here has been wonderful!….complete with a powdered sugar dusting of snow on Christmas Eve! This is not my house, but a well known inn in our little town…. photo taken by Mark Cappitella.

We’ve seen lots of family and friends, and I’ve slept in my ‘cloud bed’ which I dearly miss whenever I’m away from home.  Rob and Chris have joined me in the kitchen cooking and baking some of our favorite recipes.

And Santa brought me a wonderful surprise!  A beautiful painting done by a tapestry weaver who feels like a friend even though we’ve never met in person.  I’ve followed her blog for years, and we’ve emailed over several years, so I feel like I know her.  I’m talking about Kathy Spoering who maintains a wonderful website on top of painting and weaving such beautiful images.  She’s a very talented woman, and I’m so happy to have one of her paintings.  I’m going to put it in my bedroom where I’ll see it every morning when I wake up!  (At least for the next 10 days or so before we head back to our life on board Pandora!)

Seeing this painting each morning makes me so happy!  A great start to the day.  Kathy’s other offerings are in her etsy shop Yellow Dog Tapestries.

There has been a bit too much celebrating to spend any time in my studio (except to hunt for things and realize how much re-organizing lies in my future).  Today I will finally spend a day working on my pear tapestry.  Can’t ask for a better day, with the threat of coming snow and plenty of good food in the house!

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Posted in Fine Craft

Pearls of Wisdom

Posted on December 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

We are in Eau Gallie, Florida now and have spent four days here with a group called the Seven Seas Cruising Association.  Every December they gather here for socializing and learning from various well known sailors who volunteer to give seminars.  This year we were lucky to meet both Chris Parker, our weather router (guru) and Jimmy Cornell who has written a number of cruising books that are well known to sailors. We also met Jimmy Cornell’s daughter, Doina, who has written a book herself about growing up on a circumnavigation, Child of the Sea.

I’ve been hearing about this town called “Oh! Gollie!” or “Oh! Gallie” and wondering how on earth it got its name.  It turns out it is “Eau Gallie,” and since it sits at the water’s edge that explained the ‘eau’ to me.  But what about Gallie?  I’ve just learned that ‘gallie’ is French (galet) for rocky and the two words together are ‘rocky water.’  The town is named for the coquina rocks that abound here.  Still, it’s fun to say…. Eau Gallie!

This has been an exciting weekend for me!  I have met a weaver from Ontario! Her name is Lois, and she is sailing south to the Bahamas with her husband on their boat Astar.  She has a large 8-shaft LeClerc, a 10-shaft draw loom, and the same 8-shaft Baby Wolf that I have.  She knits and spins as well, so we had a lot to discuss!  One of her wheels is the same Lendrum (made in Canada) that I have.  We both had our knitting with us.  She has her OHS certificate of excellence in weaving and has worked in some capacity for that organization. She is a member of very large guild in the Ontario area. I can’t wait to learn more about that. She has heard of my regional guild, MAFA (Mid Atlantic Fiber Association), but not my new regional guild NEWS (New England Weavers Seminar). We both started weaving in the mid-70s.  It is so wonderful to have finally found another weaver!

Another woman mentioned to me that she knows of two weavers that she has met while sailing.  She promised to find them in her list of contacts and give me their names.  I made connections with these women and others during a seminar called Women and Cruising.  This seminar was for those of us women who are new to living aboard.  It was a time for us to express our concerns or fears or voice our hopes in finding other women who have similar interests.  There were birders and shell collectors and bridge players…..  One woman who has her sewing machine aboard along with bins and bins of fabric told me her wonderful experience from last winter.

In the Bahamas she likes to weave traditional baskets of local materials.  I think she called it ‘silver grass’ or something like that.  She said the local women taught her to weave these baskets.  At some point she learned that some of the women have no access to the basket materials they need because it grows in places that are only accessible by small boat.  She used her dinghy to harvest some of this basket fiber and brought it to the women who needed it.

What a lovely way to connect with the local culture, to make friends and learn something so precious!  I hope I will find opportunities like this! Doina Cornell’s tales of spending her childhood sailing around the world with her family were also full of the experiences she had living in such varied cultures from all around the world.  The weekend was rich with amazing experiences and valuable insights!

Walking about with my knitting led other women to talk to me about their own knitting projects.

 Oh!  I must not forget to mention that I finished my Ann Jacket!  Woohoo!  Just for the record I finished it on December 5th, in plenty of time to wear home!  And since I cannot let my needles lie silent I have moved on to the “Ruffle Wrap Cardigan,” and it is practically knitting itself.  Every time I knit what feels like a couple of rows an entire body section is finished.  If only all sweaters would knit up this quickly!  I have finished the back and both fronts, so yesterday I started the first sleeve while walking around the SSCA conference.  The sleeves are the first opportunity to use the fun ribbon that gets knitted into this design.  Wow!  That ribbon is really over the top….perhaps a bit garish?  I’m wondering if I have the guts to wear this when I finish….

We are homeward bound!  Today we will sail down to Vero Beach and will have dinner with our friends who have a house there and split their time between living on the Connecticut River in the summer, in Vero for fall, and on board their boat Camelot for winters in the Bahamas.  Then Monday I will get a rental car in preparation for our trip to the airport, and I’ll do our last minute laundry.  Tuesday we fly home!  I will have 1500 hundred miles under my belt and three full months onboard.  The first tiny drip of experience in what Bob hopes will be many, many experiences living onboard.

Day 90, December 9th: Eau Gallie to Vero Beach.

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Posted in Fine Craft