Day 118, Year 5: The Neighborhood is Shrinking!
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010
Weather: More Sunny, Hot, and Hazy
Location: Bolgatty Hotel Anchorage, Cochin (Kochi), India
When you are at anchor, the other boats around you become your neighborhood. And since we can’t walk on water, the only way to visit is by dinghy or by meeting at a place on shore. The meeting place is usually a little restaurant and bar onshore that has grown to accommodate the cruisers. But here we do not have a place on shore to meet other cruisers and we just haven’t gotten to know people. But what we do know is that there are now only six sailboats here, and no one is aboard any of them except Ed and Lynne on Constance and Mark and I. Judy and Dave on Freebird left for Salalah in Oman a few days ago, and then yesterday morning Rod and Lu on Skylax and the folks on a catamaran named Dejavu left. That left six boats, but the people on the other four boats must be traveling. It’s getting a little lonely here and as of tomorrow morning, it will be even lonelier. Lynne is flying home to the US tomorrow. Her mother, who is 88, took a bit of a tumble in the middle of the night a few days ago, couldn’t get up and wasn’t found for about 21 hours. She is now in the hospital fighting to recover. Her progress has been up and down, and finally Lynne decided that she just had to go home to see her. Since we live in such a small neighborhood, I find it uncanny that the only two “homes” with people aboard have both had family emergencies within a week of each other. And the other thing that I find uncanny is the reported difference in health care in South Carolina where my brother went to the emergency room and in Boynton Beach in Florida where Lynn’s mother lives. My brother-in-law Joe told me that he was absolutely amazed at the speed and competence in the emergency room where my brother was sent. On the other hand, Lynn’s mother was kept in the emergency room in Boynton Beach for over 48 hours because there was no room in the inn. The hospital is so overcrowded that they just cannot deal. But Lynne’s mother is now in a room and one of Lynne’s sisters lives close-by and is holding down the fort until other family members arrive. Lynne will leave early in the morning, fly to Dubai, sit for about twelve hours, fly to Atlanta, and then on to Florida. She will arrive on Tuesday and right now is slated to return on March 6. If that schedule sticks, we will stay here and wait until her return so that Windbird and Constance can sail south together. If she is delayed, we will have to make a decision at that point, but for now we will stay put and enjoy more of southern India. In the meantime, we can only hope that Lynne’s mother will recover rapidly and that Lynne will be back with us soon. Safe travels to Lynne and a speedy recovery to Lynne’s mother. Please know that we are thinking of you.
Today was a quiet Sunday. We started our day with a call to Justin, Jo, and Ziggy. Justin and Jo are doing well and are excited that there are signs of spring in the desert in New Mexico. Ziggy is now crawling FAST and pulling up to a standing position every chance he gets. During this call he was much more interested in the monitor screen and the keyboard than in calls in the past. But when the wooden blocks of buildings in London were brought out, he switched his attention. He played with the blocks for a bit and then he was off crawling again. He isn’t speaking in words yet, but he certainly gets his messages across. Tonight we talked with Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah. Jonah is also on the move these days, wanting to hold on to anything or anyone he can and then walk. He just started crawling a couple of weeks ago, but now pulling up and holding on while walking is his preferred method of transport. So both babies will soon be walking. Talking to Sam is whole different experience from watching Jonah and Ziggy. Sam is very much a three-year old. He typed us a Skype message while we were talking and drew a picture that he said he had to send to us. We can actually have a bit of back and forth conversation with Sam. We will hope to have at least one more Skype video call with Ziggy, Jonah, and Sam before leaving here. And then we hope to be able to call them from the southern atoll in the Maldives. After that it will be almost three months before we can call again. I can’t bear to even think about that, but I can be thankful that at least there is email. I really don’t think I could do this without being in email contact with my family.
Today I spent the morning cleaning the inside of the boat, while Mark worked on a sail repair project. Just after noon, Ed stopped by to introduce us to a local family that they had invited to Constance for the afternoon. They knew of the family from another cruising boat that spent eight months here. We were introduced, but I regret that I cannot remember their names. They were a lovely couple with two beautiful little girls, probably seven and three years old. Then I spent the rest of my afternoon getting packages ready to send to our kids. Once I learned that Lynne is going home, I figured it smarter to send things with her to be mailed from the US rather than risk that things sent from here will actually reach their destination.
Our compressor is still in Chennai waiting for clearance, so we are thinking that we will go to Fort Cochin tomorrow to do some more sight seeing, and then hopefully we will receive the compressor on Tuesday and start the process of getting that installed. In between any of these activities, we will continue the reprovisioning. Departure is now two weeks away, but I know that time will go quickly. We’ll never feel like we have all the provisions we need. But we will travel on and we will do just fine.
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| 100221 Day 118 Sam & Jonah Skype Call |
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| 100221 Day 118 Ziggy Skype Call |
