I have been struggling and mulling for a week now about how to approach this post. I cannot figure out a particularly concise or clever way to approach it so here's the rambling story.

I drove my Dad down to LA a couple of weeks ago on what was supposed to be a two day delivery trip to get him situated down in LA. He was going to live with his sister for a while to be near his friends and doctors.

Almost two weeks later I was still down there and Jacob had joined me when Dad was admitted into the hospital. He doing better now, but the situation was a real shake up.

"Cruising boat, fully equipped, plans changed, must sell" kept flashing through my head as we did the hospital shuffle: hospital, food, hospital, food, sleep, hospital and repeat. Were we going to be stuck down there on this rotation forever? Sell the boat and try to get a job in this terrible economy?

This experience has also given leaving on the cruise a bittersweet tinge. Sure we have a sat phone and the family promises to call if anything happens to anyone, but the logistics of getting back are such that we may not be able to get back in one day, or even two, and by that time will it be too late? The pressure of goodbyes in this situation are almost unbearable, and so I cope by assuming the best-that nothing terrible will happen and we won't be gone that long etc.

Returning to the boat last week from LA felt like being transported to another world. Our leave date is now a flexible date sometime during the week following Monday, Dec 1. We are starting to see a tiny pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel and starting to watch the weather. Obsessively.