Day 19, Year 9: Farewell to Shambala . . . Maybe
Date: Friday, November 8, 2013
Weather: Sunny and Somewhat Windy, High in the Upper 40’s F
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, North Falmouth, Massachusetts
Chris and Geoff came over to Heather and Jed’s house this afternoon to say their farewells. Getting a favorable weather window for sailing west from here to New York City just isn’t happening, so they are going tomorrow when the winds from the west will be less than predicted for the next week. They will leave tomorrow morning, but if it is too miserable out there they will simply turn around and come back. So that is the ‘maybe’ part of the subject line. We love having them close-by, but they have no heat and the nights here are getting chilly. I’m not sure it will be any warmer in New York, but once they arrive there and do some sightseeing, they can then continue on to the Chesapeake Bay. And it should be warmer there. Once they arrive in Norfolk, they will be in a marina for the winter and they will figure out a way to get heat in the boat. In the meantime, we hope for their sakes that the temps stay somewhat moderate.
Heather was out doing field work yesterday and last night noticed that she had a deer tick attached to her stomach. She tried to remove it, but she couldn’t get the head out. I would have thought that the cooler weather would have meant the end of tick season, but not so. There are no nymphs (which are so tiny that they are a true challenge to find), but the adults persist well into the winter months. The only good thing about this is that they are large enough to be noticed so they are usually spotted and removed before Lyme disease is transmitted. Heather went to see her primary care physician today and was told that there is nothing that can be done right now. They will wait for six weeks and then do blood tests. But since she is almost certain that she got the tick yesterday, it wasn’t on her long enough to be a problem. Still, you wait and do the testing just in case.
