We Love our Guests (Anyone Want to Play Blink?

Hi. We’re still here. It’s been almost a week since we posted a blog. .. partially because we were busy having a ton of fun with Lynnie and Rick. Tide Hiker’s first two sets of guests (Vicki’s Mom and Lynnie/Rick) have definitely spoiled us. They slid into the rhythm of boat life, learning the routines and fitting right in. We don’t need to ‘entertain’ guests, just incorporating them into life on board seems to be entertaining enough! Both Mom and Lynnie helped clean the boat (inside) making them a shoe-in to be invited aboard again. Lynnie got double bonus points for provisioning, planning and preparing every other day’s meals. (That’s a good model for longer term guests.) Rick and Lynnie also brought some serious goodies on board – a case of wine, and a huge jar of Nonni’s Biscotti which is now our favorite morning snack with coffee on the bridge while underway. Lynnie further cemented her open invitation aboard Tide Hiker by playing Blink with Vicki, something Norm failed to warn her about and you, too, can experience aboard Tide Hiker.
Rick and Lynnie stayed 10 days, shorter than originally planned, but life intervened and they were needed back in North Carolina. We’re hoping to buddy boat with them to the Bahamas this winter.
Blogging has been delayed for another reason, too… we’ve been busy getting a new computer up and running—actually Norm has been busy doing that. A libation was spilled on the keyboard, the computer sizzled and gave up the ghost. Thank goodness the hard drive was not damaged and our data recoverable. Fortunately Rick was here with all of his techie credentials- he and Norm bought a new computer and all the accoutrements at Circuit City in Portland and then proceeded to load it with data, software and whatever else the thing needs to support our daily lives. While there were many snags, hiccups, and a few expletives deleted, we’re now up and running and learning to cope with Microsoft Vista. Rick earned his perpetual Tide Hiker invitation by using superb troubleshooting skills to resolve issues that would have stymied mere mortals, and by (over the course of three days) loading all of Vicki’s CDs onto a file where they can be uploaded to her IPOD when we get ITunes loaded on the computer again (hasn’t been a high priority – imagine that).
We are now on our way south at our first stop south of Portland, five miles up the Saco River – beautiful river and nice town. This is primarily a river for small fishing and water ski boats, so we got lots of gawks on the way up. The river is dredged to five feet at low tide and since our keel is five feet below the water line, safety requires that we travel the river when it’s at least half tide (tides are 10 feet here). We can tell that we’re getting more comfortable because at one time the narrow serpentine river with low depths would have seemed too risky and we would have bypassed it. That would have been a shame.