Happy New Year, 2018!

Happy New Year to all – may it be healthy, happy and see all of your wishes come true, including world peace. J

Here in Trumpland we hear very little about politics. The people we’ve met in Westland Marina are lovely, and come from all over – Germany, Quebec and Ontario, Norway, Florida and all the other States, including a great Jewish guy named Mark from Brooklyn – an 84 year old biomedical engineer, who’s still sailing and working!

After 12 days here of working on the boat, sharing stories, tips and help with these folks, it’s beginning to feel like quite a community. We celebrated New Years Eve together last night with a great pot-luck dinner under an almost full moon, a roaring fire in the 8 degree weather, and guitar music provided by two of the boaters. We did a countdown at 9:00 (boater’s “midnight”) to the sound of fireworks all around us in the local parks, wished each other “Happy New Year”, and went to bed. We’re still tucked in at 11:30 a.m. – a rare day of goofing off.

Some of the pics below are from a bike ride I took while it was still sunny (pouring today) – to the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge near Cape Canaveral – a nice break from boat work. Looks like we’ll still be here for a while – maybe ‘til Friday. Plumbing and bilge cleaning next, and we’re waiting for our newly recovered cockpit cushions to be returned. We also had new windows sewn into our dodger that took quite a beating last season. So Sea Change is starting to look very spiffy again.

Hope this year starts well for all of you, dear friends and family – we miss you and hope that where ever you are right now, it’s exactly where you want to be!