more trip notes

Friday, December 30 - Up late as is fitting on a lazy vacation and down to the Clear Lake area, which is said to have the 3rd largest concentration of pleasure boats in the country. Visited with Ed and Marion on their fortyfive foot sailboat (which by the way is for sale; I might be able to help you get a great deal). Supported the boat economy by dropping lots of cash for stuff at West Marine. Looked at boats at the Higgins Smythe and Hood brokerage including a couple of Catalina 30s and a Bombay Clipper 31. Enjoyed lunch at Skippers, a Greek and Seafood place and another great meat and seafood dinner with Gerard and Rhonda.

Saturday, New Year's Eve - Managed to get going about 20 minutes earlier than the previous day. Took a midday cruise on a fifty-three-foot topsail steel-hulled schooner, the Captain Kidd, with Captain Joe and his deckhand, Adam, and a few other folks. The mellow cruise contrasted with all the frentic tourist activity at the nearby Kemah Boardwalk. We got a couple of miles out on the bay. The schooner has a variety of sails that we don't see on our ho-hum sloops at home, including a flying jib and a couple of gaff-rigged sails. We also had a late lunch at T-bone Tom's in Kemah and looked at boats on the J&L and Ron's brokerage docks at the Waterford Harbor marina in Kemah. The most dangerous (because we could conceivable almost afford it, depending on how you define "afford"): a 1978 Cal 34 named "Delilah" that had been reduced to $18,000. Also dangerous: lots of ads for cheap slips in the area for boat storage. Just as bad: Ed, whom we'd visited the day before, is interested in getting his condo and marina association to make us an offer we can't refuse on slip rental.

Before leaving the lake, we drove over the bridge to Seabrook and spotted Ed's boat rafted up just offshore in the lake, and took pictures of Remedy and her consorts. They were lying in wait for the big New Year's eve fireworks show, but we had other plans. We drove a few miles north into Cleark Lake City to visit my cousin Richie and his wife Marianne and son Robert, joined by Marianne's mom, Nina, my cousin Mary Frances, cousin Tracy Lene and her husband Mel, all gathered for a bit of modest New Year celebration. We manged to wait for the Atlantic time zone (Newfoundland?) before calling it an evening and returning to Gerard and Rhonda's, where we found that they had also made a modest, short evening of things. (Rhonda had to pack for an early departure the next morning to escort handicapped young cancer patients to an adaptive skiiing clinic in Utah and we had to leave for New Mexico the next day.)

So much to do ... and so many things to come back for!