Day 228, Year 6 One Down, Two to Go

Day 228, Year 6 One Down, Two to Go
Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011
Weather: Sunny, Upper 80’s
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

This evening we made our first Voyage of Windbird (VOW) Around the World presentation to friends of my sister and brother-in-law. We had hoped to have time to take a look at the final selection of photos during the day, but that didn’t happen. So we went with what we had and people seemed to truly enjoy hearing about and seeing our adventures. Putting this presentation together allowed us to relive the last five and a half years in fast forward. What a trip! We have seen so many phenomenal things and met so many wonderful people. Saturday night we will make a very different presentation to the local Power Squadron, so tomorrow’s job will be, among other things, to get that together. So we have one presentation down, one on Saturday night, and then another on Tuesday night for the family. But that will be a repeat of tonight and should not require any additional work.

Much of today was spent baking goodies for tonight’s gathering, taking Mark to the doctor, and making a trip to Office Depot to get a handout printed. The doctor’s appointment was a scheduled appointment for Mark to learn how to do self-catheterization. He went, he learned, and for now he is bag-free. But while he was there, the doctor confirmed that he has a bladder infection. Mark was really dragging all day but tonight after the presentation, I felt his head and he was very hot. He taking the prescribed antibiotic and hopefully things will be better tomorrow. The trip to Office Depot was for naught. I guess we have forgotten how expensive it is to have color copies done in the this country. It would have cost over $150 to have the little pamphlet copied for tonight’s gathering and for Saturday night’s presentation. The pamphlet had little world maps showing the path of each year’s journey. Se we scratched that and bought a Styrofoam presentation board to which I attached a world map and laid out the route with thumb tacks. It worked and it cost less than $10.

Day 227, Year 6 Time Passing Too Quickly

Day 227, Year 6 Time Passing Too Quickly
Date: Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Upper 80’s
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

Three weeks. That is how long it has been since we first arrived and the time here is passing all too quickly. It seems we have been busy every minute and have had very little time to just sit back and relax with my sister Patsy and her husband. But the “larger” family arrives on Saturday and the preparation for that as well as the presentations we are making tomorrow night and Saturday night aren’t going to allow for any down time. Nieces and nephews and their families begin arriving on Saturday morning. We have started the food preparations for feeding that crew for six days, but that process will continue through the week. Today I started food preparations for our passage to Cape Cod by making mega batches of granola and lasagna and spaghetti sauce that can be frozen. And Mark and I both worked like crazy to put the finishing touches on the slide show we are presenting tomorrow night for Patsy and Joe’s friends as well as beginning the work on a shorter show for the Power Squadron on Saturday night. And in the middle of all this, Patsy and I went out shopping for bathing suits. Both of us are terrible about refusing to buy anything for ourselves and both of us have bathing suits that are very well worn. Our trip was successful and then my brother-in-law Joe saved the day by taking us out to dinner.

Tomorrow will be spent getting the house and food ready for tomorrow night’s presentation. We are just serving desserts, but we do need to make those. Mark has an appointment with the urologist tomorrow to remove the catheter and learn to do self-cauterization. If that works out, he will no longer need to wear the “bag” all the time. And Mark and I need to make a trip to Windbird to check on things and pick up some clothes to wear tomorrow night. It is going to be one busy day!

Day 226, Year 6 Getting There

Day 226, Year 6 Getting There
Date: Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Weather: Sunny, Upper 80’s
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

We are still at it. I don’t even want to think about how many hours it really takes to put together a one-hour presentation. The number would be staggering. But we are getting there. We have a one-hour presentation on Thursday night for my sister’s friends and then on Saturday night we have a 30-minute presentation for the local Power Squad. That will be a totally different presentation and we haven’t even started on it, but we do have a good idea of what we want to do. Mark has been working on the statistics of the past five and a half years while I have been working on the photos. He’s gathering the number of miles for each passage, the list of all the islands we visited, the total number of miles for each year, etc. I have the photos down to 814. Showing them at 5 seconds each means we have a 68 minute presentation. That’s eight minutes longer than we wanted, but it’s the best I can do. Tomorrow we’ll continue working on the second presentation and on fine-tuning the first. So on it goes.

Day 224, Year 6 Same, Same

Day 224, Year 6 Same, Same
Date: Sunday, June 5, 2011
Weather: Sunny, Upper 80’s, Late Evening Rain Storm
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

I sat in one seat with my computer in front of me all day yesterday. And Mark sat in front of his. But finally, we did get the first cut of photos from each place we have visited. The problem is that the total is about 1,000 photos, so tomorrow’s job is to try and cut that almost in half. We did a run-through showing the photos on the TV screen and found that some photos just don’t work when viewed from a distance. So that will help with the cutting process.

Day 223, Year 6 Too Many Photos

Day 223, Year 6 Too Many Photos
Date: Saturday, June 4, 2011
Weather: Sunny and Hot (low 90’s)
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

We spent the entire day continuing to choose the best of the best photos from the past five and a half years. Aaargh!!! What a tedious job. And tomorrow will be more of the same. It will be a rush to get them all together in time for our first public showing on Thursday.

Day 222, Year 6 Great Sailing Day

Day 222, Year 6 Great Sailing Day
Date: Friday, June 3, 2011
Weather: Sunny and Hot (low 90’s)
Location: Lightkeepers Marina, Little River, South Carolina

Mark took a few members of the local Power Squadron out sailing today and came back saying it was one of the best sails ever. They had 15 knots of wind on the beam and Windbird flew through the water. Too bad it was a “guys only” occasion today, but we hope to go out again early next week with our friends Lee and Lynda and have a repeat performance.

I ended up spending time with my sister this morning checking out the location where much of the family that is coming in next weekend will be staying. There will be 30 of us and we were looking to see if it would be possible to eat on the beach in front of the condo where they will be staying-and it will, so that is good news. There is also a nearby park where we can go, so all is well. While I’m writing this Mark is in the kitchen pressing out hamburgers for 30 people to put in the freezer. Little by little, we’ll get things together. I have made a little progress on the photo presentation today, but not as much as expected. Tomorrow is my self-imposed deadline for getting the best of the best pool of photos together, so I’ll let you know tomorrow night if I meet the deadline.

110603 Day 222 South Carolina, USA–SPS Friends Sail on Windbird