My Dad was born 117 years ago on February 26. I was thinking about this today, kinda sad that I did not realize that it was his birthday a couple of days ago. He was a great guy and it does me good to think about him. It was years after he died that I realized just what a good person he was. He was fair and honest, fearless but quiet, humble and fun. He taught me to look at everything carefully before making a judgement.
We are in Cozumel gunkholing in the MSC Seaside. The MSC Seaside is 1060 feet long and has a beam of 135 feet. She carries 5,179 passengers on 17 decks and sales with a crew of 1,413. Her god mother is Sophia Loren.
Gunkholing is a boating term referring to a type of cruising in shallow or shoal water, meandering from place to place, spending the nights in coves. The term refers to the gunk, or mud, typical of the creeks, coves, marshes, sloughs, and rivers that are referred to as gunkholes. While not necessary, gunkholers typically seek out the serenity of isolated anchorages over the crowds of marinas and popular bays, and a minimal draft is preferred, since gunkholers tend to go as far up and into the gunkholes as possible, seeking ever more inaccessible destinations.
So we are not quite gunkholing we are cruising in a ship that would hold the entire population of the town that we have chosen to live in when we return to Canada. The gunkholing thought arose because another large boat docked along side of us and caught Carol exiting the shower. You cannot get privacy anywhere these days.
Our walk from the ship to the centre of San Miguel was fun. We returned to the hotel that the family was evacuated to in 1995 when Roxanne swept through. The hotel was partially boarded up but probably not as a result of the 1995 winds. We tried to find the bakeshop where I laid in supplies for the event. It was gone. The eye of Hurricane Roxanne passed right over the hotel knocking out sliding doors, peeling the garage-like security doors, uprooting the palm trees, and knocking out water, electricity and food supply. Everybody had to hunker down in the hallways of the hotel until the storm had passed. We were a couple of day before we were transported back to the mainland. Quite a night for all.
Big Gun Control News for today - Dicks’s Sporting Goods will not longer sell assault rifles and will not sell any gun to folk younger than 21. Their stock is up over 2% today alone. Wonderful.