New Year's Cheers

Kilmarnock  

Raindrops on the cabin top served as both this morning's alarm and snooze button. The sound at first startled me awake then quickly lulled me back to sleep. When I finally made it upstairs for a good look, it was pouring and overflowing our "gutters." There was also about an inch of standing water in the cockpit waiting to drain. Thankfully, the heavy stuff didn't last too long. The fog, however, settled in and remained.   

The day markers in front of us guide barges to the grain elevators and have become my fog gauge. I kept looking out at them, hoping the weather would break in time for the noontime arrival of dear friends Cindy and Larry. On short notice, they drove 30 minutes to join us for an afternoon of appys and catching up. We toasted the new year and celebrated several nuggets of good news. 

Magically, the sun soon appeared. We even went out to walk the docks and take a few pictures. 

As the sun began to set with an orange glow, we said our goodbyes. We look forward to seeing them again in the spring. Barry and I turned our attention to the weather forecasts and did not like what we saw. High winds will be building tomorrow through Monday making for an unpleasant trip to Norfolk. We made the decision to return to our home marina and let the front pass before continuing south. Not our ideal scenario, but with no schedule we will choose comfort over speed. Following dinner, Robyn and Joe from Stella Blue joined us for a visit. They too were happy the rain had stopped and managed to get in several walks during the day with their two golden retrievers. As we said goodnight at 9:00 it was still 70 degrees, but the wind is beginning to pick up. We will depart in the morning and return to Stingray to wait on a weather window.