The boat is out of the yard and almost ready (is any boat really ever completely ready?). We sailed over from Snead Island to St Petersburg to work on the boat. Nice to be back in the warm weather and blue skies. It's been a couple of years since we've been back and what struck us more this year is the number of homeless, men, women, and families that are here. There is a block near the Salvation Army with about 15 cars that families are living in. In the evening hours there are towels over the windows to keep the night lighting out. During the day most of these folks are standing or sitting on the lawn with a look of numbness on their faces. These folks are just like us, except they are people who got caught up in the credit crunch and lost everything, including their jobs. There are people on most every street corner with signs saying, "need work", "need food". Yesterday I went out to the marina dumpster where two young guys were dumpster diving, not for boat gear or goodies like that but for food.

Anyhow, we'll be here for the next couple of weeks, maybe even through the holidays.