by Judy Handley | Apr 17, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 165, Year 8: Wonderful News from Boston
Date: Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Weather: Winds SSE 10-12; Temp in the Mid 80’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
There has not been a lot of good news coming out of Boston this week, but late this morning I got a call from Mark who was at Massachusetts General and the news was wonderful. He met with his oncologist, Dr. Kwak, to review yesterday’s CT-scan and her preliminary report is that there have been no changes since January and he won’t need another scan for 6 months. Hurray! The radiologist report could possibly be different, but Dr. Kwak was confident enough to not order a scan for July. So this is very good news for Mark. It is almost 9 pm right now and he is supposed to arrive in Myrtle Beach in about an hour. So I will cut this short so I can make it to the airport. Before I end, however, I must rave about the weather the past couple of days. It has been gloriously warm (really hot) and sunny. And Mark said it was beautiful in Boston as well. The high temp was in the 60’s, not the 80’s, but it was beautiful spring weather there as well. Tomorrow Mark will probably go ‘boat looking’ with Lee Kaufman. LeeWay left the dock at Lightkeepers yesterday to go to its new home in Carolina Beach, so Lee is furiously looking for a new boat. Good luck, Lee. We hope you find a new one soon.
by Judy Handley | Apr 16, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 164, Year 8: Windbird’s Turn for Spring Cleaning
Date: Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Weather: Winds E 10; Temp in the Upper to Mid 70’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
After taking Mark to the airport for his flight to Boston in the VERY early morning, I came back to Windbird and went back to bed. It is 5:15 am and still very dark, so sleep seemed like the sensible thing to do. When I got up for the second time, I started a cleaning spree. My goal was to take the cushions out of the v-berth and do a deep cleaning of that area. I got everything that was being stored on the v-berth out, but then one thing led to another and that job got only half done today. In order to take the cushions out of the v-berth, I decided that I first needed to clean the cockpit and the deck. That led to cleaning out a big Igloo cooler that holds our fishing gear and sits on the deck. Well, that was one big mess. Water had gotten into the cooler and everything was a wet and rusty. I saved as much as I could and washed out all of the containers and the cooler. I then cleaned all of the cockpit cushions and called it a day. Tomorrow or Thursday I will get those v-berth cushions out and clean the v-berth. Right now the cooler holding the fishing gear is in the cockpit until everything gets dried out, so I will also get that put away tomorrow or the next day.
Right now I am at Patsy and Joe’s and will use their internet connection to send this log before going back to the boat for the night. When Mark is not at home, we don’t internet on the boat as we use his phone as a hot spot. So when he is gone, I don’t only miss Mark, I miss his phone! Mark’s flight to Boston this morning went smoothly, as did his medical appointments. He will meet with his oncologist tomorrow before flying home and find out the results of today’s scan. He met with his endocrinologist late this afternoon and she declared the September parathyroid surgery a success and said she would not need to see him again. The blood tests done today showed that everything is normal, so that is great news.
Mark took public transportation from the airport to the hospital this morning and called to report that all looked normal in Boston, but this afternoon when he walked out to the main street that runs in front of Mass General, he realized everything was not as normal as he had thought. When he arrived at the hospital this morning, he went straight from the T-station into the Yawkey Outpatient Center at Mass General. They are adjacent and he didn’t have to go out on the street. When he did go out this afternoon, he was surprised to see policemen (maybe National Guard) in camouflage carrying AK-47’s and lots of uniformed policemen. But basically it sounds like Boston is trying to carry on as normally as possible under the circumstances. If all goes well, Mark will be home by 10:00 tomorrow night and life will be back to normal.
by Judy Handley | Apr 15, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 163, Year 8: Thoughts of Boston
Date: Monday, April 15, 2013
Weather: Winds ENE 10-12; Temp in the Upper 60’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
I know we were all saddened by what happened in Boston this afternoon. Mark flies out of Myrtle Beach at 5:30 am in the morning headed for Boston, so he is going right into the midst of things. Depending on what he knows by the time he arrives, he might choose to take a taxi instead of public transportation in the morning, but hopefully things will have settled down by then. Boston has always been so proud of hosting the Marathon on Patriots’ Day. This is the day celebrating the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775. The patriots that lost their lives on that day in 1775 did so for a cause. That was not the case for those killed and injured today. They were struck down in the midst of celebrating life. Our hearts go out to all who were affected by today’s horrific act.
On a lighter note, the search for a new dining set for Patsy and Joe was successfully completed today. We found a beautiful round cherry table with four chairs on casters. This will replace an old rattan set with a glass-topped table. It is more than 20 years old and was bought as porch furniture, so both Patsy and Joe seemed quite pleased with the set we found today. They have a formal dining room, but this set goes in the area between the kitchen and the living room which is small and much less formal. So we can now check that search off the list of ‘To Do’s” and go on to the next.
