HAPPY NEW YEAR

Peace to the world and all the best to everybody reading this blog. I know it is  nearly a month since my last entry and that should not happen, because there was a lot to write about. We are in a marina attached to the boat yard, where we were working on land (in  marine language its called on the hard) and feeling very good about it, especially because yesterday in the late afternoon I heard a big splash in the water and said to Jacques that there must be some big fish in the bayou, we looked and there they were, the dolphins, 5 feet from the boat. I Burned the food because I was so fascinated by this sight, wonderful, they swam around for at least half an hour and than they probably went home, it was fantastic.

Over Christmas Paul, Karyn and the kids were here, they had the worst week weather wise since we have arrived in Florida. They had a flight on Friday night but when they arrived at the airport nothing was going or flying, the only thing that had arrived was 3 feet of new snow. The earliest they might get out was Sunday night. So they decided to pack the car and drive through the night to get here. It was cold and rainy but luckily the last two days made good and we went with them on our first water trial with warm weather and even Karyn came to sun on the foredeck. In the evening it was the 24th we went to a great Japanese restaurant where they do all the tricks, Zoe said it was magic, and then Karyn and I sent everybody for a fake shopping and hurried to the boat to prepare the presents Santa had brought to the boat (we had informed him earlier that we would be in Florida and not Wisconsin), is was a very different but nice Christmas eve.

The last day of their visit was a bit foggy but warm and we went to the Pensacola beach. The sand is really white and there are tons of shells half of which were collected by Alex and Zoe. It was good that they had the car to stow them.

The dinghy has a new name now and is called Alex. As soon as he was awake he stood next to the dinghy and was looking for somebody to get with him in the boat, he was really very good and also steered  Lady Hawk for a long time by himself, he is a born boater.

Ria