Letter to Friends and Family, Holidays 2004+ Larger Font | + Smaller Font
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Written by Trudy and Graham |
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December 14, 2004 Hello to all our family and friends, The past year was both really exciting and very hectic, starting out with a traditional Puerto Rican New Year’s party with friends Bob and Kathleen of Windshadow, and drawing to a close back in the Bahamas with our good friends Dave and Beth aboard Grateful Attitudes. During the end of December 2003 and beginning of January 2004 we both really enjoyed the great cruising locations of the remote Spanish Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Most days were spent exploring the reefs and local communities. The highlight of the visit was being the guest of Windshadow on the American naval base at Roosevelt Roads, from where we had the opportunity to visit a rainforest, meet their local friends and Graham free diving with a US Navy diver. On the website there is an article and photos of our trip to Luperon, Dominican Republic. We made the trip north to the Bahamas in time for the First Friday in February Farmers Cay Festival (“5F”) where we met up with our friends Mike and Chris on Bel Ami. Graham crewed on a Bahamian C-Class slope Bul Reg that took third place at the Bahamian regatta. Trudy spent her days following the boats in the race committee boat. During the end of February and beginning of March we had the pleasure of having Graham’s mum aboard. As well as showing her a few of our favorite places in the Exumas, we also arranged a rather exhausting demonstration of seemingly endless strong winds and rough seas – for those of you familiar with the Norbury family, that’s par for the course whenever any of us takes a sailing holiday! Our website has some pictures of us out and about with Ann. Taking advantage of some rare settled weather in early April, we went off exploring the exposed Jumentos Cays in the extreme southern Bahamas. Trudy was in sea bean heaven, finding them on nearly every beach that she and Beth from Grateful Attitudes visited. Since then she has been busy polishing them with sandpaper to make into jewelry. Graham found numerous excellent fishing areas, which not only contained huge grouper and other delicacies, but a varied assortment of men in grey suits (sharks) who were all very keen to see what had been caught for dinner. On arrival back in the USA we called in at Oriental, NC to visit friends Dick and Judy from St Jude. While scaling the tall docks at low tide, Trudy had the misfortune to dislocating her kneecap, an injury which, although quickly popping back in to place, continued to hurt for the next eight week. With Luna Azul safely secured at her summer home in Oxford Boatyard, Graham went back to the England to make a surprise visit for his Dad’s 70th birthday. In early June, not long after Graham had returned to his job as a marine electrician at Oxford Boatyard, we decided that we loved the Eastern Shore area so much that we would buy a house just outside of Oxford so we could retrieve all our furniture and other stuff that had been in storage since moving aboard in October 2002. We completed the purchase of the house on July 20th then spent the next month surrounded by contractors installing hardwood floors and new carpet while we painted a number of rooms to hide the hideous late-70’s fake wood paneling. When our furniture arrived, we sighed with relief that everything fitted just perfectly – remarkable considering we’d traded 5000 sq. ft for 2400 sq. ft! Less than a week later, Biggles the playful Portuguese water dog came to stay while his owners were making an extended visit to England. At the end of August, Trudy received news that she had - after much paperwork - been approved to sit the NCLEX nursing exam required to become a registered nurse in Maryland. Although she’d been reading the study guides on and off since May, this development really piled on the pressure to pass the exam on the first attempt so we’d be still able to set sail for the Bahamas with favorable weather in November. After just six weeks of intense studying, and a marathon four and a half hour computerized adaptive test, we both concluded the chances of passing first time were remote; with the earliest opportunity to retake the test being mid-December, we might as well get used to the idea of experiencing an eastern-shore winter rather sooner than planned. The following week we were both astonished to find out that Trudy passed the exam and we could depart for warmer climates as soon as the boat was ready. Once again our daily routines were thrown into turmoil as the ongoing boat repair list mysteriously doubled in size while the time available cut itself in half; on the day we received news of Trudy’s testing success, Luna Azul rested firmly on dry land without a propeller, and in need of serious engine realignment once she was back in the water. By some small miracle, we managed to launch the boat and have the house closed up in time to meet our “scheduled” departure deadline of Saturday, November 7th. At the end of a very stressful day, we cast off the dock lines and motored around to a nearby creek for a wonderfully relaxing dinner aboard Ambitious with Bob, Braxton and their two large dogs “Big” Zack and “French” Zach. Following the usual trip down the Chesapeake Bay and Intracoastal Waterway to Beaufort NC, we set out offshore for the Bahamas around midnight Sunday, November 14th. Unusually for the time of year, all wind disappeared and caused us to have to motor for three and a half days. After examining our remaining fuel reserves, we diverted towards the Abacos, and eventually made landfall at Man-o-War Cay early on Friday November 19th.. Unlike our previous visit two years ago, the weather was fantastic and we unexpectedly met up with old friends and new for beach combing, spear fishing and exploring. We’ll write more on these and subsequent adventures later… We hope this reaches you all well, and wish you all a wonderful holiday season. Lot of love, happiness, understanding, giggles and smiles. Graham, Trudy, Shadow and Sylvester Crew: Trudy and Graham Norbury, and their cats Sylvester and Shadow
Written 26th November 2004 and edited 14th December 2004
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Copyright © 2004 Trudy and Graham Norbury. All rights reserved. |