Christmas Season is starting up! The time gets set back next Sunday - that's a sure sign.

Yes indeedy, it sure is - starting up I mean. After all, Halloween is over and the only other important date before Christmas is Remembrance Day on November 11th and that isn't one that the retail stores can make much out of so Christmas it is. In fact, to try to grab onto the holiday season earlier, most stores have started "Black Friday" sales earlier to try to get a jump on their competition. Sadly for them they pretty much all thought the same thing. In our case the first signs are setting dates in our calendar for the office parties. I didn't expect one from work but there is. Not that they are cheap or anything like that, it's just that there aren't all that many employees, but apparently the owners have decided to have a party and invite the employees and their spouses. The yacht club that we belong to also has a party that was originally for the yard staff and some of us contribute a bottle or two of hooch for their party. Over the years it has expanded to include invited members too. Well Barb and I have been invited. Truth be told it was Barb who had been invited and she was told that she could bring me if she felt like it. Ah well, the trials of being married to a Babe!

I woke up this morning to discover that the people have spoken in the election south of the border. I never cease to be amazed at how much the electorate can be swayed by emotional triggers, how easily they forget what had gone on before, and how impatient they are to get what they want and how much they always think that the other guy, whoever that might be, would be able to get things done faster. That isn't just the case in the US. We have the same problem up here in Canada too. We vote someone in and then are in a state or ire and shock that the curtain doesn't rise the day following the election with every election promise met and have us living in a brave new world. Sigh! I guess Utopia just doesn't exist after all.

If you have been following the sidebar discussions about the hydro-generator you will note that I am looking for a good deal on the lower unit for a sail drive so I can make a prototype. Anyone out there have one or know where I can direct my inquiries? At the same time I have had the suggestion made that we use the free-wheeling prop shaft that we already have. When we are under way it is normally turning and it should be a matter of finding the gear ratio balance between putting so much load on the shaft that it stops turning and so little that it doesn't turn the generator enough to produce power. It is a solution that wouldn't involve making any permanent holes or changes to the structure of the boat, so in that way it sure has its attraction.

Barb and I are starting to cast our planning net further into the future. It's what is keeping us sane up here in the hard. After returning to Nelleke in the spring and bringing her home for the summer of 2011, we plan to head south again in the fall to Key West and the Dry Tortugas for Christmas and then back to Halifax for a quick prep for our most ambitious adventure yet. I am planning to take the boat over to St. John's Newfoundland in June and wait for a good weather window to jump along the rhomb line to Ireland, a distance of 1700 miles or a 14 day trip. Barb will be staying with our daughter Kayt to look after Peri, who wouldn't be too happy with 2 weeks at sea, and then the two of them (Barb and Peri) will fly over to join me. So far we have one possibility of a crew member in our friend Mike (won't that confuse things on the sat-phone?) and I hope to be able to persuade one or two other friends to crew with me as well. I have done a fair amount of research and spoke to a couple of people that have made that trip several times and they all swear by it as the shortest route and, if you don't get unlucky with weather, one that has agreeable currents and prevailing winds. I spoke to two guys last week who make the trip last year at the end of June and one did it single handed in 14 days and the other with a full crew and an aggressive attitude did it in 11. My own temperament and Nelleke's capabilities would tend us more to the former, but for me the big thing is that a reasonable weather forecast would give us a 5 day lookout or nearly a third of the way. Then with a weather router we should be able to find a reasonable path through to the other side. Unless we have really bad luck of course, but that is the game, isn't it?