Wishing You Happy Holidays

Vero Beach (wikimap)
27 39.646N 080 22.224

Dearest Friends,

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Feliz Navidad, Glad Jul och Gott Nytt Ar, from Dick and Libby Mills aboard SV Tarwathie. If we could have a Christmas wish, we would wish that we could be able to visit you over the holidays. We miss you!!!


Like last year and the year before that, Christmas day will find us in Vero Beach Florida. This is a very nice place to stay while doing projects, maintenance, celebrating holidays, taking trips, or waiting to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas.

Unlike last year, we are determined to actually get to the Bahamas this year. If you remember, last year we got stuck replacing the engine and that project took the whole winter season. Almost all the other cruisers here in Vero are also headed for the Bahamas, so we’ll have lots of company.

So what about next year? We don’t pretend to make plans any more, but here’s a hint. We’re tired of traveling north every summer. We haven’t sailed the Caribbean yet. Friends of ours on Moon Song sailed to Trinidad to wait out the hurricane season and they said it was great fun.

We have a lot to be grateful for this year. Our family is fine. John is serving 6 months at Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan Republic. (Check your world atlas.) John’s family is doing fine at home waiting out the winter for John to return. Jennifer and Christian are doing remodeling on Jenny’s house and appear to be enjoying life. David just returned to Fairbanks Alaska from a year’s duty in Kuwait. Libby and I just returned from a Thanksgiving week trip to Fairbanks to visit David.

In addition, we’ve enjoyed an especially fun year cruising in Tarwathie. This summer we went north to the Erie Canal. We visited many friends and family in upstate New York, making it kind of a reunion year for us. We intended to decide between the Great Loop Trip and the Little Loop Trip when we reached Lake Ontario. The Great Loop takes one through the Great Lakes to Chicago, on the Illinois River to the Mississippi River to the Ohio River to the Tennessee River, to the Gulf of Mexico. The Little Loop takes one up the Saint Lawrence River to Nova Scotia, then down to Maine. We chose the Little Loop after realizing that the Great Loop would have made us travel another 3,000 miles motoring with the mast down.

However, midway through the Little Loop trip, just north of Montreal, we came to a junction of rivers where one could continue to Nova Scotia, or turn right and go to Lake Champlain and Vermont. We were overcome by homesickness, and turned right. I’m sure that we missed many lovely sights on the Little Loop, but we enjoyed sailing our “home” waters on Lake Champlain even more.

All in all, it has been yet another lovely year living the cruising life. What’s more, neither one of us are getting tired of it. Aside from not seeing friends and family often enough, it is a truly wonderful life style. We also love to hear from you. You can follow what we do on this blog.