I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration and now engaging in the Xmas/Chanukah festivities. I have had several bouts of homesickness but talking to family and friends did help a little. However, we did get to celebrate with about 150+ people from over 95 boats. We signed up to bring food and the table was overflowing with turkey, ham, potatoes, and fabulous desserts. We sat at a table with 6 strangers who very quickly became new acquaintances sharing stories about their and our lives. There is a good chance that we will cross paths with many of these people when we go to the Abaco's. Yes, we have a destination and hope to get there by the end of the first week in Dec. We are entering in the last stages of preparation - buying food and paper goods to last 16 weeks. That's 112 days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners. But the good news is that we have arranged to get a mooring in a place called 'Hopetown' and there are a full range of services (including an airport) there as well as in other harbors in the Abaco's. If we decide to travel further south (the Abaco's are in the northern Bahamas) there are less places to shop and the islands are less inhabited (there is even a "Long Island" without malls). We have been learning about the unique weather patterns that occur in the winter with calm, beautiful warm days with wind that blows 10-15 kts most of the time. And then there are the fronts that come through with regularity bringing strong winds and squalls that could last hours or a few days. We have heard that the Abaco's may be cooler than the southern Bahamas but that's ok with us. We are planning to stay until the end of March when we turn West and start coming home.
Anyway, we have spent time chatting with people, going ashore for showerstaking the bus to West Marine and Publix and walking to the beach. We do have TV reception for a few local stations and Channel 7 but don't watch much.
We took Simon to a local vet to get a micro chip implanted in his back but before we went Bill and I decided to give him a haircut and pedicure since he was having difficulty seeing anything and his nails where painful when he jumped up or climbed on our lap. Well, we used Bill's hair clippers which were certainly not like the ones used by his groomer at home and Simon was a trouper. The end result???? There was white hair everywhere and he could see again but the style is a far cry from a professional haircut. Hopefully, we will get better the next time.