Day 358, Year 10: Ain’t No Sunshine

Day 358, Year 10: Ain’t No Sunshine
Date: Saturday, October 3, 2015
Weather: Overcast and Cool, Wind NE 15-20
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

There was no sunshine today, but on the more positive side, there was also no rain. It was a little cool and windy and will probably be the same tomorrow, but maybe we’ll have sunshine again by Monday. It is a great relief to know that Joaquin is not going to be a threat, so we don’t have to do the hurricane preparations tomorrow that would have been necessary if Joaquin’s track had brought her up the coast.

Today we spent a quiet morning on Windbird and went to Heather and Jed’s shortly after noon. I am starting to cook for the passage south and for the company we will have next weekend, so we spent the afternoon there with me cooking and Mark playing with the boys. The entire afternoon had a science theme with Sam and Jonah doing everything from searching through sand for fossils to digging through Oma’s science box in the basement to experimenting with electrical snap circuits. Sam also recreated an experiment that he had done at school and showed Jonah what happens when you put drops of food coloring in milk and then touch the drops of color with a Q-tip soaked in dish detergent. Mark also spent some time with them learning about thermal expansion—trying to fit a steel ball through a ring and using heat and cold to make it happen. I don’t know about the boys, but Mark had a great time doing this. When it was time to prepare dinner, I turned the kitchen back over to Heather. She called last night and invited us to dinner this evening, and in a short time she produced a fantastic dinner. And while she cooked, Mark and I built Lego Duplo with the three boys. At first we were just building with Ollie, but then Sam and Jonah joined us. Again, we had a great time playing together. For dinner we had chicken tikka masala and rice, curried cauliflower, kale, and corn-on-the-cob. Everything was yummy. So thank you, Heather!
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151003 Day 358 Cape Cod, USA–Building Lego Duplo with S,J&O

I haven’t talked much about our upcoming travel plans, but they are coming up quickly. Mark completes his radiation treatments on Monday, October 19, and almost immediately, weather permitting, we will be sailing south to South Carolina. We will be taking Sue and John Reed’s 18 year-old grandson, James, along with us as crew. Sue and John are Jed’s aunt and uncle and are the folks who have so graciously hosted us so many nights in their home in Cambridge over the past four years. We are very excited to be able to offer this travel opportunity to James and to have the help along the way. Once we get to Lightkeepers Marina in Little River, South Carolina, and get Windbird settled in a slip there, we will be flying back to Boston for Mark’s post-radiation scan. And just a couple of days later on Thursday, October 19th, we will be flying to Puerto Rico to spend two weeks with Justin and Jo. Heather, Jed, and boys will join us for the first week and we just can’t wait to see all five grandchildren together again. Jed will already be in San Juan for a conference when we, along with Heather and the three boys, arrive. We just booked a room tonight in the same hotel where Jed will be staying for that Thursday night. The Caribe Hilton has lots of swimming pools, so on Friday while Jed is still in meetings, we will play in the pools with the boys. After Jed’s meetings end, we will all head to the west coast of Puerto Rico to visit with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco in Aguada. We can’t wait.