Lake – Page 11 – Sheila365

Yet another little luxury.

Monte and I are thankful for many things – very fortunate and blessed.

Annddd, with that being said… we indulged this Christmas in a 12V television & DVD player for the boat. Actually, each of us bought the other a TV and wallmount for the boat, heh heh 😀 That was worth a chuckle on Christmas morning. We picked the best of the two and returned the other. And today we went to the boat again so that Monte could finish up the wiring, and we brought a DVD to try when we fired everything up.

It works GREAT! I’m looking forward to trying it out while at anchor in our favorite cove.

Ohmigosh, 2015 already!?!

I want to wish you a most happy New Year and all the best to you and yours in 2015! I have been away a while. Partly due to distractions. But also partly due to the fact that I had run out of online storage space for my blog @ wordpress, and I wanted time to think about how and or whether to upgrade the options for my blog.

In the end I decided to simply buy a storage upgrade (to add an additional 10G to the default 3G limit). When my domain options are up for renewal next year, I might consider upgrading to Premium on wordpress, which includes the increased storage, but I bought myself some time.

I think last we crossed paths out here in the blogosphere I was headed home from a long visit in Seattle, back to Austin. Suffice to say I have not been idle.

The day after coming home, we left for a fantastic week in Paris – a trip we took with little pre-planning; celebrating a birthday in a place we both love. And since then: Thanksgiving, family visiting, Julie graduated and left Austin to take the next step in her life’s path (sniffle), Christmas & New Year’s, and we have spent some fun times with friends.

Somewhere in there 2014 slipped away. Today I find myself on the second day of a new year — a few weeks delinquent in blog posts but looking forward instead of behind.

Here are just a few picks to fill in since last I posted:

Bon Anniversaire!

Post-Thanksgiving Day sail:

A day trip through the Hill Country and a hike to the top of Enchanted Rock on a clear December day with my sister & brother-in-law:

Christmas Eve:

And New Year’s Eve:

I can’t wait to see how 2015 unfolds….

And now, for something completely different…

Last week I began a short break from the rat race, taking a couple months off from work.

Soooo….I went shopping on Monday; golfing on Tuesday; sailing on Wednesday; woke up at anchor Thursday morning; back to the lake Friday for two nights on the boat; rafted up with Kurt & Kevin on Dancer, and Marty & Sue (yay!!) on Caribbean Hug Saturday night; made it back home Sunday night to watch my Seahawks and make pizza; and then headed to Seattle for a visit this past Monday.

I’ll try to get my sheila365 groove back. 🙂

We’re back!

After getting Nirvana 2 years ago, we had to move to E-dock. Last week a slip finally opened up on our beloved B-dock. So, of course we said, “Yes, we’ll take it!”

So today we headed out to the marina on a cool, drizzly day and moved our boat, dock box, and kayak to the new slip.

We celebrated with frosty beverages and (best ever) hot dogs with Kurt.

It’s good to be back!

I kind of zoned out there.

My posts for the last few months have been a tad infrequent. And it’s been two weeks since I last posted. I think I have just been decompressing. I have had a great summer – spending time with family, and then coming back to Austin for a couple of downtime weeks to play with Monte. Somewhere, in there, the summer has nearly slipped by. That’s ok, though. Onward!

Yesterday Sue & Marty joined us on the boat for a windless day on the lake. We headed directly for our cove, set anchor, jumped in and floated until just before sunset. A great day! Here is a shot of the blinding sun on its way to the horizon.

Another Arky sunset.

I never tire of the sunsets in this cove on Lake Travis.

Foot of the mast.

Tonight’s vantage point:

Three day weekend!

We celebrated the long 4th of July weekend on the lake. On Friday, Julie joined us for the day for a sail and a float in Arky South. Kalliopi tied up to us for the afternoon. And we whipped up an All-American grill-ful of burgers and dogs for dinner.

We took Julie back to the marina at sunset.

We had a nice view of a nearby fireworks show from the bow.

Saturday morning we took care of some chores on the boat before setting off for a long sail, ending up with anchoring off Starne’s Island to watch the Volente (day-after) 4th of July fireworks show. Voodoo, Sapphire, Dancer and Karma also showed up and we anchored nearby eachother.

