024: A Day to Give Thanks For

On November 23^rd, we awoke to a beautiful misty morning.   At 6:30 a.m. Gavin from Sol Maria asked me, “So when do you want to get a move on?”   I replied, “7:30”.  Gavin came back at 7:00.  I countered at 7:15. He countered at 7:00.   I reluctantly agreed.  (I guess this explains why he was the successful head of large company in New Zealand).   But a funny thing happened that morning:  there was a quiet, unspoken mutiny.   As we all gathered to untie lines, the beautiful morning wrapped us in its embrace, and we drank our coffee and drew it all in.

Hygge rafted up:

 

Gavin in his "Wellies" enjoying the moment:

  

 As if just soaking in this beautiful morning was not enough, Gavin’s wife Lica serenaded us with the song Pōkarekare Ana (“a traditional New Zealand love song, probably communally composed about the time World War I began in 1914. The song is written in Māori.”).  Little did we know that Lica and her parents and siblings were the von Trapp Family of New Zealand and performed professionally.   If you click one link in this blog series, make it this one:

We got going at around 7:35 a.m., so a win for the mutineers.  (Gavin said to me later, “You were bloody right about leaving later.   Sometimes you just have to live in the moment.”)

We headed down the last stretch of the Inland River System to Mobile Bay.    We knew things were changing when we came upon this steel plant:

We came to this interesting bridge that is remotely operated.  You call them on Channel 16 on the VHF radio, or call on the cell phone, and they raise the bridge remotely.

We then came upon the industrial area of Mobile:

Navy ship being worked upon:

USNS "Comfort" hospital ship:

Floating offshore oil rigs being serviced:

Container cranes like this in Sausalito, CA inspired the design of the Imperial Walkers from the Star Wars movies:

While going through the Bay, our children Charlotte and Jack arranged a Facetime call with us, and we had a nice chat.  It was the first Thanksgiving Day since they were born that we were all not together, so that was a nice gesture on their part.

Traveling through Mobile Bay we began to see dolphins, but they were camera shy I guess as each time we tried to get a picture, they disappeared.  We pulled into Sundowner Marina through a very narrow entrance at about 2:00 p.m.   

I needed an oil and transmission fluid change, so Matt came over to help me.  While we were doing manly men things, the womenfolk were working on Thanksgiving Dinner.  The grocery stores were all closed by the time we got docked, so Nancy started thawing out all our frozen chicken meat.  Fika had already baked pumpkin bread and a cake, and KatMat and Sol Maria were scouring their food pantries so we could have something special for the day.   Hearing our “no turkey” plight, Cliff, the Marina Manager, offered up all his family’s leftover turkey for us.   A Thanksgiving miracle!

Before sitting down to dinner, Chris from Fika fired up his drone camera and got this shot of “the gang.”   Only having the crew of Willie Dawes (they were still two days behind us) would have made this dinner and moment “more perfect.”    There was enough turkey to go around, we had roasted and baked potatoes, roasted vegetables, green beans, and gravy; plus desert from FIKA.

 

We went to bed with a bit of bitter sweetness, Peter and Sandra were leaving to fly back to Great Britain in the morning and the crew of Fika was renting a car to head back to Michigan for a few weeks.  

Dave