Climate Change.
Bamboozle
Jamie and Lucy Telfer
Mon 15 Dec 2008 10:10
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The end of the season seemed to race by in a
blur. We had a brief visit by my Mum who sadly arrived the week
that autumn seemed to turn to winter as you can probably see from the wooly hats
and gloves below. Having met up in Baltimore we had a good
sail south to Annapolis but from there the weather took command and limited our
chances to further explore the bay with her.
 The silver lining to these clouds were that
we got to spend some time with our special family friends, Dick and Donna
Littlefield who live just a few miles up the Seven River. Their
first link with my family was on the Hamble River in 1963 when
they met my Grandparents on a visit to the Royal Southern Yacht
Club. The link has remained strong through the years and Lucy and I
think of Dick and Donna as our "American family" so it was very special to
sail in to Clements creek and to tie up to the dock just outside their
house. In fact we almost didn't make it! Dick had managed
to organise a mooring for us but as we backed into towards
the slip we realised that the distance between the piles was very
similar to our total beam. About 6 feet short of the pontoon we came to a
halt just gently touching the posts on both sides. In the words
of Wellington it was a "damn close run thing" but with a bit of a wiggle
and with me leaning on one of the piles we managed to slide
in.
For the next few weeks they made us feel completely
at home even lending us a car and a bedroom while we went through the process of
packing Bamboozle up for the off season. We hauled her on 10th
November in Bert Jabin's Yard on Back Creek in Annapolis and went
through the whole process of winterizing her to deal with heavy frost and snow
than can occur in this part of the world.
For us it is now all change. We have recently
arrived in France to work on completion of, and moving in to our new
apartment in Val d'Isere. We hope to spend the winter season here,
returning to Bamboozle in late April 2009. This will be the longest time
we have spent in one place since 2003 and we are actually quite looking forward
to settling down in one place for a while. As I write this there is a
blizzard howling around the the building with wind gusts of up to 120km an
hour (thank god we are not on a boat!!). Theoretically there is snow
falling, but as far as I can see it is currently all travelling sideways!
Stepping on to Bamboozle for the first time in a roasting Fort Lauderdale back
in June really does feel like a million miles away.
With Dick and Donna
Littlefield
 Their house, tucked in the trees above
Clements Creek
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