Welcome to the 2009-2010 cruise of Solitaire1 (aka Soli ).

We arrived in Savannah on Monday night, or should I say Tuesday morning, by the time we got our rental car…a red CHEVROLET!!!  and got to our usual pied a terre “La Quinta” on Abercorn Road where the price is right for a comfy bed and a nice hot shower in the morning…they even throw in breakfast, although we like to go next door to Denny’s.

I tried grits yesterday as Cindy said she LOOVED them…they were pretty good once the waitress told me to add butter salt and pepper... LOOOOVE Southern hospitality.

We also like to go next door to Bennigan’s (because it IS next door) . We were actually CARDED there, quite ridiculous…welcome to retirement, maybe we looked too OLD to drink! Last night was hamburger night; we had 2 delicious burgers, 2 beers and 2 glasses of wine (2 for the price of one) for a grand total $21. Including gratuities, fits nicely into our retirement budget...will try not to mention the "R" word too often.

Enough talk about food, today Soli was launched, yes she now has a wet bum and looks very happy about it. The launch went very well…

Kevin was fretting around the travel lift like a mother hen looking out for her chick…the engine started on the first try and we were off across the harbour to tie up just astern of “Blue Moon” as usual.

Blue Moon is a gorgeous 250 ft+ Fedship and David lusts after her… I lust after her crew of 14, mostly young, blond and very energetic young men…..they can come and fix my boat any time…..especially after a day of scrubbing, rigging and wondering “what happened to our nice boat…it looks like a bomb went off and I am aching all over".

By the time we left, she was starting to look somewhat better…the jib is curled up on her furler but we left the main for tomorrow... hate to think how much she weighs….and she seems to weigh more every year, but once she is up we don’t have to worry about her for the rest of the season.

David’s new pride and joy is our new windlass (the thingy that pulls the anchor up and lets it down….nothing to do with the wind!) and our new 45lbs Manson Supreme (Lloyd’ approved) anchor. We hopefully will not drag …eat your heart out Madcap!

On the down side we found out late today that our trusted Raymarine chartplotter/radar is not behaving very well….and since David no longer carries a sextant on board, we kind of rely on it ...A LOT…so we need to get someone to look at it…. DAVID HUDSON where are you?

We were too tired to go out for sups tonight so we opted for pizza and plunk in our hotel room…actually both pretty good …not counting calories but after the energy expanded today …no guilt!

We will try to be better about blogging this year…I know I said the same thing last year but we will try…promise!!!if we get a little feedback from you it will motivate us somewhat...how's that for laying on the guilt!