Day 335, Year 8: C & S—Cleaning and Shopping
Date: Friday, October 4, 2013
Weather: Partly Cloudy, Daytime Temp 70 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Yesterday was a C & S day–cooking and searching. And today was another C & S day, but this time it was–cleaning and shopping. All of this C & S ‘stuff’ is in preparation for our departure in two weeks. I have been in denial, refusing to think about really leaving for the winter, but the time has come. The leaves are starting to turn and the nights are getting chillier. It is just too hard to think about leaving the Goldstones—big and little. I feel like we are abandoning them by coming here for the summer months and then slipping away once the weather starts to turn. Sam has been asking us lately just why we have to leave. He would love to have all of his family—Grammy, Papa, Uncle Ben, Uncle Toby, Oma, Granddad, Uncle Justin, Auntie Jo, Cousins Ziggy and Coco, and mommy and daddy—living here together. But the reality is that life has changed and families no longer all live in the same little town or village. We are spread all over the place. When we head south this year, we will actually be able to visit with Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco who are right now in the process of moving to Puerto Rico. And we so look forward to seeing them. So I’m just going to have to take a deep breath, enjoy the last two weeks we have here, get this boat ready for another cruising season, and look forward to the winter in Puerto Rico.
If things go as planned, we will not be cruising alone this year. Our friends Lynda and Lee Kaufman from South Carolina are planning to head to Puerto Rico at the same time. They bought their Island Packet Estero, Grace II now renamed Sea Turtle, just after they helped Mark sail Windbird from South Carolina to Cape Cod this spring, and they are now fitting her out and getting her ready for an off-shore adventure. They have never been off-shore, so it will be helpful to them to have us within VHF range. We often buddy boated with Paul and Marie Miller of Ranger (an Island Packet) in Fiji and Vanuatu, and our boats were fairly even matched. So we figure we will be able to keep close enough to Sea Turtle to keep in communication range. And if not, we both have single side-band radios and we can always make contact that way. As Lee and Lynda are making their preparations, we realize just how much easier it is for us. We have been home from our circumnavigation for two years now, but Windbird is always ready to go. I still have food aboard from Malaysia, Thailand, and South Africa. So we are not going to starve even if I get no shopping done. But that won’t happen. And we keep enough fuel in the tanks to certainly get us to the next fuel stop. But still, there are preparations.
Today Mark and I worked together to clean the topsides (from the waterline up to the deck level) and then Mark applied AwlCare to the port side. AwlCare is like a protective wax. He hopes to get the starboard side done tomorrow. While he did that, I continued my clean-out of cabinets. Then we stopped the cleaning and went to town to do some shopping. We had to go in by bus because Heather was so busy she hadn’t had a chance to come to the car and unlock it. And when we were ready to go into town, she was somewhere on the WHOI campus teaching a class. But the bus is a great alternative. It only costs $1 each way for seniors. We got off at West Marine to pick up some steamer clams from Mark’s co-worker Sue and then we walked to the Falmouth Mall. This is not really a mall—just four stores—but it is the best Falmouth has to offer. We needed to pick up some items at Walmart and then we went to the supermarket. Sailing friends, Jim Hammitt and Susie Klein, will be coming to Eel Pond tomorrow night and we will have dinner together aboard Windbird. They keep their boat in Padenarum in Rhode Island so they won’t arrive here until late afternoon. They came across to visit just about this time last year so we’ll have a full year of activities to review. And before all of this, we will be taking Windbird out of Eel Pond to sea trials with the new auto pilot heading sensor. When we return to the pond, we will be going to a dock for the remainder of this season.