If my parents were still living, this would have been their 90th wedding anniversary. Ollie and Hayes, wherever you are, we were thinking of you today.
by Judy Handley | Apr 14, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 162, Year 8: Slow and Easy Sunday
Date: Sunday, April 14, 2013
Weather: Winds ESE 10; Temp in the Upper 70’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
After yesterday’s work frenzy, we took it easy today. That doesn’t mean we didn’t do anything, but it was a much easier day than yesterday. There was very little wind early this morning, so Mark took advantage of that to replace the second reef line in the main sail and then raise the main to check that everything was working right. While he did that I did a little internet research looking for a dining/kitchen set for Patsy. Mark was successful but I was not. So my search continues. We then went to Patsy and Joe’s for the afternoon and evening. When we arrived here in November we took five huge plastic boxes of our stored photos out of Patsy’s guest closet. They have been sitting in one of the guest bedrooms ever since, so today we started going through the boxes looking for the last few photos we need to complete Mark’s 70th birthday book. We are determined to complete that project before we leave here and we certainly need to get the photo boxes put away. We made good progress today and will get those boxes put away tomorrow. In the late afternoon, Joe managed to get all of us interested in watching the final few holes of the Masters Golf Tournament. We watched the first ever Australian, Adam Scott, win the tournament. While this was going on, Mark and I worked together to fix a stir fry dinner which we ate as soon as the Masters ended. And we are now back on Windbird. We have made the decision to leave here on or about Monday, April 29, so we can now prepare for the trek northward slowly. I was almost in a panic thinking we would be leaving next Monday. We now have an extra week to prepare the boat and get food and other supplies ready, and that process will start tomorrow.
by Judy Handley | Apr 13, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 161, Year 8: Spring Cleaning
Date: Saturday, April 13, 2013
Weather: Breezy with Winds SSW 20; Temp in the 70’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
Now I know why I love living on a boat—the ‘windows’ are tiny and there aren’t very many of them! Today Mark power washed Patsy and Joe’s house while Patsy, Joe, and I took out all of the window screens and cleaned all 20 some of the windows from top to bottom. The only good thing I can say about doing a job like that is that Patsy and Joe’s windows are the modern-type that are relatively easy to clean and the job is done. We also cleaned out the garage and power washed the garage floor. Then at 4:30 we hurried back to Windbird to get ready to go to a Power Squadron meeting—it was just a ‘power’ sort of day. This meeting was our last before we head north, but we are going to take Windbird down the Intracoastal a few miles next weekend to a Squadron gathering at Barefoot Landing. Back in the 1990’s when we first sailed down here on our previous boat, Sky Breaker, you could tie up to Barefoot landing for a couple of nights for free. Unfortunately that is no longer the case, but we are going to take Brian and Judy Thompson with us and make this our South Carolina farewell. We are not sure yet whether we will be heading north on the Monday after next weekend’s Barefoot Landing outing or whether we will wait one more week and leave on Monday, April 29. The weather next week is looking unsettled so we know we would have to do the Intracoastal. There is a chance that by waiting, we could go outside and have a five day trip instead of traveling for more than two weeks. And besides, our good friend Lee Kaufman would love to go with us and he really can’t go until the 29th. He was offered a price he couldn’t refuse and sold his boat Lee Way. Now he is frantically looking for another one. He and Lynda will go to a boat show in Annapolis on the weekend of the 27th and 28th in hopes of finding a boat, and then he would be back and ready to leave on the 29th. That doesn’t give us any hope of getting back to Cape Cod to help Heather with the boys while Jed is in Portugal from May 1 to May 9. So we’ll keep watching the weather, factor in all the various options, and make a final decision soon.
We started our day today with a fun Skype video call with Heather, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie. It is the start of a week of spring vacation for Sam and he and Jonah were full of energy and imagination. They were dressed in their astronaut outfits with the addition of their EMT vests. They were pretending to rescue people in outer space. First they saved Abraham Lincoln from the Sun and then they traveled to a moon of Jupiter that had a river and they had to add snorkel masks for the next save. Unfortunately, Ollie had a fever all night and he wasn’t quite himself. He just wanted Mommy to hold him, but he did give us a few smiles. Sam and Jonah also shared some of their art work. When Sam showed us a paper mache bird he asked if we had ever done paper mache art. I explained that I had when I was in school. He then explained that his art teacher told him that paper mache is “almost as hard as plastic and is very, very precious” and he wanted to know if my art teacher had told me the same thing. I had to tell him that my art teacher had not told me that, but all I could think is that Sam is the ‘precious’ one.
by Judy Handley | Apr 12, 2013 | Little River, SC, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 160, Year 8: Battle of the Lizards
Date: Friday, April 12, 2013
Weather: Winds SSW 18-20; Heavy Rain Overnight & Late Afternoon; Temp in the High 70’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
The Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is a lizard that lives in trees in the southeastern United States and on some Caribbean islands. It is bright green and can change colors like the chameleon although it is not a true chameleon. Rather it is more closely related to the iguana. These green lizards are very common here and even though Patsy really doesn’t like the little critters, they hang out on her back patio. It rained hard early and then again late in the day, but around noon time it was beautiful and we went out on the deck to have lunch. That is when we noticed the two male anoles in a fierce battle. These little guys are quite territorial and they were fighting it out. First one would bite down on the head of the other and they would stay in this position for quite some time. Then the captive would break loose and they would go at it again. Before long, one would clamp its jaws down on the other again. We could actually pick the pair up by the tail of one and they would just hang there locked together. I guess we must be desperate for entertainment because we did find this most interesting. Brian Thompson was over visiting and we all got quite a kick out of the show.
I did some of the house cleaning I was supposed to do today, but then Patsy and I went out shopping for a new casual dining set to replace the one they have had for over 20 years. We didn’t find what we were looking for, but it was great to see Patsy out and about and enjoying the afternoon. She still had the energy to go out for Friday night pizza when we got home, so I think she is finally getting back to normal. She’s had a rough go of it and it is wonderful to see finally enjoying life again.
Mark and I talked to Heather and Ollie on the phone this afternoon. Ollie might not be talking in our language yet, but he is quite expressive in his version of baby talk. Heather was raving about an art show at Sam’s school last night and sent along some of Sam’s kindergarten treasures that I am sharing with you here.
