by Judy Handley | Nov 18, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 10, Year 7: Farewell Oceanus
Date: Friday, November 18, 2011
Weather: Sunny Day, Warming Slightly
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
It has been a good day. On our early morning walk, Mark was once more in the lead with me trailing along behind. He is now using an inhaler and he’s not 100 per cent better, but he is sure better than he has been in the past few weeks. So we are thinking the doctors are right when they say he might be asthmatic. Better that than a heart problem.
It was chilly last night, but it warmed up a bit today. When I picked up Sam and Jonah at 1 pm, Sam had an extra bag with him. It contained a stuffed goldfish affectionately known as Swimmy. Swimmy goes home with a different child each weekend and that child gets to write about Swimmy’s weekend experiences. Sam happens to have an identical stuffed goldfish named Guppy, so Swimmy will have company this weekend. And Swimmy picked a great weekend to come with Sam as s/he got to go to the farewell party for research vessel Oceanus this evening and gets to go to the Yale-Harvard football game tomorrow. Right after nap, we headed to Woods Hole for the retirement party for R/V (research vessel) Oceanus. Oceanus has been one of WHOI’s (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s) main research vessels for the past 36 years. She is still in tip-top shape, but she is being retired and a newer model will replace her. Oceanus has been on almost 500 scientific missions from here to George’s Bank, to the Red Sea, to the Sargasso Sea, and to the Angola Basin. She is 177-feet, not a big ship, but she has proven time and again her sea worthiness and it was quite moving to hear the different people talk about their experiences aboard Oceanus over the years.
The success story of the day was our call to Greyhound this morning. At least we hope it is a success story. After much waiting again this morning, we finally reached a real person in Customer Service. She could not tell us why our tickets were canceled but she rebooked us at no additional charge. This time we are supposed to pick up our tickets just prior to leaving South Station in Boston for Albuquerque. We are supposed to call 48 hours ahead of time to get our confirmation number. I must say that I am a bit nervous about this arrangement since they canceled our first tickets for no apparent reason. But we will have to trust that this is going to work. So our trip to New Mexico for Christmas is once more a go.
Tomorrow we hang out on Windbird waiting for the heater/air-conditioner repairman to arrive. We are hoping the replacement relay for the starter will do the trick. We are currently heating with one, sometimes two, electric heaters, but the reverse-cycle heater should be much more efficient. Luckily, it looks like we should have mild weather through Thanksgiving. What a gift. I am definitely thankful.
by Judy Handley | Nov 17, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 9, Year 7: Mad (at a) Dog
Date: Thursday, November 17, 2011
Weather: Overcast with Drizzle, Freezing Tonight
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
Okay. I’m not talking about cheap wine. I’m mad at a dog-a greyhound to be specific. On October 29 we booked our bus trip to New Mexico via Greyhound on the phone. Mark talked and I wrote down the schedule and confirmation number. We were told that the tickets would be coming in the mail. We waited, and waited, and waited, and finally at the end of last week I got on the web and found that tickets my mail take at least ten working days, not counting holidays and weekends. That meant that Monday of this week would be the arrival date. No ticket. Tuesday, no ticket. So we looked up numbers to call to check on this. After hours of trying to reach someone other than a computer, tonight Mark talked to a man who said our reservations had been cancelled because we didn’t pick our tickets up at our local Greyhound station. I remember vividly Mark giving Heather’s address to the woman with whom we booked our trip. She definitely told him the tickets would come by mail. By the time we found out that our reservations have been cancelled it was too late to reach Customer Service tonight. So we will try at 7 AM as the gentleman we did talk to suggested. Greyhound certainly took our money and we certainly have no tickets and the current price of the same tickets is much higher than we paid. We have no idea what Customer Service is going to tell us. We have been searching all evening trying to compare current bus ticket prices with air and train tickets, but the bus still comes out cheaper even though it is now $300 more than when we booked in October. If Greyhound tells us that they will not refund our money, there is no way we can afford to go to New Mexico for Christmas. If that happens I am certainly going to be more than mad at the dog, I will be on the war path with Greyhound.
Mark went to the hospital for a stress test early this morning. He’s been very short of breath on our morning walks and decided he should have things checked out. His blood pressure is great, the EKG looked good, but he was a short-timer on the tread mill. The cardiologist thinks there is no problem with his heart, but they are doing a different kind of stress test next Tuesday to be sure. In the meantime, they prescribed an inhaler thinking that the shortness of breath might be caused by asthma. And now I am wondering if the down comforter we are sleeping under and that has been stored on the boat as we circumnavigated might be the culprit. His problems started right after we started sleeping under the comforter. I think we’ll freeze if I take away the comforter tonight as the temp for those of us at the water’s edge is supposed to dip below freezing for the first time this fall. But things will warm up a bit tomorrow and I will switch to polar fleece blankets for a few days to see if that makes a difference. In the morning we will walk after Mark uses the inhaler and that will give us a chance to see if it really makes a difference.
