Saturday 30 January - Kiteboard Heaven
   I found it: Long Bay, Providenciales Island, Caicos, Turks & Caicos, British West Indies. Three miles of white sandy beach with onshore wind, behind a reef so the water doesn't have waves. There are beach accesses to park the car 30 feet from the beach with picnic tables. They dress the beach every day so it is clean. I counted 30 kites in the air, and the great thing is that it is not crowded and there are virtually no tourists. And the water is waste deep at low tide and armpit deep at high tide. I can set up, then launch the kite and ride for my ten minutes, land the kite, rest for twenty minutes, repeat. It is great.
   When we were here before Normandie and I anchored at Sapodilla Bay. But to my dismay the place has been gentrified. Where we parked the car and landed the dinghy is now upscale condos with gates and fences. So I moved down to South Side Marina. It will give me protection from the cold fronts, a place for the rental car, and internet access.
   That five days of sailing last week took me out of the tropics and into the temperate zone. The temperature of the air and water is a little bit cooler, but what is most noticeable is that here there is weather. Some days are cooler than others, some days don't have wind or the wind reverses, today is a rainy day. It has been seven months since I have had a rainy day. Really heavy dew in the morning. And mosquitoes and no-see-ums. It took me several days to accept the fact of screens at night, and repellant if I want to sit out on deck. But I really like to go to the IGA Supermarket and be able to read the labels; to know what I am buying. I bought a bag of ginger snaps, and knew what it was going to be. Not once since I have been here have I not known what was happening. I am so very intimidated when I have to function in a language other than english. I will bypass Puerto Rico  and Dominican Republic to keep from having to deal with another language. A few weeks ago I tried to describe what was written on some cans I bought in a French market. I got a response from a Power Squadron friend who is bi-lingual in french and very fluent in spanish (and knows celestial navigation). If Normandie can not go that would be the perfect crew for me. I can sail the boat. What I need is someone who can tell me what is going on.
   Bill Doar
  s/v Advent II