Merry Christmas

Christmas day began with Santa playing a cruel joke on us....a furnace that would not start and this is after leaving him rum and eggnog. Luckily we have a gas fireplace so we huddled by the warmth to open our gifts. Rob called our local gas man and one of the joys of living in a small community is that even on Christmas day one can get service. So by early afternoon we had our furnace outfitted with a new blower and a new appreciation for central heating and travel in The Bahamas.
Despite the way the day started Santa did end up spoiling us once again. Rob's picture shows him with Peter's whale pictures from last year's trip to the Dominican Republic. The whale that we saw was near Big Sand, a remote island between the Turks and Caicos and the DR. It was so exciting to see the humpbacks and I would return there just to see the whales again.
We joined our friends Brian and Gayle for a wonderful meal to end the day. The day had started out cool but had ended with the warmth of friendship.
Now we look forward to a January Christmas and Hannukah celebration with Lynn and Peter on First Edition.

Winter Comes to Bayfield

We decided to cook our Christmas turkey last weekend and enjoyed a lovely meal with Christine's mom and our friends Gayle and Brian. Christine pulled out all the stops and cooked up a gourmet meal.
Winter has come to Bayfield and the river is becoming quite frozen along with some large ice hummocks along the lake front. It is always a miracle to me that in just a few months we are swimming in this water. We do love the seasons in Ontario but we are also grateful to be spending some of the coldest part of the year in The Bahamas.

Sea Biscuit or Snowball?

We have chosen the sea biscuit thanks to the wonders of cortisone and are heading south on January 5th. We are taking Spirit Air to Fort Lauderdale on the 5th, overnighting in Fort Lauderdale and then flying out on the Cessna Yellow Air Taxi on the morning of the 6th. This way we can get to the boat yard in decent time. We will have to remove Celebrian's cover, put everything away, get a little food and water on board and just make room to lay our heads down. If all goes well we hope to be able to launch later Friday afternoon and spend the weekend at the dock getting sails on etc. Those of you that boat know how much work it takes to get a boat ready to sail.
The cortisone is giving Christine some relief in her shoulder; however she still feels frustrated with the lack of full range of motion and the remaining pain. At the same time any relief seemed to be a blessing and a signal that we should try and go south. The sport medicine doctor's only concern was repetitive overhead actions and carrying anything over 10 pounds. The physiotherapist feels that she will heal much better in the warm weather environmnent doing her exercises on the boat and in the water. Living on the boat requires lots of physical work but we are hopeful that with moderation and care she will be able to manage. We won't be doing any over night passages or trips to the Dominican Republic this year; however there is always next sailing season. We are just grateful that we are able to go and look forward to seeing Lynn and Peter and sailing with First Edition for another winter.