survival strategies

I'm not talking about survival on the water, I'm talking about survival now.  Four or five inches of snow on the ground this morning, much more than was predicted.  It has been a long, cold, snowy winter. Everybody loved the movie Endless Summer.  There is a reason nobody remembers a movie called Endless Winter.  I'm looking for strategies just to get by.

Getting ready for sailing at least gives me a little hope for warm weather.  My new CGear Sand Free Multi Mat arrived from Amazon today (part of my birthday present from Mom.  Thanks Mom!).  I won't be using it on the sand.  Instead it will be my sun shade (just the idea of baking under a brutal sun sounds pretty good right now).  There you see it positioned on Spartina where it will be stretched over the boom when I'm anchored out on hot summer days.  The mat looks very well made and has nice rings sewn into the corners for attachment lines.  I would say the only negative is that it is heavy.  But that's ok, I don't see that as a problem.  Thanks for the tip on this piece of gear Kiwibird.

Bruce, don't you think that shade would have been useful on Day Seven of the Tag Team?  That day the heat index got up to 105 degrees.  There were are, above, in a nice photo from Dawn Patrol as we were entering the Adams Canal.  Mildly hot much of the morning, almost unbearable when the wind died on the Neuse River in the afternoon.

And shopping for supplies always helps me feel that sailing is not that far away.  I found this Demi-Glace Gold at the local grocery store the other day.  Bruce always brings some back from California to use in some sauces on the trip.  One less thing for him to carry back here in May.

I bought an eight-pack of Ultimate Lithium Energizers for the SPOTs and the gps.  The package claims the "ultimate" batteries will last longer in high tech devices.  We'll see.  Just two batteries will generally last a year of cruising (in last year's case, 25 days) in the SPOT.  It is the gps that tends to eat up batteries.

I also wrote my list of questions for Paul and Dawn when they call in their 24 hour reports from the Everglades Challenge.  I plan on carrying a notebook with me during the race so I'll be ready to take down information when they call.  The list of questions will be on the cover of the notebook.  There are the basic questions I have to ask - How far to the next checkpoint?  What is your eta to the next checkpoint?  What are your plans? - that sort of thing.  But I'll also ask about their energy level, the food, who they are with, the best thing that happened that day, the biggest challenge of the day.  It will help with the required report and it should help make a nice blog post too.

Just writing this post about hot weather, supplies for cruising and the EC is making me feel better.  Ok Spring, I'm ready.

steve