What a wonderful Christmas day! We lolled around the boat all morning, fuelled by a French toast brunch cooked on the bar-b-que, as our propane stove is currently not working. We opened a present to each other of t-shirts embroidered with "Sea Change ll" (see pic below), and then had many phone calls with friends and family in Toronto and Montreal. The good news is that everyone survived the ice storm in Toronto, though several families were without power, and some still are, but all are coping. Our thoughts are very much with you - hope power is restored really soon.

Neighbours reported to us that our back yard is filled with broken limbs from the near-by maple trees - but the fellow we hired to clear the snow is taking care of that for us - and thankfully there is no damage.

So, relieved to hear all of that, we took ourselves out for nachos and lattes, and then went to see the newly released film - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Well-done bit of entertainment - do see it.

Nice to have a day off - tomorrow it's back to work to finish up. Looks like next weekend might provide the weather window we're waiting for. Could be New Year's eve in the Bahamas - let's hope!

Happy holidays from Marilyn and Jeff (Marilyn writing) ...

Christmas morning and all is well! We're celebrating by taking the day mostly off, having completed putting Sea Change back together yesterday, with the help of a new friend, Pierre, who assisted with the radar installation. It took some blood, sweat and tears - we all sweated, Jeff cut his finger (not serious) and dripped blood all over the freshly cleaned and sparkling cockpit, which almost brought me to tears :).

But it all got done, and then we celebrated our 29th anniversary by joining Pierre, his wife, and 6 other Quebecois (highly experienced sailors), newly arrived at the Marina, for a Quebec-style Reveillon in the crew lounge. The conversation was an amusing combination of French and English - a "Fringlish" that I'm very familiar with from having lived half my life in Quebec. These lovely warm people toasted us with champagne, and we ended the evening by agreeing with one couple to sail across to the Bahamas together at the next good weather window - a bonus!

Hope all of you are enjoying the holidays with family and friends - know that we miss you a whole bunch, and think of you often.

Now on to a breakfast of French toast - seem appropriate. Here are a few pics of how Sea Change looks now, in comparison with when she arrived here, and pics of our little party last night.

Hi - Marilyn here ...

Hope all of you out there survived the ice storm without undue hardship. We've been reading about it and seeing pictures on the CBC Radio 1 web-site - yikes! It seems like every time we leave Toronto there is some major weather event (do you think we're responsible?).

Apparently, we're having unusually high winds here for this time of the year. But it's no problem, as we're still not ready to leave in any case. We are making good progress - all that's left to reattach is the radar. Then lots of checking out of systems - Jeff's got a long list. We've been meeting nice people here - one couple from Quebec, and another from this area, who all plan to be in the Southern Bahamas when we're there. So we might have a little community when we arrive - fun.

Tomorrow is our 29th anniversary, and we plan to celebrate with dinner at our favourite restaurant - the Tiki Hut - about a 15-minute walk away. So happy Christmas eve tomorrow, for those of you to whom this applies, and happy holidays to all of you ... more anon.

Happy Winter Solstice! To celebrate, we had a lovely bar-b-que chicken dinner in the cockpit tonight, with fresh corn we bought at the farmer's market this morning - and ate under our holiday lights. It's starting to feel like a vacation ....

Images of West Palm Beach, Florida ....

Hi, Everyone - Marilyn again ...

I just read about the weather in Toronto ... we may be working hard, but I'm glad we're here right now!

Today was the day! We're masted and launched, and now we need to do all the rigging adjustments, install the radar, clean the whole boat, and then wait for a weather window (could be a while). We're keeping life exciting by doing things like throwing our whole set of boat keys away with the recycling
:( - luckily, we have duplicates. I've decided that these events are just part of the adventure, and we're both staying relatively calm. Since a picture is worth a thousand words - here are a few from today.
Jeff just said that this whole affair is the biggest and most complex project he's ever taken on! Me - I'm just excited, and a little nervous about the Gulf Stream crossing to the Bahamas.

Marilyn here ...

Today may be masting day - we're still waiting for it to be confirmed. Meanwhile, we took a couple of hours yesterday for some much needed R & R at the near-by gorgeous Riviera Beach - some pics, below (the first is our boat damage to the gel coat being repaired).. Now, back to work!