[originally posted 5 Feb on www.SVOctopussy.com]

The weather has been less than hospitable in Annapolis for outside boat work over the past two weeks. We’ve managed to do a couple of things, but nothing Earth-shattering. We finished prepping the sides of the boat to take the new name graphics. That’s about it.

Actually, it was a pretty unmotivating couple of weeks, and I was starting to feel down. After all of our momentum through the holiday period, I felt like we were now stuck in a rut.

Enter awesome new sailing friends, stage left.

Through this blog, we were invited to a Super Bowl party being held by at the Port Annapolis Marina lounge. Our new buddies, Jaye and Dan on S/V Cinderella, and http://lifeafloatarchives.blogspot.com, invited us.

We had a great time, and met so many terrific people. Although we were on the hard, and still new to the sailing community here, we were welcomed into the club house, and welcomed right into the pack.

Cindy and Doug (Zach and Naia), Joe, Helen, Suzanne, Jim, Richard, and Phil (and I know I am missing several more)… lots of great new friends! We can’t wait to hang out again!

So, although we don’t have much to show regarding progress on our boat over the past couple of weeks, we definitely accomplished a lot. We made some great friends and good contacts, and received lots of advice and offers of help.

So, all in all, it still ended up being a productive couple of weeks– just in a different sort of way.