Our sailing blog. A little of this and that as we are cruising the Caribbean islands aboard our CAL 34 sail boat. Comments on various subjects on the liveaboard cruising lifestyle such as destinations, anchorages, pets, wifi and internet access, sailing / boating tips, restaurants, marine services, business services, yacht charters, general day to day life...
Get the tunes going... Today is the first day of summer which means today is the 21st of June which means today is Fête de la Musique day! HURRAY!!!
This is one of our favorite French events of the year. I usually don't like crowds but this is great. Everyone is walking about in a good mood, enjoying snacks from street vendors, and loving the music.
There are musicians everywhere. They are by themselves or in small (or large) groups on the streets, or performing on a stage at a more organized event set up by the various arrondissements. There are usually some big names too, at venues such as Place de la Concorde.
Launched in France in 1982, the Fête de la Musique is now celebrated throughout Europe and worldwide, with events in 700 towns and more than 120 countries on five continents.
Here is a website that has been automatically translated into English. If you touch your cursor to a paragraph you can see the original French. There is also the language option at the top right corner of the page for French, English, Spanish, and Italian.
Oh, to be in Paris right now...
So, as KC & the Sunshine Band says, get up and "Shake your booty!"
I have www.wunderground.com (tropical weather) as my Firefox homepage and I was so happy to read Dr Jeff Master's headline tease to his blog this afternoon...
Quiet... No threat... I want to read more of the same over the summer months!
Yes, I know that the first day of summer is not for a couple of weeks but today is the first day of what I like to call the "summer season" in order to avoid the "H" word.
The various forecasts for tropical storms seem to be lower than recent years and I hope that the few disturbances predicted will be a long ways away.
I have just modified my Firefox browser to have http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/ as my homepage.
Hurray! Tomorrow is the first day of summer, June 21st.
We won't see much difference here in the Caribbean as every day is pretty much the same, but the summer solstice is still and always has been a special day for me. Summer is school's out and it's time to play. One sad point is that the days start getting shorter which is not very noticeable here but when we lived in the northern latitudes I didn't like that my winter commutes to work started out in darkness and at the end of the workday to return home in the dark... All of my precious daylight hours were stuck behind a desk (although a very nice desk with a great view!)
Oh, to be in Paris right now... Why, you ask???
Tomorrow is the official day for the Fête de la Musique but it starts a few days earlier in Paris. It seems like there is an event of some sort going on at every other street corner, in the parks, metro stations, etc, with some big names, too. Lots of fun and merriment!
Hopefully our weather will be nice so we can get some work done on the boat but we will have the tunes going all day and be sure to take some time off for a well-deserved Pastis :)
Takes your mind off that you are now in that special tropical weather season.
Well, today is June 2nd. I'd just like to report that we made it through the first day of the "summer season" (don't even like to say "h-season") without a hitch.
There was one guy who was throwing anchors off the bow of his boat yesterday...
Sunday seems to be off to a fine start. Bob just made some wonderfully fluffy and tasty pancakes, and we have quite a bit of blue sky at the moment.
I'm enjoying Fatty Goodlander's book: Buy, Outfit, and Sail. We have it on our Kindles.
Kindles are so great for boat folk. As I mentioned the other day (Towel Day), Douglas Adam's book The Ultimate Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy is quite a hefty tome at 832 pages as it weighs 1.85 pounds. The Kindle version is weightless AND spaceless.
We have the Kindle apps on our Android tablets but prefer the non-glare, easy-to-read screen of the actual Kindle device for reading books. You can read them outside in the daylight, too! I think our next Kindle (we have one Kindle and one rooted Nook) will be a Paperwhite version because it has a built-in light for night reading.
