Meeting other sailors

Meeting other sailors

Tuesday 20th October 2020

Our interactions with other people have been very limited on this trip so far because of Covid-19. However, this morning we got talking to another boating couple as we all waited for our laundry to finish. Jack and Janet are true salty dogs and have been all round the world. They shared stories of their favorite places and some of the challenges they have faced as full-time live aboard cruisers. In particular they have had to deal with a number of medical issues and have hooked up with health care services all over the world to solve them. Jack broke his hip, maybe in the Caribbean (?), and was airlifted to Miami where it was pinned. This summer the pins broke and he had to have a hip replacement in Newport, RI. Then, just a couple of weeks ago, he dislocated the same hip whilst in Cape May and had to be taken off the boat by the coast guard. Both Janet and Jack have had knee replacements and I believe that Janet travelled to Singapore to get that done. Whilst in Darwin, Australia, Janet found out from some routine tests that she had cancer and they spent 18 months there whilst undergoing treatment. Despite these challenges they remain incredibly enthusiastic about the sailing life and with the exception of Covid limitations, seem to have no intention of slowing down. Their plans for this season are to get their boat “Anthem” down to Trindad so that they can haul out and do some repairs and re-paint the topsides. They seem like lovely people and we hope we bump into them again on our travels.

If Covid stops travels beyond the USA this winter, which seems quite likely, we have been wondering whether an option for us might be to sail down to Grenada in the late spring and leave the boat there over the hurricane season. Maybe Trinidad is a possibility. It’s just a thought at this stage

Tonight we went out for dinner for the first time in ages. We went to “Prussers Caribbean Grill” and sat outside on the dock overlooking the harbor. It is so nice to go out for a meal!

Mike

38 58.557 N, 76 28.932 W

Annapolis Harbor ~ 6.45 am on a misty Tuesday morning

The Annapolis Naval Academy in the early morning ... not sure why everything has to be lit up by flood lights!

This is a picture of a hibiscus flower that I took yesterday. It's created by merging multiple images as you move the focal point (focus stacking). In this case, partly because the wind was blowing the flower and partly because there are multiple crossing lines, it was difficult process (for the computer) to stack the images well and there were many errors. It took me several hours of work to edit this image but I'm happy with the result.

Hibiscus bud - again taken yesterday but requiring significant editing because I didn't take enough "slices" to complete the stacking process throughout the whole bud.