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In another twist of fate, Gwyn’s mom came ill in early August. After much investigation a tumor was discovered in her pancreas. We arrived back to the boat from Paul’s mom’s the evening onf August 11th. Gwyn departed for Edmonton on Aug 13th to help her mom pre and post op. After three weeks Gwyn is finally back. Paul joined Gwyn in Edmonton from august 31 to sep 3. Paul’s sister Linda volunteered to watch Charlie on the boat for a few days. They happened to be the hottest of the summer. Charlie’s fur was getting quite long and knotted. After a romp in the water Linda just could not get the brush through the knots. So off to a groomer they went. The groomer said he would try but was not into inflicting pain and if necessary he would have to shave him. So he got a down to the skin shave. While he’s much cooler, Linda feared the worst and sent a warning via email while we were on route.. We forgave her of course. Afterall she had been tortured enough with the hot water heater giving up, followed by the water pump not working, 40 degree heat and of course keeping Charlie entertained. It was quite the weekend for her. Thanks Linda for everything.

While Gwyn is in Canada caring for her ailing Mum, Paul and Charlie have been organizing things on the boat. Yesterday they drove the boat over to a marine maintenance dock and had the mast removed. This makes it easier to re-rig the mast as well as install radar. Can’t wait to see pictures. Paul promises to try to get them loaded soon.

Well maybe not so soon.  But here they are.  Charlie and I had to take a 1.5 hour motor ride to the yard since the sails were already off.  This was his first sail, err motor, on Blue Sky:

 

 

Look Ma, no safety belt, just riding the hoist up the mast

Walking off with the mast

A hard days work done. A little shut eye on the way home

 

So that was it for the day except after a walk after dinner, Charlie celebrated with cleaning the spaghetti bowl.

Now that it is the last day of July, I figured I should at least put a post on the blog, although we have not been sailing at all this month.

The month started with us settling at the marina in Edgewater, Maryland (near Annapolis). On July 3^rd we flew back to Vancouver (separate flights, just like royalty).  Our purposes were many: Paul to finish knowledge transfer at work, both to complete readying our old boat and get it up for sale, pick up items from storage that need to come to Blue Sky and with that came the rearranging of the storage locker, and lastly to pick up Charlie and drive to the boat. We’d also try to see family and friends (sadly we did not get to everyone, so we’ll promise to reconnect with those we missed on our next visit).

During our passage, Paul’s mother fell ill and is no longer able to live in her townhome.  His siblings took turns helping out during her time in hospital and extended care, and we decided that Paul would fly to help with her move to assisted living immediately following the trip to Vancouver.  This left Gwyn to drive the ~5000km across the country, stopping first in Edmonton to pick up Charlie (our dog). On Saturday, July 14^th we went to storage and fully loaded car with the rest of our must haves for the boat (some things we just could not fit). By 4:30pm Gwyn left with grand-daughter in tow for the first leg of the trip. Arrived in Edmonton on July 15^th, 8:30am and stayed for 48 hours.  From there it was a 2 day trip to Custer, South Dakota where Gwyn and Charlie visited Paul’s sister and brother in law in their RV (we are not the first vagabonds of the family).  After an evening of chatting and a good night of sleep we proceeded on.  Next stop 2 days later, was in South Lyon, Michigan, to visit Gwyn’s son.  Another 14 hours of driving and we arrived to Paul’s mom’s place in Burlington, North Carolina.

At the time of this writing we are still in Burlington. Paul’s mother is adapting nicely to her new apartment, and the home is slowly being cleared of things that she no longer needs.  We spend time with her ensuring she is getting her exercise walking and swimming. Last Friday night she asked if we could take her to the weekly movie.  What a joy to see her face when she met up with her friends that she regularly went to the movies with prior to her stroke.  They insisted on sitting with her and did much chatting afterward. More visits with old neighbors followed on Monday at the ice cream social.  It’s clear that when the family heads back to their respective homes, she will need these friends to help her stay engaged in her community.

Meanwhile, Paul was asked to be available for work through end of July as much as he is able.  So today is officially his last day before retirement.

We’ll likely be here another week or so before returning to Blue Sky to proceed with the work needed before further open ocean travels (radar installation, more solar, add a watermaker and a washer). We’ve ordered a Sailrite sewing machine and Gwyn purchased some bargain fabric to start adding color and to recover some of the cushions on the boat. Even moving to a boat, requires decorating skills to make it a home. While we are both looking forward to getting back to our home and get ourselves settled, we are also cherishing the gift of time with Paul’s 92 year old mother.  We take every moment spent with her and embrace it as part of our transition to this new life.

As promised, here are some photos of our days in the Bahamas (June 8 – 20, 2013)

MAYAGUANA ISLAND, BAHAMAS (June 7-8)

Paul went ashore to clear customs. Only the captain is permitted ashore until this is done.

Night sail to long island (June 9)

CLARENCE TOWN, LONG ISLAND, BAHAMAS (June 10-11th)

Night sail Long Island to Cat Island (June 12)

CAT ISLAND, BAHAMAS (June 13)

LITTLE SAN SALVADOR ISLAND, BAHAMAS (June 14th)

ELEUTHERA ISLAND, BAHAMAS (June 15-17)

Two stops: Governors Harbor (no photos, did not go ashore) and Spanish Wells

GREAT HARBOUR CAY, BAHAMAS (June 19th)

No photos, did not go ashore

Night sail June 20th

WEST END, GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND (June 21)

Fuel stop and reported our departure to customs

 

After 27 days on the water, we arrived in Annapolis June 27th around 3:30 in the afternoon. We would have arrived about 12 hours sooner, but had to find safe harbour from a storm on our last night of sailing, so put up the Q flag and headed for the nearest bay. Safe harbour took us 2 hours off route, that‘s a drag. Speaking of a drag, as we arrived to “safe harbour” we put down the anchor only minutes before the driving rain hit, and had to start the motors back up as we watched our anchor app tell us we had dragged 80 meters. Once the initial storm passed over I headed back to the bow, pulled up the anchor and reset it. Again more rain and more dragging. Arghhh. The rain was not letting up and darkness was falling, so I headed out in the rain. Three times and finally got it set good and proper. No sooner had we done that and the storm completely stopped and we sat in the calmest of water. No way to get through all the crab traps in the dark, so we were forced to sleep until morning. What a treat to have a solid 7 hours of sleep after 6  days and nights of solid sailing.

We arrived in Annapolis and had more fun (not) getting ourselves tied to a mooring ball so that we could clear in. We called in to customs only to find out that the internet was wrong in stating that you could clear in at the city dock. We now have to rent a car and drive to Baltimore (an hour away) to go through immigration and the clear customs. Both of these have to be done in two separate locations. Given our arrival time this will be done on Friday. We’ve secured a rental car and will head ashore with our paperwork shortly.

Looking forward to getting this done so we can buy some fresh produce. Enough of the canned tomatoes and sauerkraut. We celebrate the fact that we sailed from the BVI to here, just the two of us. We did it. Does that mean we are now doners? Yes siree, it does. We’ve gone from dreamers, to doers, to doners. And you better belive that we’ll be doing it again as soon as hurricane season is past. For now we will ready ourselves to return to Canada so P can finish his job and provide knowledge transfer to his replacement. Then we head to Burlington NC to  visit Paul’s mom and help her settle into a new assisted living apartment. Somewhere in all of this Gwyn will drive the car to get Charlie and bring the rest of our gear to the boat. We’ll figure out what to do with the car after that.