Is it Christmas?
17 October 2009 | Chester/Halifax
Beth / 8 C, WNW 15knots
When we first left home to go sailing this fall, I said to our housemate, Denise, "See you at Christmas!" This is the third time we have reappeared.
I must say, it felt a bit Christmassy yesterday when I saw snow mixed with the rain on the windshield. And being back at home felt immeasurably better than being on the cold boat, so that felt a bit like Christmas gift too.
We had a lively sail back up the coast on Thursday to Steven's Cove near Chester - home of South Shore Marine. Because we wanted to make the trip in one day, we left Shelburne at 0330. After a day of wonderful winds on our port beam, we pulled up to our old mooring ball at 1730. Finally - a beautiful, if cold, day of sailing. Once again, we were grateful for our cockpit enclosure that kept the wind in the sails and not on us. The temperature hovered around 8 C (something like 45 F). We still had 4 and 5 layers of clothes on - complete with ski gloves and wool toques (YES - We are Canadian!!)
Some dry day this week we'll go down to the boat yard to get sails off and the boat ready for haulout. It looks like Madcap will be hauled on Oct 28th and will head south right after that. Her crew is investigating interesting ways of joining her.
In the meantime, Jim and I visited "The Old Triangle" last night - one of our favourite Halifax establishments for comfort food and maritime music. A trip to the market this morning stocked the larder again and tonight we'll go out on the town for Nocturne - a fabulous yearly event when the art scene opens up for an evening of sight and sound. There will be about 30 galleries open from 6 to midnight, with performance art in the streets and folks of all ages walking and busing from venue to venue. It is not a bad thing to be home for another week.