Over only the last two weeks the weather has changed completely. We have gone from frost and blankets to sweat (perspiration for the ladies) and air-conditioning in less than a month.

Yippie!

Son Chris is coming down to join us for the next couple of days and I propose to put him to work at least for one evening on helping us with the boat. I am working during the day so I will only get to task him in the evening and since tonight is Toonie Tuesday at the yacht club and Thursday he wants to have a dinner out somewhere in honour of Mother’s Day and it is calling for rain on Thursday anyway, that will leave us only Wednesday so that will be the day. I am hoping that we will be able to get the anchor windlass back on and some more of the gunk cleaned off above the waterline and ready for polishing on Sunday. Next week we will antifoul on the few days immediately prior to any launch time that we can schedule. It is getting closer! I can hardly wait.

Barb and I have already determined the sequence of weekend cruising spots that we will be visiting and we have even planned out a week’s holiday cruise back towards Lunenburg with a number of stops at spots that we would like to explore in more detail along the way – Carter’s Beach, La Have Islands and a number of little places along the coast just off the town of Lunenburg and, if time permits, even into Chester Basin and the Mahone Bay Islands. If this summer is anything like the last couple that we have had down this way we should be in for great cruising. There are one or two weekends that we would particularly like to be away; especially one where they are planning to have power boat races on the harbour. These aren’t cigarette boats or those hydro speed boats that whiz around a circuit two and three at a time, rather they are the equivalent of dragsters on the water that are built from the cut back hulls of old fishing boats with high performance engines in them that run off aviation fuel. The course is a straight line out at high speed, slow down to turn around a buoy and then high speed back. It is sort of a locally developed sport that has quite a following by local standards – twice the population of the town descends on us for a day to watch the races and then fold up their tents and depart. A couple of weeks later they are at the site of the next races. Not our cup of tea so we will ensure that ourselves and Nelleke are safely away our of harm’s reach. Since the yacht club has been asked to provide these folks dock space and since the race is just outside of our mooring field I would like to have our old girl plus our own hides well out of reach. I have an idea that sooner or later there will be a serious accident with these things and then the finger pointing will commence. Nope. When all that happens we will be off at a nice quite anchorage, sipping a glass of nice Chablis and chowing down on a cheese tray and chilled shrimp.

Ahhhhhhhhhh........!