The concert last night was lovely. I was impressed with the size of the orchestra it was a treat to listen to as they and the choir performed Born a Savior Born a King by John Purifoy. The Lower Keys Community Choir numbers only 34 and they have a beautiful sound The concert was held at San Pablo Catholic Church which had very good acoustics and was well attended. Before the concert we walked through the prayer garden which had been fully lighted for Christmas. It was beautiful with thousands of lights. A night that really brought out the Christmas spirit. We shared a cab back with Fred and Karen , (Otter II) who kindly offered to take me back to Light Reach as they are closer to where we are anchored than Sue and Roger and saving Scott a trip. I wish I had thought to take some pictures of the garden but alas the camera remained in my purse.
The catamaran next to us got the call for the ball yesterday and we were dreadfully close to another cat because of the crowd in the anchorage when we got there. With GIO gone we decided to up anchor and move about 50 feet from where we were originally. It didn't take terribly long and will give us more swing room and peace of mind. There are some strong winds predicted later in the week.
Christmas has come a little early on Light Reach. Sue and Roger (Dancin Downwind) have purchased a new dingy. Their old one was leaking air when they were up in Miami and Roger hadn't been able to find the leak. Of course once they took possession of the new dingy Roger found and patched the leak, Murphy was hanging about no doubt. Since they didn't need a second dingy they were thinking of selling the older one, although they had not yet deployed the newer one which was upside down on the front deck of Dancin Downwind. When Roger mentioned this to us we said we were interested but needed to measure Light Reach to see if we could get it on our front deck. This dingy is an AB rigid bottom, a foot longer than our current model with a bit more beam. It's also made of Hypalon which is a far superior material than PVC.
We don't have dingy davits on Light Reach and no where to put any either. Our dingy has to travel on the front deck when we are underway. With some careful maneuvering and removal of the stay sail it would fit. We haven't used the stay sail more than a couple of times so we felt it wouldn't be a problem to store it down below. We can reef the jib if we need to reduce sail and we haven't really exercised the cutter rig in light winds. We asked Roger what he was asking for the dingy and the price was more than fair so we said yes we are definitely interested in buying it. A quick trip to the bank for some cash and it was back to Dancin Downwind to fill out the paperwork. There is a motor vehicle office just down the street from the marina. Scott walked down to register the boat, only to find I needed to come with him. Fortunately I had opted to stay on dry land and was able to walk down and join him. Registration was painless and we returned to Dancin Downwind to retrieve our new car. Sue and Roger had deployed their new dingy and swapped off their engine while we were at the DMV. We chugged back to Light Reach with the new dink in tow. in no time we swapped our motor off the little boat and onto the new to us AB. We're really excited to have a dingy that will plane, has enough room for hauling stuff, can easily carry 4 people, and most important will provide us with a dry ride! No more wet dingy butt, unless of course its raining! We have decided that this will be our Christmas gift to each other along with the chart plotter, radar and working autopilot. Yippee!
The picture is of our new dingy. We are so excited to have her. I'm thinking of naming her Night Light.