Can't top this ...

Teresia Benedicta (aka Edie) arrives! Photo courtesy of her mom.

For the most part America's corporate world is built around morning people, with 0800 being the magic start time of many working days. It is a poor fit for my night owl schedule. Left to myself 0200 – 0300 would be a normal bedtime, with 0900 – 1100 being “first thing in the morning”. Combine that with night breezes running in the F5 to F6 range for days, boats all around, and tales of questionable holding here in No Name, and I have tended to roll out of the v-berth hours after Deb for most of this last week.

This morning a bright sun burned its way through my eyelids. Sun? Then I realized that the boat wasn't moving much and the snubber lines weren't groaning under the load of holding against the wind. Furled up sails weren't rattling. The Bimini top wasn't flapping. Could it be that Florida weather had finally returned to Florida? A bleary-eyed gaze down the length of the boat found Deb in an animated phone conversation while sitting at the top of the companionway. It was all the look I needed to know that Daughter Middle had welcomed our Grand Baby VIII into the world. Though a couple of weeks early, Daughter and her new Daughter are both doing fine. Go ahead, try to think of a better way to start a day.

A few hours later Friend Bill, he of DHS helicopter driver fame, called. (That would be a different Friend Bill than he of American Airline driver fame.) DHS helicopter Bill and his fiance were going to be in No Name Harbor and wanted to know if we would join them for lunch. They were waiting seawall side as we rowed our way through the throng of powerboats out celebrating the break in the weather. It was our fist chance to meet Sunne, who instantly became number one on my Charming Ladies Met Recently List. Who would have thought DHS helicopter drivers rated so high?

Photo courtesy of Sunne

Over lunch we heard about their plans to do some cruising of their own. The advantages of trying out different boats by chartering were debated, interspersed with stories from the nearly a year that has passed since we saw Bill last. Among the tales was one of Bill and Sunne, running his 33' trimaran all out at the head of a race, getting caught fleet-footed in a micro burst and turning in the thing over on its side. No one was hurt and no damage was done, well, except for that laid on Bill's wallet for the price of being “salvaged” by Tow Boat US. Apparently throwing a line around an ama and tugging a tri back up on its training wheels is a multi-thousand dollar “big deal”. In any case I was glad that our first year of cruising had left us with no story of daring-do to rival. The best I could come up with was a short night swim to haul a drunk girl out of the water. (Dead last on my Charming Ladies Met Recently List.)

After lunch they joined us on Kintala, giving Sunne a chance to poke around an honest-to-real cruising boat doing an honest-to-real cruise. Bill inspected my deck repair and allowed as it looked pretty good. The fact is I can see where the repair was done now, since filler and paint have shrunk some. Still, it was kind of a fellow aviator / mechanic / inspector (ATP, A&P, I A in airplane speak) to give it a passing grade. They hung around until the sun started sinking close to the horizon and we certainly hope to spend some more time with them before too long.

All in all a string of days not the kind you write home about, was broken by a day that will be hard to beat. Teresia Benedicta Rennier, welcome to the world. DeMa and Grampy-T love you already, and in just a few weeks will be cooing stories of sailing to you while you sleep.