Life Goes On

After the joy of attending Ron and Nancy’s wedding, Carl received an e-mail from his brother Kurt in New York that his father had died. He was 92 and lived a full life, but 8 years ago he suffered a stroke and his health started to decline. We were expecting him to die for a while, but when it finally happens it is still a big shock. Being the season in St. Thomas we could not get a slip for the boat for a week, so we anchored in Brewers Bay. Unfortunately bad weather came in and a couple boats drug their anchors. So with more bad weather forecast Leslie said she would stay with the boat while I flew up for the funeral.



Some of the family gets together

We gather at Dad's house

Carl’s brother Bret, from Florida, arrived in New York with his wife, Val, and daughter Daryl, as well as Alan, his brother from Australia, all within an hour of Carl so they went together to Kurt’s house.

The next day Carl and Val left the others to prepare pictures for the viewing while they went to the airport and picked up Carl’s sons Eric and Aron, who also arrived within an hour of each other.

Aron, Daryl, and Eric greet people

We lay Dad to rest

Funerals are never fun, but it was good to get so much of the family together. Everyone did well, but it was tough to hold together when they played taps at the grave site.

We gather at the fireplace

We burn Dad's vest

Everyone was on short visits, except Alan, so the next day we made a final fire and cooked some chicken as a tribute to Dad in the fireplace he built so long ago and had cooked so many meals over the decades. At the end of the night we burned the fur vest he had worn for many years as he worked drawing houses in his basement office.

Leslie was busy making cushions

New sunshades on the stern

When Carl returned he didn’t recognize the boat as, unbeknown to him, Leslie had made cock pit cushions and sun shades!

We gaze at our objective, The Cliff

We start the climb

The climb is tough

Our friends Alex and Vince were to soon leave on a new adventure so Carl took them on a hike up to the cliffs with another friend Bruce. It was something they had always wanted to do for the time they had been here. It was harder than normal as Carl took a “short cut” through the jungle and briers, but the view was terrific!

Some ones washed out shanty on
the way up

We made it to the top!

What a view!

We all made it down again

Nancy and Gordon on Ron's last show

Ron plays his last set on the island

Our other friends Ron and Nancy also decided to leave for a new adventure so we went to watch Ron give his last show and later met them for their last meal on the island.

 

Nancy and Ron's last night on the island

We glue in the track for another sun shade

The new sunshade is up

Back at Brewers Bay, projects continued with Leslie making another sun shade and Carl and our friend Denis, off Beagle Knot, taking apart the windless to repair it. They didn’t get to replace the parts they wanted to, but it still works better now. Carl also reinforced the cockpit hatch covers. 

Reinforcing the propane locker hatch

Port cockpit hatch is reinforced

 

Working on the wench

friends party with us before the last sunshade is up for
our anniversary

However, we still had good times. We invited a number of our cruising friends aboard for drinks and hors d’ovuers to help celebrate our anniversary.

A week later we got a visit from two baby and two adult porpoise, and Carl jumped in to swim with them.

 Leslie continues with her chiropractor appointments to get her leg in shape and when she finishes we will be off to other destinations.