In the first paragraph of my previous blog, December 4^th, I wrote that I was to land in Norfolk, Va. on December 8^th. It started snowing on my arrival and my friend who was to pick me up and bring me to the boat backed off. There is no public transportation or Lyft/Uber from  the Hampton Roads mainland to the Eastern Shore peninsula. The longest part of it (23 miles (37 km)) is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Fortunately I received a suggestion in my panic contacts.

Ben Mears has started a private service. In the long ride we found a lot in common and I have gained another friend.

Even though it was late in the evening I should have tried to find a warmer spot than the boat. It was freezing inside. With three pair of socks, I could not convince myself that I was imagining the pain. I laid awake the entire night in my sleeping bag.

But Jeannette and Ralph Orzo came to the rescue. They were the very first friends in Cape Charles. in July 2017 when I started the repair job on the shipwreck with “Fleetwood II” on the nearby Barrier Islands.

It took me until yesterday morning to get the boat ready for launching from her summer dry storage. The sanding of the bottom took longer than expected. I wrote and showed in the previous blogs the condition the bottom was in.

Even though it has been below and near freezing at night, we are here at the latitude of Tunisia, the sun warms the boat up in the early afternoon. I had some complications in warming up the oil with the engine and changing the oil and filter.

I have parked the boat at the town dock harbor master office which is closed until tomorrow. My newly ordered electric heater is waiting there for me and I expect to take up residence again on the boat after having been spoiled by the hospitality of the Orzos. Ralph has been a great help with some of my challenges, as an expert longtime sailboat owner.

At the Orzos

St. Charles church in Cape Charles, Va

This turned out to be one of the best Christmas celebrations. Last year I was in Rio Dulce. In ’22 and ’23 with Lisa in

The Pacific Northwest. In 2021 I was a few days south of Cuba in the Atlantic. I landed in Puerto Vito on the N.E. corner of Cuba, exactly 4 years ago today. I recommend viewing the video I made at a traditional New Years’ Eve fiesta

where they grill a young pig on a spit over a wood fire:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuKmEUEk2Jw .

With the deplorable economic situation of the Cuban people, this pig roasting luxury will be a rare event on Wednesday. I hope and pray that today’s meeting with Zelensky and our president will bring peace closer to a reality and that our Cuban neighbors will become eligible for our attention, which should have happened before Venezuela’s turn.

I still have chores on the boat and may head out on the Chesapeake to fetch my gifted folding bike in Kinsale and a furler drum for “Fleetwood III” in Amsterdam that is awaiting my pick-up in Grasonville on the Maryland Eastern Shore. I have booked moorage until January 30^th here in Cape Charles at the Town Dock.

In my cover letter I am asking everyone to only use my USA 01-253 WhatsApp phone number. Until just 10 days ago you could all reach me on my Dutch  031-649 number but WhatsApp is now frequently verifying the number by requiring a code to be received from the telephone number. I put my Dutch number on snooze until I return and that was working fine until recently. I upgraded my Dutch Lebara subscription for overseas calls but that is not working (yet?).

Facebook is also starting to require frequent verifications to my email address and password. And I have lost access to my account on my laptop because it apparently is only known under my old jack@cometosea.us email address. I have access on my cellphone but that is bound to crash sooner or later. So forget using it to reach me by messenger on FB. And you will get a break from my church visits posts on FB.

Happy New Year to all.

The visit from Virginia on November 12 is coming to an end. I will touch down in Norfolk, from Las Vegas, on this Monday December 8 at noon.

Would any of my Virginia friends be able to give me a ride on that day, any time after 1 pm, from the airport to Cape Charles?

I am writing this from Eugene, Oregon. My youngest son, Seth, dropped me of yesterday on his way back home to Roseburg, Or. He came to visit me and Lisa, my oldest daughter, in Puyallup, Wa., where I have been her guest since November 13. Three wonderful weeks with family and friends.

On Saturday the 22^nd , I participated in the serving of a Thanksgiving meal at the Tacoma Rescue Mission with “Cate’s Catering” the then new friends I joined in the spring of 2022.

Saturday Nov. 22

Another highlight was a day in Seattle to visit Fisheries Marine Supply my longtime source to stay afloat, a tour of the sprawling campus of Fred Hutch cancer research institute where Lisa is a director, both located on Lake Union. I joined the tourists with a visit to the Pike Place Market.

Pike Place Market

The Thanksgiving family dinner was hosted for the first time by the younger generation. My youngest grandchild, Olivia Russell-Barker (1996) hosted the event. She and Drew Barker were married this summer. They met in their high school years. She is an elementary school teacher. They traded their condo in Tacoma with Drew’s grandmother’s home, which happens to be two blocks from where she teaches. The family gathering was a success, she made her entrée with her inherited skills from her mother Rose Marie van Ommen. Who served her last terrestrial Thanksgiving meal in 2018. Her good taste remains preserved.

L.R. Sam Barker, Corina Barker, Logan Barker, Hunter Barton, Donovan Barton (Widower of Rose Marie van Ommen), Randy Russell (father of Olivia) Sherry Barker (grandma) Drew Barker, Olivia Russell Barker, Lisa van Ommen.

Mt. Rainier and the Canada Geese

The song: “The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle” were invisible, except for last Sunday when I managed to take this picture of the plague we inherited from our northern neighbor, the Canada Geese, gathering to return to their roosts.

I was the guest, last night, of Evert and Judy Slijper in Eugene. I befriended Evert in 1972 in Eugene when he worked for U.S. Plywood and I had just started my own wood export business. He came to America in the late sixties on an exchange program of the Dutch Nijenrode Business University and the University of the Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wa. He is an avid sailor and has a connection with my Amsterdam yacht club, de Schinkel, were we met again last September in one of his frequent Holland visits.

I made my annual pilgrimage to my home port parish St. Nicholas in Gig Harbor on my first Sunday of this visit. Many familiar faces from before my long voyage departure, twenty years ago have disappeared and new unfamiliar faces have replaced them. Very few empty pews and a fair number of young families. The other two Sundays I attended the All Saints church in Puyallup where God is alive and well, last Sunday I counted at least 15 catechumen, the majority were young men, the new trend in a reawakening from a long hibernation.

This evening many Dutch children will fill their wooden shoes with straw for the horse of Saint Nicholas in front of the fireplace. The good saint will drop some sweets through the chimney into the “klompen”. In the meantime I have arrived in Las Vegas to visit my oldest son John and his wife Jennifer van den Berg and her two daughters. Jen’s father came to America as a 6 year old with his parents. Before John and Jen married in 2014 I showed her where I have, from my mother’s side, a great-great grandmother Maria van Ommen married in 1829 to a Karel van den Berg. Her reaction: “Oh John, we can’t get married now!”

Food for a Saintly steed with a wish list

Tomorrow, December 5^th is the annual remembrance eve of the Bishop from Myra, Turkey, who passed away on December 6^th 343 AD. He was one of the delegates to the Nicene Council in 325 AD where our “Credo” or Confession of Faith was formed and remains proclaimed by most Christian denominations.

In my last blog from November 7 I reported that I was expecting to finish the anti-fouling on “Fleetwood IV”, that is accomplished and I expect to be splashed shortly after arrival. There are a number of chores to be done before I can take off for the warmer Caribbean destinations. Including a trip by water or land to Kinsale, Va. and Grassville, Md.