As I sit here writing this log, I can hear the wind picking up outside. So it is going to be a windy night as well as a freezing one. I’m just happy that the forecast calls for warming temperatures over the weekend and into next week. I hoping for the warmest New England Thanksgiving of the century!
by Judy Handley | Nov 16, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 8, Year 7: Crazy in the Rain
Date: Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Weather: Overcast and Raining, Temps Cooling Down
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
Our beautiful weather has turned into rain and the temperature is going down, but by the weekend we are supposed to have nice weather once again. That’s good news. This afternoon Heather came home early from work and I suggested that she go shopping for clothes. You can hardly tell she is pregnant, but her size 2 jeans are just not making it. A rainy afternoon seemed like a perfect time to get away and shop. Jed was not going to get home until late because he is at a conference in Boston and Mark and I were glad to stay with the boys until Heather could get home from shopping. But instead, we waited until Sam and Jonah got up from nap and then we all took off on a shopping adventure in the rain. The closest shopping is either 30 minutes north to Hyannis or an hour north to an outlet mall that is off Cape. We chose the outlet mall and away we went. The outlet mall is a huge outside mall, but it does have covered walkways. The boys had a ball in the rain, played hide ‘n seek under the clothes racks in the stores, and ran the mazes provided by rows of shoes at Bass. They even rode on a little carousel in the rain. We were being a little crazy and having fun, but at one point we had a bit of a scare. After leaving the Bass outlet store, we had a huge plastic bag of clothes and boots. I left it on a bench under the covered walkway where Mark was watching the boys run races while I went into a store where Heather was shopping. I made sure to tell Mark to watch the bag, but when you have a two little guys running around playing in the rain, it is easy to forget. Eventually Mark brought the boys in to the store and when we left, Heather asked for the bag so she could put more purchases in it. Mark had forgotten about it and left it outside when he came in the store and the bag was no longer on the bench outside. The security office wasn’t far away and luckily they had picked it up. Whew! We were about to have to go back to Bass and repurchase-not fun and not cheap. We ended the evening at a restaurant and both Sam and Jonah were fantastic dinner dates. We read and sang our way home making it a perfect ending for a rainy afternoon and evening outing. Who says shopping can’t be fun!
For six years now, I have written these logs every night, sharing all the things happening in our lives. And as in any of our lives, there have been ups and downs–good news and other news that is not so easy to report. It was not easy to report the death of my brother when we were in India last year and tonight it is not easy to report that his wife, my saint of a sister-in-law Conda, has been diagnosed having brain tumors. One hesitates to talk of such private things in such a public forum, but I mention it here because I hope each of you reading this log will send positive energy and thoughts to Conda to help her through what is going to be a very difficult battle. Conda, we love you. Stay strong.
by Judy Handley | Nov 15, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 7, Year 7: Getting Unstuck
Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Weather: Still Warm with Temps in the 60’s
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
Life is good. How could it not be with such beautiful weather in November? This weather is certainly a gift. And having grandchildren is a gift. Both Jonah and Sam were “on” today. Jonah is a singing and dancing imp constantly entertaining us with his antics and Sam could win an Oscar for his descriptions of characters in the “Cars” videos. As far as I can tell Lightening McQueen is the pivotal character in both. After nap today I got an hour-long presentation from Sam of the different characters. It was quite an impressive show and I’m going to have to watch Cars I and Cars II so I can be in the know. I have seen the one scene in Cars I were all the tractors are asleep in the field and Lightening McQueen (a fast, red car) and Tow Mater (a rusty old tow truck) go roaring into the field and drive right up to the sleeping tractors. The tractors startle, rear up, and fall over backwards. Jonah has this one down pat and can fall backwards just like the tractors. I wrote last night about being stuck in the mud, but it is impossible to stay stuck with grandchildren constantly pulling you forward.
We continue to have our daily morning walks, work on boat projects, and Mark is working on the newest project which is listing items for sale on Craig’s List. We have so many things that need to be sold that the advertising could become a full-time job.
by Judy Handley | Nov 14, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 6, Year 7: Stuck in the Mud
Date: Monday, November 14, 2011
Weather: Still Windy and Unseasonably Warm
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
I feel a little like I am walking in sticky mud. Every time I try to take a step forward, my shoe gets stuck in the mud. Settling into life as a non-cruising live aboard is tougher than I thought it would be. For six years we have traveled the world and every day was an adventure. When you are not traveling, life is quite different. We are trying to figure out life as land lubbers, but right now I think we both feel a bit lost. Slowly we’ll find our rhythm. But for me that is going to mean that I have the time to write down all of the “articles” swimming in my head from our past experiences. There are so many things I want to share about our last six years. I started writing and then lost everything I had written when my external hard drive crashed. That was a real set-back and I’m still stuck in that mud. I’m also trying to get our photos from our first year transferred from one online data base to another and trying to get our Year 1 logs in the same format as the other five years. I spend at least three hours a day just working on those issues. At the same time, I know you can’t spend all your time thinking about yesterday. A high school assistant principal once said to me, “Judy, if you are still thinking about what you did yesterday today, then you haven’t done anything worthwhile today.” Maybe the real problem is that there are just not enough hours in the day. Mark just looked across the table and said, “Only four or five weeks and the days start getting longer again.”
by Judy Handley | Nov 13, 2011 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 7 |
Day 5, Year 7: New England Thanksgiving a Little Early
Date: Sunday, November 13, 2011
Weather: Windy but Unseasonably Warm; Temps in the low 60’s
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, Massachusetts
Mark works with a woman named Sue at West Marine. She and her husband are die-hard Cape Coders. They have a boat that they keep on Martha’s Vineyard in the summer and they dig for clams in the summer, get oysters in the fall, and know friends who give them Vineyard venison. All summer long, Sue kept us supplied with little neck clams. This fall she gave us venison and now the oysters are coming. Today I had planned to fix a venison roast for dinner tonight at Heather and Jed’s. Late morning Mark called and said he would be bringing home oysters. In the early afternoon Heather picked salad greens mixed and young dill out of the garden. The result was a fantastic meal that was like an early traditional New England Thanksgiving Dinner. We had oysters on the half-shell with a garden salad for starters. That was followed by the venison roast and all the trimmings. The roast was so very tender and tasty and the oysters were delicious. Our thanks to Sue and her husband for sharing their bounty with us
