The party last night was a raging success, at least from our point of view. Diane and Cliff have a wonderful new home in an estate that includes a "Clubhouse" that the residents can rent for social functions, and it was here that Diane planned Cliff's surprise party. Several of the early arrivals helped with some of the preparations, especially a lady called Chris who did a fair old amount of the food preparation, and there was certainly a lot of that. Diane is of the philosophy that too much is far better than too little and last night she succeeded in that objective - everything from shrimp to stuffed mushroom, chicken wings to sweet and sour pork strips, veggie trays to black and grey M&Ms, the list would go on forever and that isn't even starting to talk about the alcohol - wine, beer, coolers, rum vodka and soft drinks in copious amounts. Easily 40 people showed up and with the food and alcohol and the band and the excellent company everyone had a great time. Oh, and at the end of the evening there was a HUGE birthday cake with grey candles for everyone to have a slice of. Good times!

I woke up in the morning to the aftermath. Peri and I wended our way out for his walk this morning through a mixture of party remnants and the odd guest or two resting on a sofa. As early arrivals, Barb and I had been given one of the spare bedrooms and Cliff's brother and his wife had the other. That left their daughter and anyone else to sleep on sofas. The weather had changed dramatically with the temperature dropping to a couple of degrees of freezing, but the wind had died down for which I was lulled into a false sense of security of gratitude.

We left about 0800 to head back to try to get the car into the rental agency without having to pay for an extra day. En route we stopped at a breakfast chain called "Friendlies" for a quick bite and a coffee and then a little further along at the Williamsburg Factory Outlet Mall. A great place to visit but hang onto your wallet - there are so many good deals you could go into serious debt by saving money.

Then as we got closer to Norfolk it was clear that along the coast, the weather was significantly different than inland. The winds had sustained 50 knots from the time that we left, and as we approached the docks we could see that the secondary docks were already underwater from the storm surge and the waves were spraying up between the boards on the main ones; and still two hours to high tide! Our friend and dock mate, Maury had kept an eye on our boat last night (Thanks, Maury!), and has warned us to stay on Nelleke until the tide recedes a little in about 3-4 hours. He is concerned that some of the dock planks might wash away and we might not notice if the dock is underwater and step into the gap.

So, that's the news to date at 1300 on the Sunday. I am sitting at the computer writing this listening to the dock lines groaning and complaining where they pass through the fairleads. We have multiple lines ashore and any one set of lines only bears the brunt of the work for a short period of time until the wind shifts a little and puts the strain on another set. Still, I am going topsides every hour or so to watch for wear and tear. It is a very strange feeling, to be sitting at a dock, snug in a marina basin where you should feel totally at ease and comfortable that your boat is completely safe, and to still be worrying that maybe there should be another line attached, or, to be asking yourself, "What was that unusual noise?", or to start because the boat suddenly moved differently; and then, when you rush up on deck to check and make sure that everything is OK you look forward 500 meters, past the breakwater and see the waters breaking over the top of it and realize that, yup, you are in the best position that you could be in. Nelleke was moving about so much at the dock that Barb and I both felt it prudent to take seasick medication even though we were still at the dock! This isn't a hurricane, but we are still in the hurricane season, and it makes you realize why the insurance companies are so adamant about where you take your boat and when. Barb and I are pretty knowledgeable sailors with more than 50 years of sea time between us, so we know when we should run for cover, but even we, if we weren't retired and having the benefit of time to spare, may have been caught out in this, trying to get home or somewhere to meet a deadline. That must be what is driving the insurance companies to develop the policies that they do.

"Doc" Hatton just came by the boat and gave us some magazines and a copy of today's newspaper - very thoughtful. I told him that we have decided to stay until at least next weekend and invited him to come visit us aboard and to bring his wife. Hopefully he'll be able to do so.

We aren't being idle at the dock during the windstorm though, rest assured. We are both updating our respective computers with software that we have had aboard for awhile and just have never had the chance to decide to load it up. I have finally figured how to get the Kodak Easy share software to successfully load aboard the ships computer plus I am loading Pinnacle, the video editing package that I acquired a couple of years ago. I expect that both will work better aboard the Marinenav computer for the simple reason that it is a better and faster computer that my old laptop. I will now focus the laptop on my computer power for taking ashore when required or for taking on deck to compose my breathless and timeless prose.

The techno-fellow from the cruiser behind us, the one that has the repeater aboard, has not been back to his boat yet so that is the reason that the blog updates are coming so infrequently. Tomorrow I will toddle over to the clubhouse and access the router directly to get this loaded up. In the meantime, this is a great opportunity for Barb and I to get ourselves used to weather delays. It appeared that the weather had improved for awhile, but when I looked out all that had really happened is that the tide had dropped enough that the breakwater was able to function as it had been intended. We have fewer whitecaps in the harbour but just as much wind. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to this evening or not.

The upcoming presidential election down here is very interesting. It is highly educational for us as foreigners in this country too listen to the views of locals on the candidates and what may happen in the lead up and aftermath. We have heard every side of the contest - Republican and Democrat and everything in between. The interesting thing for us is the amount of closet and not so closet racism that still remains here. The difference between now and back in the days of Watts is that all sides of the argument are very well thought out and eloquent. Whichever side that you might agree with, the fact that the media has provided all walks of life with an exceptional base from which to develop their points of view is truly remarkable. Barb and I are getting the feeling that to simply be in the USA when this decision is being made will be an adventure in and of itself. One that we will one day be able to tell our grandchildren.

On a different and less controversial note, next weekend we have invited Cliff and Diane to come down and visit us. We'll also include Chris in the weekend plan and hopefully the Weather Gods will agree to give us some appropriate weather.