Mon Dec 16 When we left Phuket, Thailand at 0300 the temperature was in the low 90's. Our flight included a connection in Beijing. As the plane began its descent into China, flight attendants advised everyone to put on any additional clothing they had brought aboard. We were briefly exposed to 19 degrees (Fahrenheit) as we deplaned and walked across the tarmac to the terminal -how do you dress for a change of over 70 degrees? We arrived in Los Angeles to wonderful sunny weather in the low 70's. We had been travelling more than 24 hours, but having crossed the international date line, it was still Dec. 16. We caught a shuttle bus to Long Beach and spent our first day with Virginia's mother and sister. It felt so good to be home visiting family! We picked up our van there and made the short hop to La Mirada to spend a day with Dennis' mom. We made numerous trips back to Long Beach and La Mirada to visit our mothers and Virginia's siblings and extended families. One of Virginia's nieces gave birth to her son while we were there. We saw our first ever Cirque show (Cirque Totem) next to the Santa Monica pier with Dennis' mom. We enjoyed it very much and must plan to see another some day.

We travelled a bit to see Dennis' siblings. We spent New Year's Eve at the Johns' family cabin at Arrowhead Lake in the mountains with Dennis' brother and his wife, feasting on the traditional crab and shrimp dinner. We were so involved in a game of Tripoli that midnight came and went before we realized how late it had become. We all read Dennis' brother's recently published book and we eagerly await his new one in progress. We made a trip up to the San Francisco Bay area to visit Dennis' two sisters and husbands. While there we saw the David Hockney exhibit at the deYoung museum -an amazing artist now in his eighties working across a wide range of medium, including the iPad. We met up with some cruising friends, MaryLee and Dennis from sv Lardo, for breakfast in Tiburon overlooking the water. We had met them in Bundaberg, Australia where we both had our boats during the off season; they too participated in the Indonesian Rally this past season.

Santa Barbara is our home town and our son and his family live in nearby Goleta so we spent the majority of our time there. We still have our house rented out so we stayed with our very gracious friends Tom and Deanna. They have a guest room complete with kitchen and bath downstairs from their main home and made us very comfortable during our 2 month stay. We spent a lot of time in Santa Barbara visiting with Darren, Carrie, and our two granddaughters Kira and Devin. Christmas morning we were with Virginia's mother and then picked up Dennis' mother to join us for dinner at Darren and Carrie's home. Kathleen (Carrie's mom - the "other" grandma) was there too. We were lucky to be there to see the oldest, Kira, 11, join the Santa Barbara holiday tradition of free live music on State Street play her viola for passing shoppers and later at home to hear a first-time sister duet of viola and piano (Devin) in a medley of holiday tunes. We also enjoyed cake and the opening of presents for Devin's, 9th birthday in late January. We played local tourist with them - touring the Santa Barbara Mission, hiking the Arroyo Hondo Preserve, and riding the amphibious LandShark past historical sites in downtown Santa Barbara and out into the Santa Barbara Harbor waters. We even made our first trip in 20+ years to Disneyland with them - what a blast. We took care of the routine doctor visits, including the travel doctor where we were happy to hear that we didn't need any additional shots for the countries we will visit in the upcoming season. Virginia had been advised to get a shingles shot and planned to do that as our son had them recently and reported that it wasn't much fun. But before she did, she contracted the shingles! She had a mild case fortunately and thus it didn't slow us down other than avoiding all physical contact with her spouse who had never contracted the chicken pox!!!

We saw many friends in Santa Barbara. Dennis attended the weekly meetings of his Rotary club; Virginia went with him the day he gave a presentation of our adventure thus far, thereby proving to all there that she was still a willing participant. Condensing two seasons of travel into a 30 minute slide show was a challenge but Dennis managed to pull it off -Virginia's ever-consistent photography making it all possible. Virginia attended her Soroptimist club's meeting and visited her former office at the university (UCSB). We went to several meetings of our boating club and gave our adventure presentation slightly revised and tailored for that group. We had numerous lunches and dinners with friends. One day some of our UCSB college student buddies came to town, as Santa Barbara is midway between where the two couples live, and spent the day with us. The six of us hiked in the Botanic Garden and bowled. We never used to go to the movies, but being seniors and retired, we get quite a discount hitting the afternoon matinees, so we saw 4 or 5 during our two months there and really enjoyed them. We went to several of the UCSB Gaucho men's basketball games -GO Gauchos! Virginia attended a booksigning by one of her friends. We celebrated our 40th anniversary on Jan. 5th with dinner at the elegant Stella Mare overlooking the Bird Refuge. There were literally only a handful of tables in use that night and they made us a special dessert once they realized it was a special day. On Valentines' Day we celebrated with dinner out at the Paradise Café (a local downtown favorite of ours) and then a short walk to hear Paul Reiser do his new stand-up comedy routine at Santa Barbara's Lobero Theater (he was sort of on sabbatical for 20 years since the 'Mad About You' series). And we spent many hours on the internet using our Verizon portable hotspot to research and order: boat items we had trouble finding abroad (wind scoops for the hatches to replace our sun deteriorated set, dinghy oar which we lost...), a backup laptop for our navigation (the one we had developed a terminal illness), 40+ DVD movies bringing our boat total to nearly 300, two galley appliances (vacuum sealer primarily for meats going into the freezer, electric chopper/blender primarily for cold fruit drinks going into us), and pounds of books (cruising guides for the Mediterranean countries have heavy hardbound covers much to our surprise).

One of our last nights in California we enjoyed a dinner with Dennis' nephews Dyson and Ryan Worth at Dennis' mom's home. Ryan was married last year while we were in Indonesia and Dyson participated in a marriage ceremony in Thailand while we were in Malaysia. We had met Ryan's wife, Marissa, several times over the past years but we were pleased that Dyson's Tarinee (she's Thai but raised in the US) was able to join us for the evening. Tarinee and Dyson had recently been to Thailand and gave us a list of sites to see.

We had a wonderful visit with family and friends and a productive time preparing for our return with several duffle bags full of gear.

Tues Feb 18 We flew out of Los Angeles to Phuket via Beijing, arriving on Thursday Feb 20. We didn't have to cross the tarmac to enter or leave the terminal in Beijing but it was still mighty cold as they apparently turn the heaters off in the terminal when arrivals and departures slow down in the evening. It hadn't gotten any cooler in Thailand since we left, but we were excited to be back in Phuket so we could ready our boat for its trip aboard a freighter to Turkey in the Mediterranean and the next leg of our adventure. We're invited to a luncheon on March 10 being held for the crews of the yachts being transported to Turkey on our departure date, so perhaps we'll be able to make some connections that will serve us in our Med cruise. We met a Swedish couple in Malaysia who we know will have their boat on our March freighter and recently learned that a Dutch/Finnish couple whom we sailed with through French Polynesia (in our second year) will have their boat aboard as well.

This will be our fourth season cruising and our GPS trip meter shows that Libertad has travelled 18,894 miles of our circumnavigation to date.