State of Affairs – Nine of Cups, Blue & the Crew

Thought we’d update you on the state of affairs with Nine of Cups, Blue and the crew. The crew is in Boston till mid-week when we’ll head back to Chesapeake to help Murray, Nine of Cups’ new captain and owner, complete her decommissioning and load her onto a truck for transport to the Pacific Ocean and her new digs. Yes … Nine of Cups is sold. The deal is done and we’re all moving on to new adventures.

One awesome aspect of the sale is that we’ve been invited to California to help Murray recommission Cups, splash her and perhaps take a cruise out to the Channel Islands with her new owners. We’ve never sailed in these waters and we’d welcome the chance to explore and enjoy being with Cups’ new family. She’ll have a new name, Restless Soul, and we’re sure Neptune will welcome her to his domain. For sure, she’ll love all the attention her new family plans to give her, and we know she’ll appreciate the warm weather for a change.

As for Blue, despite the cold, he’s getting his share of attention. David is keeping you up-to-date on projects planned, in process and completed on the upfit project. One request from the first mate was to add an arm rest on the starboard side, er … I mean passenger’s side ... which is now sorely lacking and very noticeable on long trips. It’s in the works! Ask (or whine) and you shall receive … that’s my motto.

Our plans for the upcoming months? Well, knowing how everything is subject to change on a whim, the current plan du jour calls for Blue’s first cross country road trip to Vegas at the end of this month and then on to California for a short while. Back to Vegas, where David and his brother, Paul, will get to seriously working on Blue. No matter his state of upfit, Blue and crew plan to head to the Pacific Northwest sometime in the April/May timeframe. It’s an area we’ve visited, mostly on business trips, but never really explored plus we have lots of friends in the area. Perhaps, we’ll also scoot up into British Columbia and reconnoiter there, too.

Back to Vegas in early July, we plan to celebrate David’s birthday with family and then perhaps we’ll take some smaller road trips to escape Nevada’s summer heat. In September, we are contemplating walking the Thames Path … from the headwaters of Thames in Kemble along the 184 mile long trail to London. There are pubs and hotels every few miles which make this long walk seem very, very civilized.

Back to Vegas for the autumn months and then … well, then it’s the holidays again. Wow … fast year, huh? We’ll see how it all works out, but there’s nothing better than the anticipation and the planning … except actually doing it all! Stay tuned … 2018 is going to be awesome!