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Next day and I am trying to get back into the habit. I read a number of blogs from some of your friends who are still on the water to get myself inspired and I must say that it has worked although I have a lot of catch-up to do.

Last year we did some small cruising to explore some of the local spots such as McNutt’s Island and Cape Negro Island both of which I can strongly recommend to cruisers visiting the area. They anchorages that I have mentioned are pretty good and if you are lucky you may even find an unused mooring that you can hang on overnight. Cape Negro, in particular, is going to be our new spot to wait for the tide to get around Brazil Rock on our next trip south. We will pass the rock at two hours before slack low tide to catch the boost of the flood tide to get us on our way across the Gulf of Maine and since that might be in the middle of the night having a nice spot to wait and rest before starting the trip that is within a couple of hours is nice to have.

As far as Nelleke is concerned we will have everything ready for the trip and, hopefully there may even be some friends in another boat to join us in the trip. Moonlight Maid has been planning for a trip back south at the same time and we are hoping that our schedules will coincide. It is always fun to have another cruiser in company when you travel – someone to talk to on the night watches. We haven’t spoken to them for over a year so perhaps their plans have changed (accelerated or canceled or delayed) but we live in hope.

Since the town and I came to a parting of the ways we have had a lot of time to work on the house as well as the boat and a number of the projects, large and small, that had been hanging in limbo have been attacked and completed. (Hurrah!) There are still more but there will be 10 months and counting before we head out late next summer. Barb has promised to make me a spinnaker sausage for our asymmetrical so perhaps we will be able to use that in light winds next year.

In our first two years of cruising we used our engine far too much and I think that we have to solution to the electrical power consumption that required us to do so in the past. While underway we will use an alternator driven off the free spinning shaft to augment the solar panels and wind generator and we have found that when at anchor or on a mooring, if we watch the shading on the solar panels they can keep up with our power consumption. Plus we are determined to be at anchor much more than we were in the past vice spoiling ourselves in a marina.

This Saturday the docks come out at the yacht club for another year and we will be truly in winter mode. Then, Barb, Peri and I will be driving to Halifax for an overnight visit with our daughter before heading out the following day, Sunday, for the trek to Ottawa to check up on my mother. I might be adding brief notes to the blog through my iPad but they will be just that – brief.