The lights in this shot show the great many boats that turned out for the show. And the dark hump in the middle of the shot is Starne’s Island, from where the fireworks would be shot off.

We had a great spot!

After the show, nearly all the other boats left, and the water calmed down enough to stay overnight. Sunday morning, before we left, I kayaked from the boat to Starne’s Island to hunt for a lone geocache hidden there.

This tree on the island is home to 4 giant blue heron nests. None of them were home during my visit.

We made it back to the slip Sunday afternoon and wrapped things up.

Another great 3 day weekend spent on the lake!

1st weekend of Summer: 630′

Summer arrived yesterday morning at 5AM central time (or thereabouts). Yesterday we set out for a raftup to mark the occassion. Marty & Sue joined us on Nirvana. We met up with Dancer, Kalliopi, Voodoo, Solace, Sapphire and Karma. It’s been a very long time since we enjoyed a raftup with that many other crazies. We had a fun evening, and a nice, relaxed day today. Fair winds and non-stifling temps. All is well.

A look through the window, on my way home.

I’m headed home today, after a nice, long visit in the Pacific Northwest. I’ll share a few of the sights I took in along the way…

Roadsters on the way to the airport:

On the plane I chose a starboard window seat, expecting the normal fly by with Mount Rainier on my right. It turns out we flew south of Mount Rainier, so instead I had a view of its neighboring Cascade peaks Mount Adams (in the foreground) and Mount Hood (beyond and to the left).

The Columbia River gorge, with the Miller Island to the left, where the Deschutes River joins the Columbia, and beyond it, the Dalles, and then Mt Hood in the distance.

It rained a bit while I’ve been gone, and I could see the 630.5′ high Lake Travis through the steamy haze.

We flew over my neighborhood, and I got a shot of our house! Funny.

And Big Blue’s Austin offices… quickly being swallowed up by the Domain and other new development. Looks like noone works weekends anymore.

Home sweet home.

Stalked by ducks.

We enjoyed a fun raftup last night with Lori, Dave, Kurt & Kevin. The wind was slack and light overnight, and we ended up getting our anchor lines twisted. We knew that was the case, though, so we were prepared for it when we went to pull up our anchors today. We enlisted the kayak and detached the anchor rode from Nirvana entirely while Camelot pulled theirs up, untwisting them as we went along. Back on-board Nirvana, we reattached our rode and pulled our anchor up and got underway. Next time, we’ll put out a stern line. 🙂

As we headed back to the marina, the two ducks that hang out in the cove were behaving very strangely. They have been in the cove everytime we have gone out there this year, and they hang out by our boat. We’ve named them George and Gracie. This time, though, as we were motoring along, they followed us well out of the cove, swimming hard to try to keep up.

They would fall behind and then take flight and land next to us near mid-ships. Then drift back to where we were pulling the kayak, and tried to keep up again.

They repeated this over and over. After watching them do this five or six times, we slowed down so we could see what they would do when they caught up with us. And they proceeded to paddle right up to the transom.

And Gracie jumped aboard as we were moving along. George seemed a bit more reserved.

Eventually they got tired of playing with us and moved along.

…..funny birds.

Fly ’em if you got ’em.

Anchoring out tonight with Lori and Dave on Camelot, and Kurt and Kevin on Dancer.

A sort of pet adoption.

We had a great night on the lake last night. And a beautiful sail home today. We got home this afternoon to find that 2 of our neighbor’s cats have decided they want to hang with us. All the perks of owning two cats, but none of hassle. One of the cats has been hanging out in our yard for the last week or two. Today he brought his buddy.

Spaaaaaaah-ed.

Today was spa day!!! An annual indulgence with girlfriends for the last 15 years or so. I’ve been staring at this one on the calendar with anticipation for a while.
How can you not relax at a place like this? The Lake Austin Spa Resort is a beautiful retreat, if only for that one or two days a year.

And I couldn’t resist trying a panorama shot:

Afterwards I joined monte at the marina to anchor overnight in our favorite cove.

A good day!

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