Now what?

My lovely wife and I have to figure out the next part of our sailing adventures. When she broke a tooth we ended up right back where started at my dad's. It did give us the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with dad, so that's good. My kids and grandkids spent the holiday together up north and we talked with them on Skype. Heartstrings got pulled. We do miss them.

The question for my lovely wife and I is: now what? When to get back on the water? Where do we put the boat in? Do we skip down the coast and continue where we left off? Maybe we should just head right down to the Keys for a couple weeks. Christmas will be at my dad's so we only have a few weeks before we take another break.

It will be at least a week before we head out. There's business to take care of. The trailer needs new lights as I'm sick of continually repairing the old ones. Even the bottom of the boat needs some scrapping and new bottom paint. (not that big a deal with a small boat on a trailer) I must admit to having gotten a bit casual about bottom paint.

Then there's the condition of the sailing budget to consider. My lovely wife and I will have to go over the numbers and see what we want to do next. One of the attractions of our southern visit this years was being able to avoid the expense of winter in the North Country. Even with the unexpected dentist bills, we've paid down some debt, so that's good. Winter is just plain harsh.

Of course, most years we don't even head south until after Christmas. The 3.5 weeks of sailing this fall was a real bonus. We don't have to be back north until the end of April, so we've plenty of time for more adventures.

-Sixbears