21/09/2018
Greetings from Billings Montana
Greetings to All!
I'm sitting at Gate A1 in the Billings Montana airport, waiting for my flight to Minneapolis. Time to bring you all up to date on whats happening with me and Bobbie Rae and Bel Ami, our home until a year ago.
Billings, Montana you ask? I just finished a weeklong backpacking trip into the high country of the Montana Rocky Mountains in the Abasaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Physically challenging, spiritually rewarding, communing with a great group of guys from South Carolina. Enjoying fellowship, fishing, hiking and the such. A long way from the Caribbean!
Bel Ami is in Martinique, where it just dodged hurricane Issac. Insurance settlement is in progress, and rebuilding should commence within the next few weeks, with anticipated completion March of 2019.
Bobbie Rae and I are taking last September's Hurricanes IrmMarie as God's way of saying now is the time to get out of the charter business and begin just cruising and enjoying Bel Ami with friends and family. And if you are receiving this email, you can count yourself as part of our extended friends and family group. So you are all welcome to come join us where ever we are and wherever we are going on that basis. I figure that once we get back on the boat in the Spring of 2019, we'll be cruising somewhere around the Caribbean. Might eventually get back to the Virgins, but not too soon. There is a great big ole' world to explore, and I'm hoping that with the boat fixed up and our health holding up, we'll do some exploring. Maybe down island to the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Grenada, Trinadad, Tobago, Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Columbia, Panama, Belize Perhaps through the Panama Canal to the Galapagos, then on to the South Pacific, and onward. Would love to say Hi to my childhood friend Robin and husband Rick in New Zealand. Up to Thailand and Vietnam. Eventually around South Africa back to the Caribbean, then maybe up to the Mediterranean. Than back to the Caribbean. Like I said, its a great big old world out there. One can dream...
Meantime, we have our new home base in upstate New York, 2 miles from the original Woodstock music festival, now known as Bethel Woods. We've been very busy fixing the place up to make it our own, and when we are not visiting friends and family and eventually sailing around, that's where we will be as our "home base" for the forseeable future. I've gotten my medical license in New York, and looks like my medical IME consulting practice is taking off nicely. I get to see my sister Helene with some regularity, as she lives in Long Beach Long Island a block away from the beach, so I also get to see the ocean with some regularity. And I've sorta joined a few musicians and have the opportunity to be playing music (accordion and harmonica) with some regularity. So I'm getting some regularity in my life with having a home base! And Bobbie Rae will be fixing up the basement transforming it into her workshop where she can pursue her artistic endeavors to her heart's content.
Most exciting is the upcoming birth of my next grandchild, who is due anyday!!
So that's the news from the life and times of Admiral Bobbie and Captain Dave. If the spirit moves you, please respond to this email and let us know how you all are doing. Please forgive this constant contact email, as I would love to be in personal contact with each and every one of you who helped me realize the dream of Bel Ami Voyages, and Vegan Sailing. I hope your lives have been as full and rich as ours. We are grateful for all the gifts that God has bestowed on us, and are looking forward to our next adventures.
Cheers
Captain Dave (and Admiral Bobbie Rae
