November 3, 2003

Hello from Florida,

Thought I'd catch everybody up on our where-a-bouts!! Ken spent the summer on Conquest at Marina Bay way up the New River in Ft. Lauderdale. He drove me to RI late June and drove back in a couple of weeks. I had a busy summer, lots of company, and spent much time with my mother. I even flew to Ft Laud in early Sept. to give Ken a break from his toil on the boat.

I flew back again in late Sept so we could haul out Oct. 1st. The riggers came to take down the mast, check the rigging, and replace the life lines. Meanwhile, Ken painted the bottom and we both worked on rewiring the mast. The temperature was brutal - in the 90's and no place to hide from the sun. I spent about 8 hours one day standing out, working on the mast and thought I'd die. Ken spent several days working right out straight.

Meanwhile, we were extremely fortunate that my cousin, Carole, came down to her condo in Hollywood and we had a place to stay. (And I had someone with whom to play!)

Oct 9th we launched the boat and moved it into the slip at the condo - and Ken collapsed. I thought he was just exhausted and perhaps had a little sunstroke. By Sat. afternoon, when his temperature was 103.5, we headed for the emergency room. Of course, I had given him a couple of Tylenol, so when we got there it was 101 and he looked fine. They had their hands full with the full moon and the doctor couldn't understand why he was there, but decided to take x-rays and blood tests, then proceeded to ignore us for three or four hours. When they found him shaking, with a temp almost 104, they decided to pay attention.

I was most surprised, though, when the doctor informed us Ken had pneumonia and wanted to keep him there over night. (He kept referring to Ken's age, something about an "age risk", which didn't go over well, at all.) Ken decided he had enough and we went home.

Thank goodness for the condo! I would not have wanted to go through the next week on the boat. However, we made it, Ken is back working hard on the boat, varnishing, redoing the anchor bow mount, waiting for the riggers to re-install the roller furling gear.

We have another chest x-ray later this week. Carole comes for another week on the 8th, then we head out for The Keys. Once again we will spend 3 months at Sombrero Resort, with lots of family and friends coming to visit. Then in April, we'll head for The Bahamas once again. The Walshes will join us again in the Abacos and we should be meeting up with some of the old sailing gang there, too.

We're not sure whether we'll take Conquest back to RI next summer. Ken found blisters on the hull again and has to think about taking care of that situation.

Let us know what you're up to.

Jane and Ken