Hi.... good to hear from you! Sounds like you've had quite the adventure.

All things are going well here on the coast of Nova Scotia. Let me know if
you are ever headed for Halifax.... I'll meet you there and we can go for a
sail.

From what I understand Capt. Neal is in Cuba. He's running the branch office
of Bush's oil company "Arabusto" and living with a child prostitute. It's
all funded by Al Quaida. Bush intends to retire there to avoid the
repercussions after they discover how badly he screwed up during his only
term as President. :-)

CM

"Michael" wrote in message
...
| We just returned to the USA after a longer than expected voyage. Will be
up
| on the Chesapeake for a month or so then off on a long overdue vacation on
| the new boat. Sort of a test cruise before the final
rebuild/refit/upgrade
| is accomplished by my good friends in PortTownsend. Was able to get in
some
| sailing in Diego Garcia of course and also off the coast of Spain this
time.
| Also did some instructing (DGYC uses more the British style competent
| crew/competent skipper etc. system which is far more demanding than the US
| ASA training so I had to dial up quite a bit. One more school to finish
the
| leap to both 200 ton and one from NearCoastal to Oceans and that will be
| done by September as well. So it will be nice to check in from time to
time
| and see whats up but mostly I'll be concentrating on finishing up this job
| and then puttering around the San Juan Islands in Washington and BC. This
| working all but 3 weeks a year helped me catch up but it's time for a
| break! And like the Persian Gulf it's a safe area with no trailer park
| residents . . .so to speak. I think playing catch up was the most
important
| thing. You can't regain the lost time but I did regain a lot of the lost
| money simply by filing a set of 1099 forms for the last two years. IRS
for
| once was quite nice about it and no fines for late filing from 2002. The
| one and only thing that still hangs and will probably keep doing so is
| wondering when some shoe will drop. Security investigations aside (and
all
| positive) there's no telling what little surprises await but what the
hell!
| Life goes on. Biggest lesson learned . ..don't let anyone no matter how
| close get ahold of your identity. You just don't know. Thankfully the US
| Navy demands a complete check and the Coasties did another one besides.
| Plan is still to finish up the new boat and then truck it to the Great
Lakes
| on onto the ICW and down to Caribbean with stops in Florida of course ,
| then it's flip a coin East or West but I'm thinking about Corpus Christi
to
| San Diego (all part of research on an article called Canals On Wheels).
If
| that happens in both directions it'll be off back to the S.Pacific.
Mexico
| and CentralAmerica? I've got the T-Shirt and it's sort of like driving to
| the end of the block but not crossing the street after the first few
times.
| Don't know how many of you caught it but my first published article is in
| the middle of Lats and Atts current issue, look for the pictures of the
| freighters! Two more accepted but no pub date and two more in the machine
| to be finished up. IRS loved that too and my laptop got a complete write
| off!
|
| So life is sweet and the future looks so good I gotta wear shades!
|
| Cheers and Smooth Sailing to all . . . . So whatever happened to Neal?
|
| Michael
|
|