Free for a southern sail!

It's been a long time since the last post.  We had a wonderful summer, including a 3 week trip north, all the way to Prince Edward Island, Canada.  We saw lots of friends and many spectacular places, especially the Bay of Fundy. 

We had lots of wonderful time with our family.  I've loved seeing Heather & Nikki on a more regular basis, even daily.  I'll miss that.

We saw Erin's family in the early summer, at the NC shore.  That was a fun trip, seeing how granddaughter Evelyn has grown.  Luke's older daughter, Lisa, and her family just visited for a few days while headed eastward in their travel trailer. Grandson Simon is all boy!

One sad event, my 51 yr old sister passed away suddenly. She will certainly be missed.  We just returned from a very nice service for her.

Luke's rotator cuff has healed, enough to allow him to sail again.  We plan to go to Deltaville for a few days on Friday, Nov. 12, to start getting the boat ready for the sail.  Latitudes is "on the hard" or out of the water, now. 

We will have a new crew member, little Smokey.She adopted us in October - a skinny little thing who had been dumped near our house.  Hungry and sweet, she won my heart almost immediately.  She's no longer hungry, but as sweet as ever!

Hopefully, by early December, we will be able to have Latitudes back in the water and the three of us will begin our new adventure.  I'll keep our progress posted!

Luke's improving and we're enjoying the house

Luke is getting better each day.  The doctor gave him a good check up, started him on a couple of very small stretches, and allowed him to take the sling off in "safe environments".  Not sure if that's home or not, but it sure wouldn't be Latitudes!
We miss the sailing life but are readjusting and settling back into somewhat of a routine here at the house.  It's been hot, but we're getting a bit of a reprieve for a few days.  It's not the blue waves of the ocean, but we have the green shade of the mountains off of our back porch and screened room.  We do like it here.

Luke's surgery went well

Luke's rotator cuff surgery went well yesterday, June 23.  He slept a lot yesterday, having a nerve block in the right shoulder.  Today he's on some pain meds, but he's up and around.  All we need now is the healing months and then we'll be Latitudes bound again!

The projects are getting done!

Luke is moving on out with the pre-surgery projects.  A little more difficult with one gimp arm, but doing well. 
The beautiful, functional fish table!!  Made to hold a 36" fish with no sliding off of the table.  No more bloody decks!

Next, the screens - from outside and inside.  You can see why they give us so much air flow (and no bugs!)

Luke got the new heater system installed, too.  You can't see the actual unit, but you can see the vents, carefully painted brown.  Can't wait to try it out when it gets chilly!

Cruisers will always be cruisers, even "on the hard". There are several boats here with cruising couples aboard, all living in the boatyard for various lengths of times.  We have several Canadians, a Swiss couple, a couple from Australia, actually one other American couple.  True to form, a gathering was planned on the dusty gravel boatyard, complete with an evening viewing of the new Alice in Wonderland on someone's 19" computer.  Not bad, really!

hot and humid in Deltaville...

Well, not as hot, hot, hot, and humid, humid, humid as it will be in late July and August, but close enough.  Thank goodness we thought we were leaving soon and did all of the painting/waxing while the weather was cooler. 
You know what the woosies do when the going gets tough?  They drive 1/2 hour to Wal-Mart and buy a $99 air conditioner to make life "on the hard" livable!  Not a pretty installation, but it works!  We're down to 82 degrees and 50% humidity inside Latitudes - much better!

Luke's screens are great (when the AC isn't in use!).  He also changed a big, open clutter cabinet to wonderful shelving space.  You can't really appreciate it here, as I couldn't get far enough away from the closet to do it justice. But, believe me, the new shelving is wonderful.

Next, the cabin heater, based on the hot water created from the boat engine.  It's a bit of a mess right now, and we've decided that "enough is enough" - we'll start up again where we left off tomorrow!

Fortunately, the bedroom is out of the mess and beginning to cool off, too - Luke is reading while I blog.  Nighty-night time soon!

No changes in Latitudes this summer-Luke's broken again...

Bad news - Luke is broken again.... this time it's his rotator cuff. It seems like the mind is stronger than the body these days. Not exactly sure how it happened, but we've done enough hauling on lines, cranking on the jib winches, hauling 5 gallon jugs of water around, hoisting up the dinghy, etc, that we can believe he did it one time too many.
For more info than you may ever want, click here rotator cuff tear

It's better to fix it earlier than later, so we've opted for surgery on June 23. He'll be in a sling for 6 weeks and on limited activity for 4-6 months. Doctor ordered no sailing until November or December. That means we'll be spending the summer and fall in our home in Roanoke. Not a bad place to be - we love our home in the mountains of Virginia - but we are definitely disappointed in not being able to go to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.  We were completely ready to leave for Deltaville on June 14.  Screens were finished

and our yardwork was done.

We knew his shoulder was bothering him, but had hoped for the best.  Oh, well, we're going to make some lemonade this summer and fall - more visits with family and friends, some short car trips, and enjoy our beautiful mountains.  However, we'll be ready to head south in November or December! 

I'll keep up the blog with Luke's progress after his surgery and our adventures here on land.

Still In Roanoke, getting ready

We are still in Roanoke, enjoying family and friends, working on projects.  Luke is busily making new screens for the companionway hatch.  Here are the frames, varnished and hanging up in the garage. These will be beautiful and very functional when he's finished!

I decided to put to use some of the plastic floats that we found in the Bahamas.  A bit of decoration for the mailbox (along with patriotic flags) to let neighbors know we're home.  Can't miss it...someone called them "popbeads".