Life After Windbird, Day 1: Just an Average Day
Date: Saturday, August 13, 2016
Weather: Even Hotter than Yesterday, No Wind; High 90 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
Today was a calm day and a nice way to end this week. The new option for Mark’s cancer treatment and the final closing on the sale of Windbird made for an ‘exciting’ week and today’s calm was most welcome. I totally failed on my attempt to update the website, but hopefully I can get in touch with my web guru, son Justin, and see if he can help me out. In September of 2005, Justin introduced me to the concept of a blog and while visiting Windbird over Labor Day Weekend, he launched the site.
At the time it was inconceivable to me that I could write a daily diary on my computer and send it via HAM radio to a website that would then post it for anyone in the world to read. The memories saved in those logs and all of the posted photos are a treasure for us. And we could never have done it without Justin’s constant diligence in working out any problems we had. Thank you, Justin!
And once again, with Justin’s help, in the next few days the website will be updated. Actually I decided to make only small changes for now. The Voyage of Windbird will simply be changed to The Voyage of Windbird . . . and Beyond. We will leave the links for details on Windbird and the logs and photos from the past eleven years. We’ll update some photos and then I’ll just continue writing logs under title of Life After Windbird. But as I will state on the home page of the website, I encourage our sailing friends to continue to follow Windbird’s adventures on Sam and Dawn Weigel’s blog found by clicking on the following link:
http://wotwater.blogspot.com/
Here’s just a little of what Sam had to say in his post today entitled, “We’re Hers.”
“I was originally going to title this post “She’s Ours,” but I think the opposite is just as true if not moreso. Either way, Dawn and I and Windbird have officially tied the knot! Earlier this week the Handleys were able to get the USCG Satisfaction of Mortgage form from their bank, which was the last remaining obstacle; our bank released the funds on Thursday, we overnighted the check to Triton Yacht Sales, and as of yesterday we are Windbird’s official owners. It was an event that mostly passed without fanfare; Dawn packed for a weekend trip to visit high school girlfriends and I packed for my next work trip that reported at 1am this morning, and in between we refined our refit schedule and cruising budget. It didn’t really quite hit me until I read Judy Handley’s blog post last night, The End of a Chapter. I think the sale of Windbird is almost a bigger deal to the Handleys than it is to us because she took them around the world and has been their home for the last 13 years; they know exactly what they’re giving up, while we don’t know yet exactly what we’re gaining. I sure am excited to find out, though.”
