Last week, after 16 months in the water, we hauled Romana for the winter. It was a bit of an anti-climax as I was just getting ready to call Dave to see if the lift was immiment when he called me to say she was safely on the cradle. This is the first time we have hauled at Pictou Marina and will be leaving the mast up, so that is new territory for us. It could prove to be interesting, as Dave has already seen some birds perching on our spreaders.
Since we got home in the middle of June we have spent less time aboard than we have ever spent in a summer boating season before. When we first got home we spent time sorting things out at the house, doing some much needed maintenance and yard work and revelling in hot showers every day and all the space we had! We didn't miss living aboard for the first couple of weeks as the weather was cold, rainy and miserable and we were happy to be home.
Our first cruise of the season was supposed to be to Canso for Stanfest the first weekend of July, but Hurricane Arthur thwarted our plans and the festival, which was cancelled because of the strong winds and rain. Dave took Romana to a protected anchorage nearby to ride out the hurricane and she did well, although some other boats did not, with at least one ending up on the rocks in Pictou Harbour and another one taking off through the anchorage but luckily being rescued and secured to another mooring by other boaters.
The weekend after Arthur we enjoyed beautiful weather for the Pictou Lobster Carnival. We participated in the annual 'Sail Past' parade with a big crew aboard and then a couple of other boats rafted to us at our mooring in the harbour for front row seats for the fireworks. To my delight, they featured in addition to the 'regular' fireworks, fireworks from a stunt plane, which were so cool but difficult to describe. The following day we watched the same stunt plane to a daytime show before the lobster boat races, our first feed of lobster and the parade. Later in the month we managed two short cruises to our local haunts of Pictou Island and Caribou and then somehow July was gone!
Visitors started arriving for middle daughter Nicki and Mike's wedding and much of August was consumed spending time with family and friends, including all of the kids and grandkids. Dave got out for a couple of day sails with some of our visitors, and did a three day single handed cruise to the east end of PEI while I was in Ontario visiting my folks at the end of August, but I didn't step foot on the boat for six weeks after the end of July.
By the time I got home from Ontario I was really ready to go sailing, but Dave had agreed to go into the mill and work on the annual maintenance shutdown to help them get their boilers started up on gas, so we only managed a short overnight trip to Blackhall Gut before he was working day and night (literally - he was on night shift for four nights!). Finally at the end of September we were able to steal away for one night to Pictou Island before he went in to finish up at work.
Although we didn't have a lot of time left before the boat had to come out of the water, we had hoped to take a short cruise to the east end of PEI the first week of October. The weather gods conspired against us again and the winds were blowing in totally the wrong direction, so we decided maybe we should head west instead. Making the decision at lunch one day, we packed up, got a few groceries and by shortly after 2 p.m. we were on the boat, slipping off the mooring to see how far we could get before dark.
The winds were strong and we had some pretty glorious sails in the five days we were away, but with strong winds come big seas, even in the Northumberland Strait, so that made for some pretty rolly trips, especially when the wind was behind us. We stopped in Wood Islands that first night, where we had a few minutes of nail biting as our raw water engine cooling pump intake got clogged up and then cleared. The next day we sailed to Charlottetown where we spent two nights enjoying the little city life, with live music at the pub where we had dinner and then catching Anne and Gilbert: The Musical, which we both thorougly enjoyed.
We had a rough motor sail across the Strait and anchored just off the coast between Cape John and Brule before heading home to Pictou on the last day after a very rolly night when the wind came up from the west in the middle of the night - we didn't have as much protection from that direction as we thought. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a fantastic sail with the wind clocking around from the west to the northwest to the north so that we could sail all the way to our mooring. It was a perfect last sail for the season.
So obviously we don't have this retirement thing figured out at all, since we should have had much more time to spend sailing than we did this summer, but I am going to chalk it up to wanting to catch up on 'the rest of our lives' after nine months away. We certainly don't regret all of the time we spent doing other things with family and friends instead of sailing. And we shouldn't really miss the boat after spending every day aboard for nine of the last sixteen months. But we seem to always feel the same when we haul the boat in the fall - gee, it doesn't seem like we got much time aboard this summer. We used to think it was because work was getting in the way, but apparently there are other things to juggle too.
Lots of people have been asking us what our future plans for cruising are. Obviously we are not heading south this winter, as we just hauled the boat. We decided that we wanted to spend a winter at home this year. We also both agree that nine months at a stretch on the boat is too long for us. So, what are our options? We have lots of ideas, but nothing concrete yet. We would love to spend a few months somewhere warm on the boat in the winter, but the logistics of getting the boat there without spending a lot of time are complicated and/or costly. So right now our plan is to think about it over the winter, launch Romana next spring as usual, and see how it all goes.
