This past Spring brought really close to home one more reminder of how short this plane of existence is, with a difficult loss that made me reevaluate a lot of things, including our short time of Summer and the thing we enjoy the most - our boating time. To that end, both Anchor Girl and I have taken pretty much every Friday off of work with most weekends starting Thursday evening aboard Boogaboo. Hey, we even spent a few Sunday nights on board & I don't regret the 4:45 am Monday morning alarm clock wake ups. And you know what? Despite the reduced hours at work and having to compress my business in to 4 days, you'd think it would be a bit of a struggle, but it's surprisingly easy. As easy as an attitude adjustment.
And things are only getting better :-)
Better in the fact that we are now enjoying a marina where we feel truly relaxed and welcome. As you read in my last post, I was forced to leave our last marina and the weeks and months leading up to that were far from relaxing. It's sad that we went from feeling 'at home' with the previous marina owners to feeling like, well, disrespected (to say the least) by the new so called 'management' of the facility. It sucked and I was actively looking for at least winter storage for the boat, as I didn't want to be held hostage once our boat came out of the water.
So, here we are, content to be in our new home. Too bad it didn't happen earlier.
A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated Anchor Girl's 50th birthday at the boat with a last minute dinner at one of the local restaurants. Here's AG & Sylvie getting ready to head on over to the Harbour Inn, located right in Lagoon City;
A quick look across the water from our slip. Sure was a beautiful evening;
Jim & Marg, as well as Wevvy, Sylvie and Jason joined us for the evening.
(The dinner was Sylvie's idea. Seemed I was a little preoccupied with Anchor Girl's surprise present and didn't have anything else set up for the Big 5-0);
Awe, the happy couple;
The singing of 'Happy Birthday' indicated to her that something special - CAKE - was on it's way;
Save a big piece for me!
To help celebrate, the owner of the restaurant sent us over a tray of flaming Zambuka - on the house;
The next day, me & Wevvy concocted a cover story to head out for a few hours while we dropped off her old car and picked up her birthday surprise. Look at that, it even matches the Boogaboo boat ;-)