Forgive our absence – a very busy summer of sailing and a not so productive winter have left us with big boat projects to get finished before the summer sailing season starts!!

We managed to spend a lot of time on the water this past summer – Julia and I even got the boat out for a girls weekend!!

We managed to extend our sailing late into the fall with the Bluewater Cruising Rendezvous at Thetis Island for Thanksgiving and a spectacular weekend at Thetis Island for Remembrance Day.

We discovered a fantastic trail right in the middle of Thetis Island – with all of our years of travelling there, it is amazing that we had never found it before!

Sadly, when we got back from that weekend, we could see that the weather was about to turn, and we set about getting the sails off for the winter.  Even that resulted in some work to be done, as the uv strip on the head sail was coming loose in some places so we had some handstiching to do.

The winter was a bit wild – a crazy windstorm right before Christmas led to our needing to rebuild the fence – we are partway there but it looks better than it did after the storm!

We had a wonderful New Years on Saltspring and with the new year, we again started to make plans for the boat.

The boat show was a bit later this year, in the early part of February, and happened to coincide with what would become almost the snowiest February on record!!!

The snow didn’t stop us from opening our wallets though – we had quite the spree!!  We ordered a new dinghy (still waiting on it to arrive) and bought a new single side-band radio.  We also ordered a new fridge  and shower sump shortly after the show and we are now working on the install!

It will be so pretty!!!

We also received our new cruising spinnaker – we had wanted a bright pink sail, but sadly once we ordered it, we were advised that all of the fluorescent colors were discontinued.  We weren’t left with a lot of options, and finally had to settle on blue – blah – it is pretty much the same color as the bag – or a tarp…

Our current projects include the fridge install, completing the v-berth and building a dodger…

Owen is out racing this weekend and we will only have about 4 weekends left before the Thetis Island Regatta so I guess it is time to get in gear!!!

The rain is pouring down right now (I have an idea Owen is having a wet weekend) and I have a cold that won’t quit (day 11 and counting!).  It is hard to get enthused to do the work that needs to be done in these conditions – hopefully tomorrow is more inspiring!