What a journey we have had over the last few days from our home in Maryland, USA.!
We made it back to Capetown and onto Crazy Horse after 24 hours of travel time to get here. When you think of the fact that it took us 1 year to sail here that is pretty amazing. Of course, we all have major jet lag and I have one horrendous cold. Other than that we are excited to get on with the rest of our trip around the world. Bob engineered lots of work by different folks to get Crazy Horse fixed up and ready to go. Sails have been mended, engine repaired, and halyards replaced-at least started. Now we have the cleaning, Visas to get, hatches to fix, and provisioning to complete.
Lots to do before our scheduled departure on Jan. 8th. We are hoping to keep to that timetable. The biggest challenge might be getting the Visas. We go to the consulate tomorrow to see the possibilities of a time table. Maggie has gotten to know all the folks there to hopefully speed up the process.
Now I am back to the blog table and fixing meals on the boat. At first there was some shock at how small our space is again after being home and in our house with lots of space. But I think we are adjusting again. It was wonderful to see Maggie and Bob coming back on New Year's Eve to Ocean Jasper after partying with some of the fleet members. Of course we arrived back to the dock after midnight on the New Year. We said Happy New Year to each other while waiting in the customs line at the airport. It seemed strange and will be something new as a New Years experience. Last year we were in St. Lucia just anticipating what this past year would bring.
We certainly have lots to be thankful for in this past year. First of all, of the fleet to my knowledge has made it around the Cape of Good Hope. Everyone has their own drama to share. But we are all thankful that no boats were lost or no one suffered any serious injuries. Some people , Brown Eyed Girl and Chessie, even made the news with their rescue before getting safely in. It has been an exciting experience for us all to make it this far, we are 3/4 of the way there to St. Lucia.
We will all feel such a mix of strong emotions upon completion of this voyage. There is a sense of missing those at home but we know that we are closer to being home after crossing the Atlantic again. We have two major passages to make and then we can relax a little. My sister will come to visit us in Grenada and our son Eric and his wife Karrie will hopefully visit us in St. Martin. There is still lots to look forward to in the months ahead. We hope to have Paul from the ARC come to sail with us as long as possible. He is an experienced Atlantic crosser after having rowed across in the past. It should be fun to have another positive, strong crew member along to share inthe fun.
Last night we had a reunion with the crews from Chessie and Jeannius and Crazy Horse at the Panama Jacks restaurant. It was great to see them all and makes our adjustment back to the trip a lot easier. It is as if we are back
to our family. There is such a sense of camaraderie in sharing this trip with all the folks from the fleet. It will be wonderful to see all the other crews from the rest of the fleet. We have all been on our own journeys since
Richard's Bay. Some of us went home and others have been touring around the country.
We still hope to see some of Capetown before our departure. We must go up to Table Mountain and our friends from MYC will come to visit us here in Elliot Basin. I'd like to visit some of the vineyards here in South Africa. Their wine is certainly wonderful and cheap if purchased here. That is on the top of the list.
We did have a wonderful stay at home meeting our new grandson Alex and our now old granddaughter Jayden who is a whopping 7. It was great to see our daughter, her family,and Eric and Karrie. They are all taking good care of
our home and the business back home. I got to see my sister and her wonderful family too, on the farm in the beautiful Middletown Valley. We even had some snow on Christmas. We had a reunion of our friends from MYC and shared some pictures of our trip so far. They all were wonderful and seemed appreciative that we put it together in such a last minute way. So all in all we are well and ready to continue on. This is the start of a new year with new expectations and dreams for us all. I wish all the readers a wonderful year and to "dive into life, embrace the unknown, and dare to
live. "
Rosemary, Bill and Matt back on the Crazy Horse