Tuesday 23 December 2008

Florida and Mexico and Back

The whole trip was both interesting and worthwhile. Looking at boats- what could be a better pastime? Also visited Nasa, US Navy Air Museum and several most interesting old houses with Alaistair. In Mexico found the ideal boat but on returning home found that Brown and our esteemed government had devalued savings even further without so much of a hint of apology for misappropriating some £1.5 trillion over the last 10 years!! May be that is why I am looking for a boat to sail away into the sunset. Anyway back to the drawing board and will have to sell Aros More first. She has been listed in http://boatfind.net/dtl_add.php?id=3624 as a warning order. Not much can be done to her until March at the earliest. Seen in pictures of her in earlier years and now, she a right good-looking "girl". I would go so far as to say, "A stunner".

A happy Christmas to all and of course a Guid New Year!

Friday 5 December 2008

It is some time since I have contributed to this Blog. Gitte is better at it than I am! Aros More is in Rockland Maine shrink-wrapped, high and dry. This is the practice in the north of the States to prevent collection of water and keep the heavy falls of snow off the boat and on the ground. The boat was in good condition except for the generator that refused to work in spite of removing all water that had collected in several components. However I had a photo sent to me by Journey's End Marine of it on the floor of their workshop. Initially I thought it was being consumed by a fire but not a bit of it, the smoke was exhaust.

Towards the end of our cruise both Gitte and I thought that my lovely little ship was getting smaller as we filled it with bicycles and porta-potties plus innumerable objects that seemed to be collected and necessary. Accommodation for extra crew was being filled.
So here I am looking at alternative boats and believe me this is not an easy task as Aros More is very much part of me. There has been considerable research and the favoured sailboat is the Island Packet of about 45 feet. I have had considerable help from my good friend Dino of DDZ Largs and Stuart in Bridge of Allan who owns the 440 version. There are three boats in Florida and Mexico, two of which I have seen with Pincoya remaining.

Before flying off to Puerto Vallarta Mexico I will be visiting son Alaistair in Alabama where he has been posted for 6 months. Much fun will be had though it may be too cold in his pool. Tough!

These are difficult financial times (thanks Gordon!) so I will probably be returning to a calculator.There are some advantages being here as Gitte tells me that there are several inches of snow at home. In contrast the temperatures here a very comfortable making the Christmas trees and lights look a little incongruous. So much for the nonsense of man-made global warming as there has not been snow at home for years so early in December.