She's in the water

Celebration has been in the water about two weeks. There are two big changes this spring - we are keeping the boat on a mooring instead of at a dock and we have put solar panels on top of her. When we're out on the mooring, we can still use electricity! Isn't that amazing! It's been too cold and rainy to spend any time on her, but we can't wait to try it out!

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Kids all around the world!

With Jena departing today we'll have kids on four continents. Mom has clocks in the kitchen that tracks the time for each -- this just got a little more complicated!

Four Continents

Jena is packing to head off to Australia this Wednesday. She'll be a jillaroo on a cattle station called Walhallow Station. A jillaroo is a cowgirl Australian style. Walhallow Station is located in Northern Territories of Australia -- about a 12 hour drive from Darwin. So picture the movie Australia, Nichol Kidman's ride to her ranch, and you sort of arrive at Walhallow Station. When she gets there she we will have Clarke's on four continents -- Brandon in China, Brianna in Africa, Jena in Australia and Lauren, Nelson, Ellie and Brian in the US.

Memorial Day Weekend

Ellie and I had great weekend on the boat over Memorial Day weekend. We arrived on the boat on Sunday and enjoyed a nice cruise down the Connecticut River. We headed back to Essex in the afternoon as the storm clouds began rolling in -- and were safely back in our slip before the thunder and rain struck. We were lucky that "Celebration's" old owners -- Herb and Wendy Nichols were also in town that night and we joined them for a wonderful night out at the "Wine Bar" in Essex. We blended some nice wines with several very well done tapas dishes and headed back to "Celebration" for a nice night onboard.

Monday was a beautiful day so we headed off to Hamburg Cove for a short cruise and the chance to hook onto a mooring and test out our new mast configuration to drop the dinghy. We were pleasantly surprised that Herb and Wendy had followed us to the Cove and we were able to hop aboard their "Chinook" to see all of the wonderful modifications they've made to her. After they headed off we, for the first time, lowered the dinghy and started her up successfully. We had a wonderful time zipping around the harbor and running the dinghy for the first time.