More "Island Time" in store for this year...

Although I planned to do a lot of local sailing out of Biloxi this year on Intensity, that hasn't happened as much as I hoped. Instead, I keep getting totally unexpected offers to go places I had no intention of visiting this year. Sitka, Alaska for one.... that was a great trip and a chance to see a coastal area I had long wanted to see and hope to someday explore at length. I certainly didn't start the year off thinking about a trip to Alaska, considering all the other projects I have going on, but I'm glad I went.

Hawaii wasn't on my list of places to visit either, but now it looks like I'm going to Maui sometime before Thanksgiving. This opportunity came about as a result of the Alaska trip. A friend of the yacht owner in Sitka saw the work I did there last week and has asked me to go to Lahina Bay to fabricate and install some teak covering boards (or caprails) around the cockpit of a 29' sportfisherman he keeps there for winter use. It seems these Alaska residents are used to the necessity of flying everything and everybody in and out, so it's no big deal to fly a boat carpenter in from somewhere as far away as Mississippi. It's okay by me. Like Alaska, I've always wanted to check out Hawaii anyway, so I'll be packing a tool kit as soon as I can figure out the best time to go by the Thanksgiving deadline.

Key West is another place I didn't plan to see this year. Unlike Alaska and Maui, I've been there plenty of times, both by kayak and by road. This time, however, I'll be sailing there with a friend I met at the marina in Biloxi last year when he arrived there from Texas on the start of an open-ended cruise. Artie Vaughn sails an immaculately-kept and well-equipped Pacific Seacraft 27 named Halcyon. He plans to winter over in Key West and possibly go on to the Bahamas. He doesn't particularly like single-handing on long passages like a crossing of the
Gulf, so he's asked me to help him take her across on a rhumb-line passage from Biloxi to Key West. This should be a great trip. We will likely leave the 3rd week of October, or thereabouts, depending on hurricane activity this year and the water temperature of the Gulf.