Day 255, Year 6 Sights and Sounds of a Seaport
Date: Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Weather: Foggy, Foggy Day; Temps in the Upper 70’s
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts

Woods Hole is a tiny port, but today it fit the sights and sounds of a quintessential New England seaport with heavy fog and the sound of ferries and boats blaring their fog horns all day. Tonight we are even more socked in than ever, so I’m not sure what tomorrow’s weather will be like. Fog can be neat to sit and experience, but it is not neat to go out in. We had enough fog on our passage from the Carolinas, so I’m glad we have no place we have to go. Just getting from the dinghy dock to Windbird was enough “at sea” experience for me in the fog.

I spent my day basically spinning my wheels, but I had fun doing it. I drove Mark to work, did a bit of food shopping, and then went to Heather and Jed’s to take a shower. I knew I would be coming back there in the afternoon but I wasn’t sure I would get a chance to take a shower-and a cold water shower on Windbird on a foggy, foggy day did not sound inviting. But by the time I drove back to Woods Hole and had lunch, it was time to go back H & J’s. I was to leave the car I have been driving in Woods Hole so Heather would have a way home later in the day and I was to drive into Falmouth with Jed to pick up the boys at Summer Camp. Jed took the afternoon off work to help with the adjustment of eventually having only Oma pick up the boys. Today both boys slept for most of the afternoon, so I had time to talk to our son Justin as well as another really good friend. Justin was calling to figure out our schedule when he, Jo, and Ziggy fly in from England to visit for a few days and he’s trying to help us figure out the cheapest and best way to go with cell phone and internet access. When we get that figured out, we’ll let you know. After the call from Justin, I checked my email and there was a message from a fellow teacher and good friend back in Concord, New Hampshire-Barbara O’Brien. Barbara is finishing up work on her PhD by the end of the summer and she is engaged to another really good friend, Chris. Actually, Chris was a student teacher that I supervised in another life, so I am so excited that two good friends are engaged to be married. Barbara had a message for me from Linda Stuart who, as friends go, is at the top of my list. I emailed Barbara back right away and then Linda called and we had a wonderful conversation. Linda, her husband Michael, and son Garrett flew to visit with us when we were in the South Pacific and were aboard Windbird when the Survivor bombards came to rescue us when we went aground in a narrow pass in a reef. Garrett was thirteen then and is now getting ready to head off to college. My, the years do pass so quickly. He is currently in Europe working and visiting with friends and next week Linda and Michael will fly to Amsterdam to meet him and the three of them will bike and camp their way around the Netherlands. Now that I know that, I’m hoping to hook them up with our good friends Pieter and Carla of Odulphus who we met in Chagos and spent time with in Madagascar and South Africa. They should have left the Azores by now and could be home in the Netherlands. I hope so because it would be so much fun to have these friends meet.

Tonight we decided to splurge and go out to Jamaican Grill Night at Coonamessett Farms. This is a local organic farm where you can go pick fresh fruits and veggies and go out and get farm fresh eggs right from the chicken nests. And on Wednesday nights in the summer they have this Jamaican Grill Night with a steel drum player for entertainment. Tons of people were there, the food and music was great, and the kids really had a good time riding the array of child-sized farm tractors and interacting with all of the other children and animals-goats, llamas, chickens, and even a donkey. We’ll call this Mark’s pre-birthday dinner and tomorrow night we will have the real birthday dinner at Heather and Jed’s. A couple of packages arrived for Mark today, so he’ll even have presents to open.