NPR is playing their version of A Christmas Carol this morning.  I am drinking coffee listening to Scrooge wake up on Christmas Day a changed man.  I wasn’t visited by any spirits last night, but I am sitting in a bank of fog that isolates me in a white walled circle 25 yards around.  So much has gone into getting ready, and believing I’d already be gone, that I don’t have a Christmas decoration on the boat.  Luckily my old neighbors from Waterford Harbor are driving down to pick me up and head over to an orphan’s Christmas Lunch.  I am looking forward to a little bit of traditional Christmas with other boater friends who are stuck in the area.

I spent yesterday running my jerry cans to shore in the dingy so that I could top up my diesel tank, the outboard gas, and replace the gas I’d burned keeping warm with the generator.  You’d be amazed how many funny looks you get pushing a Wal-mart shopping cart down the side of the road.  I don’t blame the rubber neckers.  It always struck me as funny too seeing someone pushing what are clearly grocery carts down the road when they are nowhere near a store and not even walking in the direction of one.  Still, with five, five gallon cans to fill I couldn’t resist the grey wagon on wheels when I walked right past it.  It didn’t even have that bad front wheel that constantly wobbles pulling the cart in the wrong direction. It was a good one.

The second best look I got was pulling up in line at the gas station to fill up my grocery cart.  I already knew I looked a little crazy and I was tempted to ham it up by making the vroom sound as I pulled up at the pump and miming putting the cart in park and taking out the keys.  I let that opportunity slip away, but maybe next time.  Tomorrow and Saturday are prep days to get the boat offshore ready again.  I am not calling my shots anymore as we know how my first departure went, but there is a good looking forecast brewing up in the Gulf.  I think that might be the best Christmas present of all, 15 knots out of the NE with 3 – 5 foot seas.

Merry Christmas Everyone!  I hope that each and every one of you have a very safe and happy holiday season.

Lee Winters
Phone: (281) 336-0855
Satellite Phone: 8816-316-59853

Web: www.SailingForSOS.com
Email: Lee.Winters@SailingForSOS.com