Day 354, Year 7: Celebrations . . . and Weather
Date: Saturday, October 27, 2012
Weather: Lovely Weather-The Calm Before the Storm
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Today went from hurricane preparation to downtown Falmouth Halloween fun
with the grandchildren to more hurricane preparation and then on to a 38th
anniversary celebration hosted by Heather and Jed. It was by far the best
anniversary dinner we have ever had-mussels as an appetizer, lobster and
filet mignon, rice pilaf, and an arugula salad with dried apricots.
Delicious. There was Chocolate Decadence for dessert and a toast with our
favorite wine, Pouilly Fuisse. Wow! What a day.
Mark and I started our day by surveying the boat and making decisions about
exactly what we would do to prepare for the coming storm. The forecast
keeps adjusting, but by this morning it looked to us like we might get 50
knot winds, but maybe not. Tonight the forecast is back to wind gusts of 70
knots. But we made our decision to stay on the dock and not go out to a
mooring. Buzz, the Woods Hole Marine owner, told Mark this morning that
they are trying to get boats in to the dock, not out. So we started
securing the lines. Before we could get very much accomplished it was time
to go to Heather and Jed’s and pick up Justin, Jo, and crew to go to the
downtown Falmouth Halloween ‘parade.’ Parade just means lots of little ones
dressed in their costumes walking from store to store to get candy. Ziggy
went dressed as a Lady Bug. Sam and Jonah both went as Emergency Medical
Technicians in blue scrubs Heather made for them yesterday. They couldn’t
decide if they wanted to be doctors, male nurses, or EMT’s, but the blue
scrubs worked for all three. Heather dressed as the ocean and Oliver was
her Nemo. Jed wore the wizard costume that has become a tradition in our
family. Mark wore it for many years starting somewhere back in the 1980’s
and now Jed has adopted it. Coco was dressed in pink, so I decided that she
was a princess. The ‘parade’ was a low key event, but the by the time
Ziggy, Sam, and Jonah had eaten a great deal of their take, we walked back
to one of the churches on the green and relaxed with Sam, Jonah, and Ziggy
bounced and bounced in the Bouncy House. No better way to get rid of the
sugar highs. While sitting in the church yard, we came up with an elaborate
menu for our anniversary celebration, and then Mark and I went back to
Windbird to try and complete the hurricane prep while the kids went home to
prepare the dinner.
Hurricane Prep-We are not taking down the sails, but Mark did a meticulous
job of wrapping them with line so they should be fine. I took down most of
the cockpit canvas and stored it below. By the time we did these things, it
was time to head to Heather’s. We arrived just in time for the mussel
appetizer and then the delicious food just kept on coming. The filet mignon
was the most tender I have ever had and the lobster was wonderful. Sam,
Jonah, and Ziggy had lobster races before the lobsters went into the pot and
Sam had a touch time with this. He really wanted to eat lobster, but not
lobster he had played with. Always a dilemma for me as well. But I dove
right into the lobster and enjoyed every bite. After dinner Justin shared
the contents of a birthday book that we have been trying to complete since
July. It is still not done, but it was so nice to let Mark start reading
through the messages sent to him from family and friends. He can read more
tomorrow when we take Justin and Jo to Boston. They were able to change
their late Monday afternoon flight to an early morning one, so we will take
them up and they will stay in a motel near the airport. At this point, we
are planning to drive back home to be on Windbird tomorrow night, but we
will have to drive back to Boston for Mark’s scan on Monday afternoon. The
two bridges that link Cape Cod with the rest of Massachusetts close if the
winds are greater than 70 miles an hour, and tonight the forecast is back to
showing 70 miles per hour sustained gusts on Monday. It looks like it
shouldn’t get that windy until late afternoon, so we are going to chance
driving north on Monday in all the rain.
Tomorrow morning we will finish hurricane preparations and then go to
Heather and Jed’s to pick up Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco. They decided to
spend another night there as Ziggy, Jonah, and Sam have started really
enjoying their time together. We will bring JJZ&C back out here to Woods
Hole to say farewell to Windbird and then we’ll head to Boston. All the
while, we will be watching the weather forecasts hoping that we don’t have
to stay in Boston tomorrow night as well.
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| 121027 Day 354 Cape Cod, USA–Halloween and Anniversary Celebrations |
