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.

We wanted to skip dinner tonight but then we remembered that our waiters were in possession of a partially consumed bottle of wine of ours. The all-consuming question “Could we go for the appetizer and then sneak off with our bottle?” We gave it a fair bit of consideration and decided that we would continue with skipping dinner. We have just returned from the buffet. Apparently “skipping” has a lot in common with “later”. Just listening to Aimee Mann’s latest album “Mental Illness”. Aimee won the Grammy for Best Folk Album back in January for this album. I bought it right after the Grammy's but had not really had a chance to plug it into a good pair of speakers until tonight. What a lovely album. She has been around for 25 years and I had purchased her music in the past, but this is her best work.

Stopped for a minute to unload the camera, clean up some shots and post them to The VOX. We are cruising for three weeks back-to-back on the MSC Seaside. It is quite the boat operated as a pizza bistro. Breakfast pizza, lunch pizza, dinner pizza - pizza 24 hours a day. Very nice though. So far we have had a beer in Antigua, US Virgin Islands Amalie, Grand Turk, and Jamaica. Tomorrow Grand Cayman, then Cozumel, Nassau, Antigua, Amalie, Grand Truck and home to Miami. We will start the drive home. Here are some photos:

Have you been following the kids from Stoneman Douglas those that survived the mass shooting. I have been following everyday and contributing whatever support that I can to each of their tweets. They are brilliant. Everyday they get stronger and their message is reaching more and more people. They have started movements to eliminate the sale of automatic rifles and bumpstocks that turn automatic rifles into machine guns. They have taken on the National Rifle Association in a forceful way, convincing corporate sponsors to drop their sponsorship - Delta Airline, United Airlines, all of the car rental companies and on and on. When trolled by right wing nut cakes they effectively counter their arguments and quietly put the them in their place with well considered responses, but they fearlessly attack politicians with statements like “The AR-15 should be renamed the Marco Rubio because it can be bought so cheaply.” I am very impressed. Follow JaclynCorin, Emma4Change, sarahchad_, cameronkasky, davidhogg111.

If you go the Twitter route you might consider following Sarah Beattie a long lost relative of mine. Her handle is nachosarah. Careful though she is not droll.

We are driving to Miami to go on a cruise. Well, not a cruise but cruises. Since October we have been living in a beautiful AirBNB in Scarborough near Katie's home. We were to stay for 10 weeks, then we expanded it to 14 weeks and finally added another two weeks so that it would be a total of 16 weeks. Staying this long would allow us to do our drywall inspection at the new house and then head south for a bit before we take possession. So we are driving to Miami.

This morning we woke up in downtown Savannah - walking distance to the historical centre of the city. It is really quite a fun place. Savannah has an "open carry" law - no, not guns, but you can carry up to 16 ounces of beer in an unconcealed plastic glass. My kinda town - beer to go - you can drink a beer will shopping in the clothing stores, you can bring an unfinished beer into a restaurant to have dinner. Very civilized.

2017 has been a heck of a year. Here are a couple of websites that have helped me maintain my sanity.

McSweeneys Internet Tendency

The Borowitz Report

For Glenn's viewing pleasure:

I thought that I would throw in a little food pornography for these cold and windy days.

These are photos of our AirBNB. Carol and I are living here while the house in New Hamburg is being built. It is a really comfortable unit. It is not much bigger than what one could built using a shipping container but it has been very well done by the owner. Speaking of the owner they are husband, wife and a teenage son. I have been teasing my own family that we have been adopted as new grandparents by the owner's family and that we are weighing our Christmas offers. Of course I am joking, the units are completely separate and we seldom see or interact with them. There is a lot of discussion about AirBNB in Toronto at this time. We are very happy and thankful that this unit has been available to us. I hope the various governments do not screw everything up.

I think that I see Dave standing on his head to take the picture. A true friend.

Carol and I went to see Catherine MacLellan at Hugh's Room last night. It was a beautiful show. She only sang songs written by her father and between songs she showed photographs and talked about him. Her research covered his life from age 6 until his death. She performed about 20 of his songs, wonderfully accompanied by lead and bass. Our seats were one row back - a very up close and personal experience. Hugh's Room is the best venue in Toronto.

I am not certain why the neighbours have erected the orange fence. Are they disrespecting us already? Wait til they see what we really have planned.