1/13-1/31 Visit Home

It was and uneventful trip home arriving to warm, low 70s, temperatures and sunny days. First order of business was to order the parts needed for Raffaellesco, in case there were long lead times. Amazon covered most of the items. 

Checking on Rascal we were disappointed to find a lot of condensation and mildew in the lazarettes. This precipitated the removal of the contents to dry them out and a thorough cleaning of the lazarettes.

We were able to celebrate a belated birthday with the Ferris' for our customary Sushi birthday dinner. Liz shares our same birthday, January 12th, and we love celebrating with Liz and John!

All January 12 Birthdays!

Saturday, we attended the BWCC induction of new officers at SYC. This was a brunch that was well received by the members in attendance. Suzette continues her role as Judge Advocate, and I will continue as Board of Trustees Representative.

Monday to Friday we enjoyed a bit of winter in Sun Valley, our annual trip to visit our friends Marcia and Claudia for some time on the slopes and a couple dinner parties. Scot and Angie, friends from BWCC, joined the party and some time on the slopes. It is always more fun to ski with friends than by yourself. 

Saturday was a full court press to get my one big Raffaellesco project completed. I had accumulated the materials, now I had to do the cutting and sewing. We designed an awning to cover most of the boat, one to create shade and two to keep the rain out while we left the hatches open. The material of choice...white waterproof ripstop nylon. I took a lot of work and about 3 days of sewing to complete; I hope it fits!

Saturday was the Commodore's Ball where we induct the new officers and directors for Shoreline Yacht Club. This is a formal event, so I dusted off my blue velvet tux and Suzette wore her Micheal Kors dress she bought on the last trip to Madrid. The venue was the Lion's Automobile Museum, so cool to dance among the beautiful vintage cars.

Sunday, we enjoyed The Wiz at the Segerstrom Center. This was a great performance by a lot of talented people.

With our social obligations complete and our Raffaellesco projects and parts packed we were ready to return to Raffaellesco on a Red Eye Tuesday night, but mother nature had other plans. The winter storm on the east coast had our flight from LAX to Miami canceled for lack of an aircraft! Better to be stuck at home than in some airport halfway to our destination. We were able to rebook the flight for Friday night. Talk about "all dressed up and no place to go!"

The in HB was perfect so it was a good opportunity to catch up on some home maintenance and catch our breath. By Friday we were beyond ready and hopeful the next east coast storm would not delay us again. The impact of the delay has a ripple effect; we had to extend our stay for Raffaellesco in the Marina, redo our customs entry permit for the BVIs, revise our customs boat departure paperwork from the BVIs and revise our customs entry paperwork for our next port in Anguilla. Add to this the desire to take advantage of a weather window for our 100-mile crossing from Virgin Gorda to Anguilla on Monday. We arrived at our gate in LAX in plenty of time to board. Unfortunately, the arrival of our plane from Chicago was not so timely. Withe late departure we could only hope that we make our connection in Miami.  We came close but no buano. The next flight to Tortola would be 1830 since we missed our 0820 flight. 10 hours to kill in Miami airport and hoping the flight would be on time to catch the last ferry from Tortola to Virgin Gorda!

We managed to arrive in Tortola in time for the Ferry. We met a local who offered is a ride to our boat. By 1230 we were on board and winding down. Everything seemed to be in good order.