Lovely Lady has been sold to a wonderful man and dedicated sailor in Boston, MA. He will rename her Solana (follow the sun in Spanish) and use her to explore the North East before sailing to Europe when he retires.

We like him a lot and wish him well.

We packed up all our gear and stored it in a PODS while we hunt for our new trawler.

During the summer break we made the decision to sell Lovely Lady because it was getting to be too much to manage. So after launching Lovely Lady in Curacao we went to Bonaire to await a weather window. We had a great sail from Bonaire to Sammana, Dominican Republic. While Jani went home for a break Jon Howe and I sailed Lovely Lady to Dania Beach, Florida.

Egypt was exhausting. When we returned to Curacao the outlook for favorable winds to sail to Grenada was none for the month of May. So we packed up and came home. We enjoyed a pleasant peaceful summer by the lake.

We had both been dreaming of going to Egypt with our church - Center for Spiritual Living, Seattle so we did. We flew from Curacao to Miami to Egypt and joined 30 other like minded individuals for a spiritual journey through Egypt. We saw the wonders of it all in style.

Jani and I headed out Friday after lunch to enjoy a relaxing weekend at Fuik Baai with the locals. We obtained an anchoring permit which allowed us (a foreign boat) to anchor for three nights. When we arrived on Friday we were the only boat there. On Saturday 30 boats arrived and 10 spent the night. On Sunday there were 50 boats in the baai (bay) with us. The locals were having a wonderful time swimming, playing, jet skiing and enjoying music. We had been forewarned about how loud the music could be so we anchored in the deepest water well away from the crowd. So we got to enjoy the music at just the right volume.

Jani and I were very tired from our 3+ weeks of working on the boat. Saturday we mostly napped and read books. On Sunday we went for a relaxing snorkel even though the water was cloudy. It was just nice to be able to swim off Lovely Lady. Our weekend restored our energy and enlivened our spirits. We are so happy to be on the water again.

Our rigger Gijs arrived today with the new mounting plate and jaw. He went right to work drilling out the old rivets to remove the remaining mounting plate.