Merry Christmas 2014 to all our Family and Friends!

MERRY CHRISTMAS - SEASON'S GREETINGS - HAPPY HOLIDAYS -FELIZ NAVIDAD

Hopefully one of those is appropriate for your choice of celebrating this season of generosity, caring and sharing, wherever our greeting finds you!  

The INTREPID II crew is still at home.  We will snuggle with our 'senior' kitties in front of a cozy wood fire, sipping eggnog, listening to new music or enjoying movies.  Our gift to ourselves is a new tv. Of course, we'll be reading the wide variety of books we've collected for our library.  There will be phone calls home to family and friends, enjoyment of opening cards and readingfamily updates; or receiving greetings online.  The thought is what counts.

Our weather is currently blustery and wet, the sun may shine from time to time; hope it does for you.

So many people have had to deal with challenges this year; health issues, injuries to selves or family or dear pets, hurricanes, workplace issues.  We hope New Year 2015 will bring healing, resolution and happiness to you all.

If our plans unfold as we'd like, the Captain will head to San Carlos mid-January to reconnect with our patient sailboat, biding her time in the storage yard, longing to be splashed once again. Perhaps INTREPID II will actually sail this year!  Kelly has his fingers crossed that this is the year to set sail for the South Pacific.  Our wishes for ourselves are that the planning and preparation do come together so he can continue to follow his cruising dream. (The Admiral is likely to continue to be a full time kitty sitter, flying off to wherever INTREPID II has made landfall for short visits.)

Let us know your plans - we appreciate staying connected.

CHEERS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Coping in La Paz area - post Odile

Thankfully we have now heard from our friend Henry, who makes his home outside of La Paz.  He managed to send out a message from a friend's home while power was on briefly.  From his update it is clear that coping with a Category 3 hurricane and its aftermath, even with experience, is daunting and exhausting.  He writes:

          "Everywhere you can see the damage and its like a horror show.

Walls blown down, house roofs gone, power poles and cables down, semi trucks blown over. 32 yachts grounded and 3 mariners missing and presumed dead.  Right now I am without all the modern conveniences of power, water, internet, cell phones, tv.  i am literally fetching wood and carrying water.  My friend down the street who is a Vietnam vet, says that this situation is equal to Vietnam, except that nobody is shooting at us.  No a/c means 30 - 33 degrees C. in the casa and 80% humidity with no fans.  It's dark from 7:30 pm until 7:30 am, at which time I read by candlelight or flashlight.   
Some of the stores are open by using using generators but there is no ice, no batteries, no water, no mosquito repellent (previous to Hurricane Odile, La Paz had a Dengue outbreak. After this it will probably be a Dengue plague!).

I line up daily and buy a few things for the day because nothing lasts very long without a working fridge.  There are a few restaurants open now so lunch is not a problem.
Gas stations have line ups 2 kilometers long and they are rationing. Walmart and Sorianas have already been robbed, so now they are putting security guards outside overnight. 

Anyway it's an adventure here and I am thriving and surviving. I didn't realize that reading by flashlight could be so much fun and sleeping from dusk until dawn could be so difficult! "

The cruising community in La Paz rallied to meet the challenges of assisting fellow cruisers, tracking missing people, boats, and damage. They are requesting donations to aid in the ongoing efforts to refloat boats and related costs. The photos on the Hurricane Odile tab show the powerful impact of this storm and the sad reality for cruisers who now have to 'pick up the (literal) pieces' of their dreams.

http://clubcruceros.net/index.php/hurricane-odile/salvageable-boats.html

Keep them in your thoughts.