Our new mainsail

As part of the process to ready Destiny for our upcoming cruise we splurged with the purchase of a new main and jib. There are still some outstanding issues with the jib so we don't have it, but we had a chance to try out the new main last Saturday and it looks great. John also got himself soaked making some adjustments to our new standing rigging. We were out in the middle of the Bay near Alcatraz with a good breeze when a couple of ferry wakes got John while he was on the leeward rail fumbling around with some tools. No photos are available to chronicle this event and no audio which is fortunate because he wasn't very happy.

Click on any of the below shown photos to see a slideshow...

Our cool new main

Long weekend in Colorado

We're not sure how this is going to help us prepare for retirement or our extended cruise to Mexico, but we spent a delightful weekend in Colorado with John's daughter Hillary and family. We flew to Denver on March 8 rented a car and drove to a condo in Keystone ski area just off I70. For those of you have never done this, I70 goes up to 11,150 ft elevation and through the Eisenhower tunnel at the summit. A spectacular engineering marvel amid beautiful mountain scenery. On our flight home we were able to look down at it from 34,000 feet. Spectacular.

Because Hillary had discount lift tickets at Copper Mountain, the next day we drove for there some great skiing. The weather was perfect and the runs were super for us old folks, and more importantly, we were able to witness little 2 year old Callie's first time on skis. She was so relaxed that on her second run down the hill in between her dad Scott's legs she slept the whole way! Four year old Brynn now looks just like the other little kids you see whizzing down the mountain sans poles having a great time. A few years from now the Dickman's will be a true Colorado skiing family spending the better part of the winter on the slopes. I know mom and dad cannot wait for this.

On Saturday we spent a couple of hours ice skating on a 5 acre lake in Keystone which was an easy walk from our condo. Not as much fun as skiing but since it was free we got over it. That evening we took a two stage gondola ride to a fantastic mountain top restaurant specializing in fondue to celebrate Callie's big 2nd birthday. Good food, good wine and lots of laughs with the family.

We left the snow and cold on Sunday arriving home to "Destiny" sitting in 82 degree weather wondering where we had been. This weekend we plan to try out our new sails and we'll let you know how it goes.

Our weekend in Colorado