Enjoy your winter wherever you are - we plan to!
(By the way, for anyone who is interested, I have added some more photos from this summer to the Boat Views page.)
Since we got home in the middle of June we have spent less time aboard than we have ever spent in a summer boating season before. When we first got home we spent time sorting things out at the house, doing some much needed maintenance and yard work and revelling in hot showers every day and all the space we had! We didn't miss living aboard for the first couple of weeks as the weather was cold, rainy and miserable and we were happy to be home.
Our first cruise of the season was supposed to be to Canso for Stanfest the first weekend of July, but Hurricane Arthur thwarted our plans and the festival, which was cancelled because of the strong winds and rain. Dave took Romana to a protected anchorage nearby to ride out the hurricane and she did well, although some other boats did not, with at least one ending up on the rocks in Pictou Harbour and another one taking off through the anchorage but luckily being rescued and secured to another mooring by other boaters.
The weekend after Arthur we enjoyed beautiful weather for the Pictou Lobster Carnival. We participated in the annual 'Sail Past' parade with a big crew aboard and then a couple of other boats rafted to us at our mooring in the harbour for front row seats for the fireworks. To my delight, they featured in addition to the 'regular' fireworks, fireworks from a stunt plane, which were so cool but difficult to describe. The following day we watched the same stunt plane to a daytime show before the lobster boat races, our first feed of lobster and the parade. Later in the month we managed two short cruises to our local haunts of Pictou Island and Caribou and then somehow July was gone!
Visitors started arriving for middle daughter Nicki and Mike's wedding and much of August was consumed spending time with family and friends, including all of the kids and grandkids. Dave got out for a couple of day sails with some of our visitors, and did a three day single handed cruise to the east end of PEI while I was in Ontario visiting my folks at the end of August, but I didn't step foot on the boat for six weeks after the end of July.
By the time I got home from Ontario I was really ready to go sailing, but Dave had agreed to go into the mill and work on the annual maintenance shutdown to help them get their boilers started up on gas, so we only managed a short overnight trip to Blackhall Gut before he was working day and night (literally - he was on night shift for four nights!). Finally at the end of September we were able to steal away for one night to Pictou Island before he went in to finish up at work.
Although we didn't have a lot of time left before the boat had to come out of the water, we had hoped to take a short cruise to the east end of PEI the first week of October. The weather gods conspired against us again and the winds were blowing in totally the wrong direction, so we decided maybe we should head west instead. Making the decision at lunch one day, we packed up, got a few groceries and by shortly after 2 p.m. we were on the boat, slipping off the mooring to see how far we could get before dark.
The winds were strong and we had some pretty glorious sails in the five days we were away, but with strong winds come big seas, even in the Northumberland Strait, so that made for some pretty rolly trips, especially when the wind was behind us. We stopped in Wood Islands that first night, where we had a few minutes of nail biting as our raw water engine cooling pump intake got clogged up and then cleared. The next day we sailed to Charlottetown where we spent two nights enjoying the little city life, with live music at the pub where we had dinner and then catching Anne and Gilbert: The Musical, which we both thorougly enjoyed.
We had a rough motor sail across the Strait and anchored just off the coast between Cape John and Brule before heading home to Pictou on the last day after a very rolly night when the wind came up from the west in the middle of the night - we didn't have as much protection from that direction as we thought. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a fantastic sail with the wind clocking around from the west to the northwest to the north so that we could sail all the way to our mooring. It was a perfect last sail for the season.
So obviously we don't have this retirement thing figured out at all, since we should have had much more time to spend sailing than we did this summer, but I am going to chalk it up to wanting to catch up on 'the rest of our lives' after nine months away. We certainly don't regret all of the time we spent doing other things with family and friends instead of sailing. And we shouldn't really miss the boat after spending every day aboard for nine of the last sixteen months. But we seem to always feel the same when we haul the boat in the fall - gee, it doesn't seem like we got much time aboard this summer. We used to think it was because work was getting in the way, but apparently there are other things to juggle too.
Lots of people have been asking us what our future plans for cruising are. Obviously we are not heading south this winter, as we just hauled the boat. We decided that we wanted to spend a winter at home this year. We also both agree that nine months at a stretch on the boat is too long for us. So, what are our options? We have lots of ideas, but nothing concrete yet. We would love to spend a few months somewhere warm on the boat in the winter, but the logistics of getting the boat there without spending a lot of time are complicated and/or costly. So right now our plan is to think about it over the winter, launch Romana next spring as usual, and see how it all goes.
Enjoy your winter wherever you are - we plan to!
(By the way, for anyone who is interested, I have added some more photos from this summer to the Boat Views page.)