Lost at sea? Not yet.

I know this blog has bogged down, as many of you have asked if we're lost at sea yet. Sorry for the delay in postings; I just really don't know where the days go.  I wake up to the sound of blackbirds chatting (and sh**ing) on the neatly lined-up fleet of boats across the marina, including our regular village Osprey (named Oliver) that watches over us every night. He's really cool and forgiven by most of us when he leaves a calling card on the deck.

Oliver the Osprey

 

 

Happy hour with the dock mates

And then, before I know it----it's HAPPY HOUR!  jeez, what's a working sailor to do?  

The proverbial list of things "to do" seems to get longer and mind you, these are not fluffy things to do like bake cookies or clean the head; these are vital to survival for us to cast off.
Some items have been on the list since day one; things just take lots of time to complete around here.  And though we come from the land of mañana----where the definition is actually "not today", a lot of this stuff takes research and then patience.  

Bobstay repair

Underneath the dual anchors on the bowsprit, we'll be replacing a cracked bracket that holds the "bobstay", which is integral for the mast to stay upright. 

 

One morning found us venturing up into an acrophobe's worst nightmare. Tim replaced a missing screw midway up on the mast light and inspected the cross-spreader boot ends. Then it was my turn (don't freak out, Mom, that's me getting hoisted further up top into the ethers to inspect the tri-color light and head sail connection.  I found it actually exhilarating and comfortable to be hanging from there, unlike many of our dock neighbors, who watched in respectful awe.  

Krista came in from the snowy depths of Taos, where she had spent Xmas holidays with Malia and cousin David on the ski slopes.   She had to adapt to our early-to-bed schedule; even on New Year's Eve, we toasted to 2015 at sunset---cheers! 

She adapted beautifully to our new nautical life, especially when it was a warm, sunny day of waxing the hull.

But alas, it is winter and not all days are bikini friendly.
As high mountain desert dwellers who are used to single-digit temps, we have been shocked by how cold it can be at 55°F;  it's the cold humidity that permeates to the bones.  We naively thought we would be sweating every day, even in January. Our wardrobe mostly consists of summer T-shirts and shorts (how silly of us).  I just bought another fleece jacket. The one I brought from the Rocky Mts. is very tired. And good thing Tim brought his ski jacket; it's doubled as ocean foul weather gear!  

Ft Pierce Navy UDT-SEAL museum

SEAL Class 53

The holidays tended to stall out our boat projects, so we decided to head over to the east coast of Florida.  In Ft. Pierce, there is a Navy UDT-SEAL museum we visited. They had the SDVs that Tim had used in his second Vietnam tour and one life-size display of the VN era.  It was a small and privately underfunded museum, but we did find his Class 53 team photo.





Also found some beach time for the college kid before she heads back to minus 15F, and a quick visit to the newest member of the Wyly family----Annika, our grandniece.

Annika & our niece Shannon

One beautiful Saturday afternoon found us out in Tampa Bay with 15-20 knot winds, feeling the power and strength of our Island Packet sailboat. 

Looking for dolphins....

She is a full keel boat that handles and performs better in higher winds and waves than a fin keel boat.  And though she may sail slower in light winds, we'll take the strength of the linebacker over the speed of the wide receiver any day. After all, we got time.

Looking for avalanches?

Mother-daughter

Sunset sailing

We had originally thought we would only be dockside for upgrades and repairs through the end of January, but in the true nature of mañana, it will probably be the end of February. And then the plan is to head south towards the Florida Keys to the land of Buffet and margaritas for a couple of months.  Now we're off to buy and install dinghy davits... or... maybe tomorrow.