Seasons Greetings

Dick and Libby Mills send warm holiday greetings to our friends and family across the world. May you and yours find happiness and security. Live long and prosper.

When Christmas 2006 comes around, it will be 22 months since we began living our new lives as sailing cruisers aboard Tarwathie. What a wonderful life it has been. We believe that this change was the best decision we’ve ever made. We could still be working and facing the pressures of deadlines and daily commutes. We could have taken a conventional retirement and spent most of our time watching TV and reading about others. Instead we took advantage of good health, and opted for early retirement and a very active lifestyle. We love it.

In the past 22 months we sailed from Fort Lauderdale Florida, to Lake Champlain, to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, to Maine, and now we are en route to the Bahamas for this winter. After the winter we may continue south to the Caribbean, or choose something else. We have ambitions to sail around the world, but not until we have fully sampled the delights of our own corner of the world.

Our family is doing fine. John lives near Rome, New York with his family, wife Cheryl, son Nick, and daughters Sara, Katelyn, and Victoria. Jennifer lives near Burlington Vermont. David lives in Fairbanks Alaska with his family, wife Cathy, and son Bobby. David joined the US Army and right now he is in Kuwait near the Iraqi border for a year. We’re really proud of David for standing up to be counted.

We have been blessed with lots of contact with family and friends this year. Dick traveled to Schenectady for John Undrill’s retirement party. We were joined by Gerry and Phyllis Allen for sailing in the Chesapeake. We were also joined by our son David and his son Bobby for more Chesapeake sailing and a trip to Vermont where we had a family reunion. We also sailed with Dick’s sister Nancy, and her family. We traveled to Rome for a week with John’s family. We visited with my sister Marilyn. We went to another reunion of a different branch of the family in New Hampshire, at my cousin Brian’s camp with his family. Cousins Warene and Janet, husbands Richard and Gordon, Aunt Dot and Uncle Art, and Sister Nancy with her family were all there. We sailed an offshore passage with Carmello and Diane Kona, friends from Scotia. Libby had 4 days with Dave and Cathy in Pensacola Florida before Dave went to Kuwait. Finally we had a wonderful week with John and Mary Ann Undrill sailing from Urbanna Virginia to Elizabeth City North Carolina.

Surprisingly, we had little difficulty in adapting to our radical life style change. We don’t miss work. We don’t miss the caffeine from all the coffee. We don’t get bored. We don’t get any lasting fright from the dangerous moments. We meet many more new cruising friends with much in common to talk about than we could have by staying home. Most of all, we get to travel almost all the time, which we always loved. We also get to enjoy the sights and sounds of so much beautiful nature. We can tell you that the slice of the world visible to boaters is still beautiful and largely unspoiled. We plan to continue the cruising life as long as health permits.

We encourage all our friends to follow our exploits on our blog, the web address is dickandlibby.blogspot.com Dick writes a new article almost every day. Also please write to us at dmills@acmenet.net and tell about your own news. We would love your company on whatever leg of our adventure you find interesting, so please don’t be shy about contacting us if you would like to cruise a little with us.

Best wishes from,
Dick and Libby