Donate to Donna Romasco's Medical Fund

Many of you may know Donna Romasco who lives aboard in Tortola BVI with her husband Dave, and dog Trixie. She works at Regency Charter Services. Donna is a super person to work with and we love her efficiency and attention to detail.

 

Donna is seriously ill right now due to contracting dengue hemorrhagic fever (the worst form of dengue) shortly after returning home from hospital for a total hip replacement which has since become acutely infected. To top it off, Dave came down with Chikungunya virus.

Our good friend Kerry of the charter yacht Promenade has set up a fund raiser page to help with Donna's unexpected medical costs.

The GoFundMe site is: http://www.gofundme.com/donna-regency. You can find more details about her condition there.

Donations of any amount will be appreciated but it will also be a great morale booster for Donna to know that so many people care.

Get well soon, Donna

Amazon Kindle Stuff

Over a month ago, our Kindle (keyboard model) started having issues. I must contact Amazon as perhaps it is an easy fix but I still haven't done so.

Kindle Paperwhite

A couple of days later we decided to buy the Kindle Paperwhite. We have been wanting one for awhile and now we had the perfect excuse to actually purchase one. We prefer the e-ink Kindles as opposed to the Kindle Fires because we only want to use them to read books. We have other tablets to surf the internet, use as chart plotters, mp3 players, etc.

The e-ink Kindles display perfectly when reading outdoors in sunlight. Nice for when you have a few minutes and want to carry on a bit further in your current book. The Paperwhite has an integral light so you can read in the dark. Perfect!

New Kindle Touch

I have a discontinued 6" Kindle with the buttons on the bottom and the page turning buttons on both sides. It has been replaced by the new improved Kindle Touch which has a faster processor, more storage space, and some new features.

To protect our new Paperwhite we bought a sleeve that we are very happy with. It fits snug and is easy to find (it is purple) and use.

Our Kindle Touch doesn't have its own light but I found an inexpensive case with a built-in light which works well.

Lighted e-ink Kindles are great for night reading because you don't need to disturb anyone else with the cabin light.

Are you a Dortmunder fan? The Hot Rock was (and still is) one of my favorite movies. Dortmunder was played by Robert Redford. This book, Thieves Dozen by Donald E. Westlake, has 11 Dortmunder short stories. Great for light bedtime reading.

In the plus column, Kindles are excellent as they can hold lots of books, thus reducing weight aboard and recovering some shelf space. Yes, I worry about something happening and losing access to our books but we have several Kindles so they shouldn't all go down at once. We do have paper books that we must keep such as guitar music, boatbuilding books with plans, other reference books, plus some paperback favorites. Can't be too careful :)

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The terns were right

We were worried about TS/Hurricane Gonzalo even though the royal terns were back in town. We prepared our boat and put out two more anchors.

The first few projected tracks had the little TS symbol right on top of us but fortunately, Hurricane Gonzalo stayed about 100 miles away to the northeast.

The terns were right.

90L is TS Gonzolo

GONZOLO, great name for a storm. Makes me think of a Marx Brother movie.  But as cool as his name might be (we experienced Omar a few years ago), we really don't want him passing through here.

The Hurricane Hunters flew through Invest 90L earlier today and found out that it was a Tropical Storm... didn't even mess with the Tropical Depression phase.

They predict it will be an H-thing when it gets to Puerto Rico.

So, guess you know what we'll be busy with... best to be prepared.

Hope the GFS model (red line in above image) is accurate and it will pass quite aways from us.

Here's a bit from Advisory #1 - 130 PM AST SUN OCT 12 2014

DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK
------------------------------
AT 130 PM AST...1730 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM GONZALO WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 16.4 NORTH...LONGITUDE 58.4 WEST. GONZALO IS
MOVING TOWARD THE WEST NEAR 10 MPH...17 KM/H...AND THIS GENERAL
MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE THROUGH TUESDAY...FOLLOWED BY A TURN
TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST TUESDAY NIGHT. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...
GONZALO IS EXPECTED TO MOVE THROUGH THE LEEWARD ISLANDS BY EARLY
MONDAY MORNING.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 40 MPH...65 KM/H...WITH HIGHER
GUSTS.  STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS.

TROPICAL-STORM-FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 45 MILES...75 KM
FROM THE CENTER.

THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1009 MB...29.80 INCHES.

So it goes

What the heck? Invest 90L !!!

I've been meaning to put the ground tackle away that has been sitting on deck since the last storm threat. In fact, today seemed like a good day to do so until I went to look at weatherunderground.com

Invest 90L - Saturday, October 11 2014, 08:00am

I'm hoping the return of the Royal Terns and the increased population of Pelicans was not premature.

I was going to check out Amazon's Halloween costumes for pets but I'm sort of put off of frivolity right now... except, this is one I haven't seen before...

Animal Planet Peacock Dog Costume

So it goes...

More on herding cats

Most everyone has seen the EDS commercial shown during the Superbowl many years ago about herding cats. It is such a classic and always makes me smile. If you haven't seen it lately, take a moment and click on the video below.


Today, I came across an interesting video on YouTube which explores the concept of herding cats, Mythbusters (season 13, episode 6) broadcast on the Discovery Channel.


Hmmm... maybe they should have tried treats. Would be a bit impractical if you're herding a group (collectively called chowder, clutter, or glaring of cats) across the plains on horseback though :)

Enjoy !

They're back...

We would like to welcome back the Royal Terns... Salut!

Yesterday afternoon while having a sundowner tot of rum along with some quality time with the cats, two Royal Terns made a low pass over the deck. Wow, are we glad to see them. To us, it means the end of H-season in our neck of the woods.

Weather guru Dr. Jeff Masters at wunderground.com pretty much said the same thing a couple of days ago but his statement has now been validated by our fine feathered friends.