Happy Thanksgiving from Massachusetts

 Jim arrived back in Ma. from Myrtle Beach Sunday leaving SweetPea under the watchful eyes of some fellow loopers and an attentive dock master.  We will remain home through the holiday's and hope to return back to SC at the end of the year or the beginning of next..  It will be a bit of a challenge sharing 1 car among 3 people but then again, we have spent the last 2 years without any car at all!

This year we are spending the holiday's at our home in Massachusetts for the first time in 2 years. Well actually, we will be spending Thanksgiving with my sister and brother-in law at their home in Barrington RI, along with their big Portuguese - Italian family, always a fun and lively group.

Friday we will celebrate Thanksgiving a second time at our BFF Pats home for what she calls her mini Thanksgiving.

Also, since we are home in the next few days I will have the chance to deck the halls which will be fun and its always nice having a large fully equipped  kitchen for cooking and baking.  It is not nice however to be donning coats, sweaters etc. but hopefully this will be the last winter we will be doing this, at least the heavy wool coats.

While Jim was in MB, SC he rented a car on the weekends to check out the area a bit better to figure out where in the area we may want to purchase our new home, he found a couple of areas he liked but we have decided to extend our search a little further south to include the Beaufort - Port Royal and Hilton Head area as well.  So our options are still open right now, time will tell.  I guess even though we are living on land at the moment, we will maintain our boat schedule which means " our plans are written in the sand."

To our looping friends ........

I am following your blogs, keep them coming, it's nice reliving the loop through you, though many of you will be completing it in the next few months.  We hope to see you at some point on the east coast as you pass by.

To our looped friends.......

Whether your still on your boats or on land we know we will see some of you in the up coming months have fun and enjoy, we wish we were there with you, especially those of you in the Keys and the Bahamas!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Thanksgiving with loopers 2011 in Alabama

Baby its cold outside!

Jim is in SC with SweetPea and I am STILL in Massachusetts its 32degrees here this morning, Dam its cold!  In Myrtle Beach the low temps there will be our high for the day.  ARGGG!  I hope to be heading down that way in the next week or so. 

We need a new dinghy!  When Jim left Ma. he left without our dinghy I was not happy about him being without a dink especially since he had planned to anchor out along the way, but there just was not enough time to address the problem, so we are now looking into some different options.  We have had SweetPea for 2 1/2 years and have now been through 2 dinks, I guess we are not meant to own an inflatable so our options are......

We have been looking at something or anything that does not deflate so far we are very interested in a bullfrog which looks like a RIB but is a hard surfaced but foam based, the problem we are having with this is the cost of shipping it from the west coast.  There are other manufacturers of this type of boat but they are either lower quality and not UV protected or outrageously expensive or both.  Then there is a Boston Whaler, which we have dreamed of but, it will mean changing our davit system which is another added expense plus we are limited to size and weight of course.  So the search is on for an 11 foot Whaler without a console not an easy task I will add.  Yes there are other options, but these are the 2 we are looking into now.  After all, when you are a long term cruiser your dink IS the family car.  If you or someone you know has an 11 foot Boston Whaler and would like to sell it let us know.  FYI it needs to be an older model as the newer ones are much heavier.  And a 9 footer is too small for us and a 13 footer is too big for SweetPea.

Thank You to Terry and Charlene for lending a hand with SweetPea in getting her to SC.  We hope you enjoyed the 1000 mile trip Jim could not of done it by himself, we hope to see you again.

Make sure you VOTE today and when you are standing in line remember you live in the greatest country on earth!  But also remember that their are many people who because of Sandy are homeless and living without electricity and heat with the temperatures dropping and more wind and rain on its way. 
Consider giving a donation or blood to the Red Cross @ http://www.redcross.org/charitable-donations