All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go

One hundred straight days of scuba, sunshine, and happy hour. Long dinners with our yachtie friends, great hikes and endless perfect sunsets as L'ORIENT bobs gently in the southern Caribbean........then, wham. We step off the plane in Chicago and it's 30 degrees. My work computer coughs and staggers to life...........and downloads bunches of appointments. As we make our way to the hotel and rental car, everyone we encounter seems to have a runny nose and is sneezing. Back to work.

Kirstin and I talk about not giving in...........not allowing the USA to kill our "caribbean chill". We are determined to

1) never feel time pressure
2) look on the bright side
3) and never, never, never count the days (they'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done)

But it's hard. We never take our return to the boat as a given (although we buy return tickets very far in advance as an incentive to persevere). So many of our sailing friends seem to leave the cruising lifestyle abruptly that we know the music could stop at any time. And it makes the trip back to the Caribbean and our boat that much more joyful.

We've bought L'ORIENT a treasure trove of boat-goodies...........flooring, spare parts, odds and ends. We spare no expense for our chariot which has carried us this far.

Our family visits have been great................and doing our taxes is a good long term strategy to stay out of trouble with the government. So all is well. Hope it warms up soon.