October and Virgins

So, it's October. Crazy how that happens. You blink, it's summer, you blink again, it's Christmas. September brought with it the slow but anticipated turn from foggy summer to beautiful sunny fall in Monterey, a baby shower that required my most intense cupcake decorating session yet, a visit from an old friend, a sale of the boat ("Hooray!" says the savings account,) a purchase of another boat ("And scene," says the savings account), the invention of "the bacon taco" in our household, (newsworthy! deserves its own post for sure!) and lots and lots and lots of work. What September did not bring, however, was the blogging fairy to document all of this for me on the interweb. I will be playing a bit of catch-up in the coming weeks here. Not in this post, though.

This post is coming to you live from Virgin Gorda, the British Virgin Island where Ian and I (and six of our besties) are currently docked in our 43' catamaran called, in a funny twist of fate, Santa Cruz Blues. We left Monterey for San Jose on Friday evening, to fly to LA, to fly to Puerto Rico, to fly to St. Thomas, to take a ferry (with flat screen TVs showing 'The Pink Panther"-- a fact I find random and endearing) to Tortola to pick up our boat on Saturday. It was a long night. But we made it. Once on our boat with family and friends, all travel-weary, but none worse for the wear, we set sail for Norman Island. Snorkeling, swimming, eating, sun soaking, more eating... you get the idea. After Norman Island we came back to Tortola to get some hiccups worked out with the boat (i.e. radio didn't work, furler was broken... big hiccups. Cause-of-death hiccups.) From there it was off to Sand Island, where some of the boys scuba'd to see a sunken shipwreck and the rest of us hung out with the fish and coral and Santa Cruz Blues.

That brings us to today. It's sunny, it's warm, it's a day full of possibilities... Possibilities of white sandy beaches, sailing, restaurants with views beautiful enough to bring tears to your eyes, buying $10 gallons of milk expensive enough to bring tears to your eyes, and more of Ben's famous coconut rice pudding.