Hurricane Season OVER!

     It's been a great summer, and the time has flown by!   Daren's in Missouri for the weekend, finally getting to visit our good friends and former neighbors before it gets too cold there!    He'll be home tomorrow evening....hooray!

    After spending July near Chat 'n' Chill, we moved to a more protected mooring in Hole # 2 on Stocking Island, near the St. Francis Resort.  It worked out really well, because Libby and I take a path over to Honeymoon Beach twice a day to swim.  There's also a 5 mile long ocean-side beach, where Libby likes to dig up crabs, but the waves make it hard to swim there!  About a month ago, we met a cruising family on a big ketch, Windhover, who are heading for the southern side of the Dominican Republic, too.  They invited us to the Anglican church and Daren and I both loved it!   It's very old, with a beautiful stained glass window, amazing choir, and we sing traditional hymns!   Henk, Susi, and their son Teddy work at the library, so we've been taking our picnic lunches there after church!  

      The weather's been gorgeous for all but a few rainy days all summer, and we've had Hole #2 pretty much to ourselves, surrounded by 16 Canadian boats.  A few of their owners have arrived in the last week, and I was invited to a party by Michelle and Dan on Sea Monkey, a neighboring trawler.  The party grew and was moved to the St.Francis Resort, where we had a great evening!   I met a lovely couple who own one of the St.Francis catamarans and they charter it for 3 couples. Bonnie and I took our dogs to the ocean beach this morning, and I got a tour of their boat.  Oh MY!  It's truly amazing, with 4 staterooms, each with shower or bath!  Go to www.sailparadigmshift.com if you'd like a look at the layout...nice photo gallery, too!  The owners of the St.Francis resort are from South Africa and their catamarans are built there.  They're VERY seaworthy, since they sail them up to Georgetown and then to the Miami boat show and the one in Annapolis.   

      Daren's bringing our new reverse osmosis water-maker when he comes home tomorrow, which means we'll never run out of water...anywhere!   Hooray!  He plans to take the month of December to move the boat down to Santo Domingo, where he will continue commuting to Modesto.  My sister Barb is planning to rent a house down there and bring her standard poodle, Ollie to play with Libby!   Rents are rumored to be very cheap there, so we hope to have lots of company this winter!