Just returned from 3 days at the Chicago boat show. We first attended this show 8 years ago and it was a treat to come again. The best part of the show is always the many many seminars, so many that it is sometimes hard to choose which ones to go to when the times conflict.

Pam Wall was there so we made a special effort to attend several of her presentations. We first heard her at our first Chicago boat show when she did her cruising in the Bahamas seminar, and we used her info a lot when we did go to the Bahamas in 2007. As usual, we came away with some great ideas from her above deck and below deck presentations.

As usual, too, was the Chicago weather. Dang that city is cold and it sure lived up to its reputation as the Windy City. We ended up starting our drive home in freezing rain. Of course the weather forecast for Chicago tomorrow and Wednesday is upper 50s!

So now we are really longing for points south and to be back on the boat. In the meantime, we are plugging along, getting that cruising kitty replenished and trying to blank out all the brown and barren surroundings we have here.

We begin 2013 in central Illinois doing contract work to replenish the cruising kitty. Koko awaits us back in Florida where she is on the hard awaiting an engine rebuild and a few other updates.

It's winter here, and cold, so we dream of points south. At the moment we are making plans in May to trailer our smaller sailboat, a Catalina 22 named Cay Cat, to the northern Gulf of Mexico coast and spend a week or so gunk holing around between Apalachicola and Fort Walton Beach, FL. Then we plan on joining the Northern Gulf Coast Cruise (NGCC) group for their 6 day cruise from Fort Walton Beach west to Orange Beach, Alabama and back. It's an annual cruise consisting only of Catalina 22 sailboats and every year now there are around 20 of them. This will be the sixth year for us. Love those emerald waters and white sands!

Stay tuned for updates. Our contract work is very fluid, so you never know when we will be where.

Stannie