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| Nova Scotia's famous Bluenose schooner |
It has been well over a year since I updated the blog, and it is hard to figure out how to resolve this. So here’s a quick update of the past year and our plans for the future.
We traveled to Canada from Bermuda in 2017 and spent the summer falling in love with Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax and the Bras D’Or Lakes. We swung by Acadia National Park in Maine on our way down to Annapolis for the fall boat show. We decided we wanted a winter season in the US in order to visit friends and family, so Rockhopper stayed in Annapolis while we traveled by Yaris.
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| Dolphins alongside Rockhopper outside Long Island, NY |
In November, the dermatologist found a melanoma on Mindy’s face, and several weeks of appointments, evaluations, and surgeries followed. Over the course of 6 months we made 3 road trips to Colorado, staying with Anthony for weeks at a time (thanks Anthony!). We also spent 2 wonderful months in Austria visiting family for the holidays. All of this time in Colorado and Austria, and we didn’t do a day of skiing!
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| Newfoundland's remote southern coast |
We pulled ourselves away from Annapolis in spring ’18 and headed down to coastal NC to do more visiting. We sailed offshore to Bermuda in May and spent weeks there before sailing back up to Nova Scotia in July. This year we joined the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron on their summer cruise and made friends while cruising the Cape Breton area. We spent a couple of remarkable weeks in Newfoundland, but had to start heading south before we visited all of the spots we planned. We sailed back down to Annapolis, made another road trip to NC and CO, and worked the Annapolis Boat Show one last time.
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| Bras D'Or Lakes, Nova Scotia |
That brings us back up to the present! Spending a cold winter on the boat was a lousy idea, so Rockhopper will be headed south to the Caribbean this month. We’ll be at the tail end of the Salty Dawg Rally. Our original departure date was set for November 3 from Hampton VA, but we are taking our time waiting for a nice weather window even though most of the boats have already left. (You can track us during this trip at www.snap.ocens.com, and just enter “Rockhopper” for the name.)
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| A puffin in flight! |
As for the future, we’ll hang out in the Caribbean for the winter. We are planning to finally sail to Europe this coming spring, but if that starts falling apart, we’ll be thrilled to make it back to Canada.
So there is our past, present, and future. Obviously I haven’t been very inspired to keep up the blog, but I am rethinking its format, and will try to buckle down and do something, anything, with it.
