It totally sucks that it’s a beautiful, beautiful day with the sun shining and a light breeze out of the south and I’m sitting in my house, sick. What I thought was a minor cold turned out to be one hell of a cold. I need to go back and re-read my entry on “Never Say Die Must Die.”

 

So, I have this beautiful new sailboat that has been completely neglected due to illness. Hopefully I’ll be well enough by Sunday to go for a sail but at this rate I have my doubts.

Penelope has finally arrived! Yesterday at 7AM I drove up to Anacortes with Kevin Dolan and brought her back. It was cold, very cold. There was ice and slush on the boat when we took her out of the slip in Anacortes. After about 3-4 hours we were though the Swinomish Channel, past La Conner, and out into Skagit Bay. We then spent the morning and early afternoon motoring between Camano Island and Whidbey Island.

 

By early afternoon it had finally warmed up a little (probably since the wind was coming from the north, and were able to strip off a layer of fleece. As we approached Hat Island the wind came up and we put up the new spinnaker. It was beautiful. After about 45 minutes the wind died, we doused the spinnaker, and continued motoring. It got cold again but the sunset was amazing.

 

Around 6:30 we were coming into the locks and the attendants told us it was 37 degrees. Very, very cold. By 8PM Penelope was in her new home and it was becoming quite clear I was fighting a cold. Today I’m home sick but so very happy that Penelope is finally in Seattle.

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that I still don’t have Penelope in Seattle. Marine Servicenter thought they might have her finished over a week ago, then they told me she’d be finished last Friday for sure. Friday night I got a call from Kevin, my broker, apologizing and saying the boat won’t be ready until today, Monday. Kevin also explained that he’d buy me drinks and have someone else sail her down from Anacortes so that I should have her by Wednesday, at the latest. Kevin rocks but his boatyard is, um, not so good. Sigh…

 

The good news is that I’ve been on several dates with a positively charming woman named Kristin (yes, that’s going to be confusing). She responded to the last poem in matching verse, no less(!):

 

 

Kristin’s name is confusing because of my friend Avi’s ex-girlfriends. He’s dated two people with the Kristen type name: Kristen and Christen. Furthermore, he dated them sequentially. To avoid confusion his friends named them “C-risten” and “K-risten.” We all still see each other and if things continue to go so nicely between me and Kristin then we need a new name: “I-risten.” Heh.

 

Finally, the heater in my house is malfunctioning and it’s about 60 degrees right now. Won’t have time to fix it until after I’m back from a business trip. Damn.