Monthly Archives: April 2015
From Neutral to Eye Popping…
Let It Be has now been in charter for a bit over 2 years (already!) and she has been an excellent boat. Many people have enjoyed sailing her from one beautiful BVI hot spot to the next. We have been very fortunate because most of the maintenance has been routine and expected. In other words, Let It Be has been reliable, fun and predictable.
LIB patiently awaits us.
However, there is one purely cosmetic item we have been anxious to improve ~ the exterior cushions on LIB. The cushions currently aboard have been workhorses, but I think it is almost time for them to be put out to pasture.
Perfectly neutral and acceptable cushions.
We hope to have new cushions fabricated in September so they will be ready for the post hurricane 2015 season. While choices are not final, the current front runner of color pallets is the one pictured below:
This could add a lot of pop!
I think that teal blue with lime green piping could make some beautiful cushions. Add some accent pillows in the stripe material and a few others in the tangerine and LIB will look mighty pretty, I think.
We plan on taking a sample of the teal blue with us on our next trip, just make sure it doesn’t get too hot in that Caribbean sunshine. We sure don’t want our guests getting scorched each time they sit at the helm!
Do you think those colors will be beautiful or do you prefer a more traditional, single color theme?
The Hardest Part? STILL Photographs!
There are a lot of decisions to be made when downsizing and putting your house on the market. Emotions obviously range from excitement to dread; from denial to staunch determination. And that is only about the “things” and doesn’t touch the emotions involved with family, friends, memories or even familiarity.
For me, the most emotionally and decision intensive part so far is the photographs! Not to mention this is a HUGE time investment for those of us who have lived through the printed picture age.
This is actually a sampling of the photos we have!
I guess I was too busy enjoying and photographing my kids and family to take the time to organize all those photos when they were developed. As a result, I have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pictures to work through.
First I am sorting the photos by year, and next I am culling the duplicates and triplicates ~ after all, I had two sets of grandparents to send photos!
But culling duplicates isn’t as easy as you may think because some of said photos actually ended up in photo albums! This throws me into the dilemma of, “wait, did I just see that picture or do I remember it from a photo album?” (Which happens to already be in the storage unit.)
This box isn’t ALL discarded photos, but…
When I finally finish sorting and culling duplicates, I plan on having all the remaining paper photos scanned so the colors won’t continue to fade and I will have access to them on my computer.
But alas, scanning is also a process! Recently I had our old videos converted from cassette tapes to flash drives and for the same price I could have bought something pretty awesome for our boat!
So now I am researching my options for scanning services and weighing the cost against heading to the nearest Target or CVS, pulling up a lawn chair and scanning the photos myself.
I have a feeling the cost of professional scanning will seem significantly more reasonable when I calculate how many hours I will have to stand in a local store to scan those photos myself. The price will seem especially reasonable when I consider that the time I spend at a photo kiosk could be spent sorting, donating and selling household goods.
Soooo many times I thought all those friends who spent weekends “scrapbooking” were wasting their time. Well, I guess they are laughing now?
Oh, the fun of downsizing continues!!
If anyone reading this, like me, was too busy (read disorganized) to cull and sort photos along the way, I strongly suggest you tackle your photos WAY before you begin the actual downsizing process!
If you are anything like me, you will need a LOT of time for this process!
Happy Tax Day 2015
Okay, so there isn’t much happy about April 15th in the U.S., so I thought I would just post a few pretty pictures to brighten your day. Tomorrow will be here soon and you will have another 364 days to forget about whatever preparations you had to do to meet today’s deadlines. Hope these turn your thoughts to more pleasant things…
A beautiful start or finish to a day.
Near Scrub Island
Jaunty red spinnaker.
Beauty in the land and sea.
Nothing like kiteboarding to take you away.
A spectrum of blues.
Day’s end at last.
Nothing weighty here today. Just a wish that your April 15th isn’t too taxing. 🙂
Sharing is Fun
I’m not sure all parents are this way, but we love to share our “toys” with our kids. Seeing them become proficient and learn new skills is something we focused on while raising our two sons.
Clayton and Natalie
We were thrilled when our son, Clayton, asked if he could spend his senior year spring break on Let It Be with some of his friends.
A few of our friends thought we were crazy to lend our future home to our 22 year old and 7 of his closest friends for Spring Break, but we think trust and responsibility go hand in hand. If we can’t trust our kids with our things, we failed to teach them responsibility as they grew.
Well, Spring Break is over, the trip is in the books, and the kids had a great time. Jonathan Healey generously shared his photos from the trip and said I could share them here and on FB. It looks to me like Jon has a pretty good eye for photography. Here are a few of his photos:
Route planning.
Bathing Beauties.
Jon (photographer) at the helm and Andrew tending lines.
Taylor keeps a look out as they pass Oil Nut Bay.
Andrew – come back!
Outside of Foxy’s Taboo.
Returning from the Bubbly Pool.
Nighttime comes quickly.
I am hoping Clayton will guest post in the future, share more photos and tell us about spring break, on a boat, in the BVIs, with a bunch of college kids and acting as captain.
I’m so happy to know this great group of young adults. They are interesting individuals and very caring people. Let It Be was in good hands.
Bondi and Don Winstel Come a Callin’
When dreaming of the perfect guests on board, you can’t get much better than Don and Bondi!
Frank and I managed to dock LIB only 3 hours before our guests arrived, which meant that we weren’t quite ready when the taxi man dropped Bondi and Don off. But that didn’t deter these guys! Bondi immediately helped unload provisions and Don grabbed a brush and started swabbing the decks with Frank. UNTIL – SCREECH!! Our sound guy, Don, noticed a problem with the speakers and that just couldn’t remain with our pro music man on LIB.
I wish I had a picture of the Winstel’s first hour on LIB; the bags were not even unpacked and Bondi was shuffling groceries in the galley while Don had the tool box out and was attacking the sound system. HOW can guests get better than that?
Once the provisions were settled and the speakers were properly tuned, we were off to the usual BVI hot spots:
The Baths – a must see.
Bitter End Yacht Club
Toasting the “little boats” at YCCS
Day Dreaming on Anegada
Bondi cracks me up!
Time to dive the Wreck of the Rhone
Shaving is a group activity?
Photo Op as we walk to the Bubbly Pool
Sundowners, of course!
Bondi and Don, we are SO glad you came to share some time in BVI paradise. Next time we will get our 4 missing musketeers there too! We missed you Lisa, Dave, Iain and Jean!
