Catch up time from 6 th Jan to 2 md Feb

Hi Family and Friends.( Guess you thought I wasn't going to continue!)
Well I have been a bit behind that is for sure!
Graeme and I headed back to New Zealand and arrived one day after Roy died , the 8th of January.Fortunately all the children were able to get back before he passed away. It was good to be there and give the family support as much as possible.
So hard to believe, as Roy seemed to be so fit and healthy and to find it wasn't so. We are so glad he didn't have to suffer and he seemed to add more into his 64 years of life than many 90 yr olds could ever do.The 2 hour funeral was a great send of for a great guy , and an emotional end was to see his favorite blue ute truck with his racing bike in the back following the hearse to the crematorium driven by his sons David and Philip. Behind them were a large group of his fellow racing cyclists from the Ramblers Club riding as a tribute to Roy who had done so much for the club.He had been their president for 8 years.Two days later we were able to sail out into the Hawkes Bay on a lovely perfect day and scatter his ashes, as he would have wanted it to be.
We gort back to Virginia somewhat shattered and jet lagged , then made our way down to Sarasota .We were relieved to see our boat was fine and were thankful to our slip neighbors Joan and Bruce who had done a great job checking the lines ,washing the boat and making sure the side against the concrete pier did no damage.Boaters on the whole are a great bunch of people.As we had rented the slip for a month we stayed on in Sarasota. We were able to start relaxing and enjoyed visiting our friends Doug and Elizabeth.Played a round of golf at Founders Club where they have their house, biked across to Lido and Longboat Key,ate out most nights and even went to see a comedy show .
One day we had a lovely couple on board to sea trial our boat as they were thinking of purchasing a Sabre 48 like ours. They were sold and ordered one the next day! I think Sabre are now up to finishing the tenth 48 in line and have orders for 27 boats First one was finished just under a year ago , not bad for this difficult economic times.
Over and Out.