BONUS: Biloxi Mississippi Chapter

Ann Dacey on her Victorian porch on a sub-freezing morning in West Virginia

The new house being built in Biloxi for a Vietnamese-American couple.

Heidi spent a day with this crew in the soup kitchen in Biloxi, serving breakfast and lunch.

Watching the Superbowl with our new friends from Duxbury and Battle Creek.

After two weeks in Florida in winter 2010 we drove to Biloxi Mississippi to join up with a group of adults from Duxbury and Battle Creek, Michigan in a home-building project. This was a great experience, as the Duxbury contingent were new and interesting to us, and the Battle Creek people were lively, organized and fun. We were working under the auspices of the Back Bay Mission of Biloxi. We slept in bunk beds and cooked group meals in a commercial kitchen at the site. Biloxi is still rebuilding after a hurricane 4 1/2 years ago wiped out many homes and businesses.

Ken made trim for windows on a two-bedroom, two-bath stilt house, and Heidi laid down a subflooring and then tiles, with about 8 other workers. The owners of the house, a Vietnamese-American couple, came by after hours to check out the progress.

We had time to explore Biloxi and take in a wharf-restaurant in Pass Christianne, Mississippi. One of our companions was a minister from Kennebunkport, Maine, who was also at the Back Bay Mission during our week. There are miles of beaches in this area of Mississippi but the rebuilding is going slowly so only a few docks, water-front homes and businesses have been brought back, so far.

If you've never been to Biloxi, check it out for a future trip. It's a laid back area, has some casinos that the state feels are helping in the revival, and some older traditional buildings, restaurants and museums. And the waterfront is beautiful!

After bonding with our new Duxbury, Kennebunkport, and Battle Creek friends, we parted ways at the end of the week and headed back to Massachusetts. Our last stop on our winter non-boating trip was in Morgantown WV to visit an old friend (but she's not old!), Ann Dacey. We had a marvelous Valentine's Day dinner with "Dacey" and left with snacks of the evening's chocolate cake to enjoy the next day while traveling home.

Post Script: Winter 2010

Miniature golf with a nautical theme (we tend to stay as close as possible to water and boats) Kissimmee, Florida.

Addison & Ken at a nautical flea market in Ft. Lauderdale

We had lunch with Jack & Peggy at the marina where their boat is berthed in Lake Worth

The Toews girls on LOS GATOEWS taking a break from homeschooling in Lake Worth, Florida

Susan & Barry with Ken at their new mobile home in Florida before they rent it out and set sail on SWAN

Since Ken is retired and Heidi is taking a break from a temporary job, we were able to get away in January and drive down to Florida and visit several boat crews that were in the southeast coast area. The Perkins (our frequent companions and mentors in Florida last winter, Barry and Susan) had just bought a mobile home on Nettles Island, part of Hutchinson Island. They started their winter boat trip to the Keys the week after our visit. While visiting with Barry and Susan we also had a mini-reunion with Chris & Kevin Buckley from upstate New York. The six of us had all been together in Nettles Island last April.

The next day we found the Toews family on their catamaran and visited with Mike & Debbie and their three girls. The Toews had been in the Bahamas with us and also in Onset last summer. They are planning the next stage of their adventure which may include more land time and college courses for Debbie. On the same day we had lunch with some Canadian friends Peggy & Jack, who were in the area on their boat. They had summered their boat in the Bahamas and were back in Florida and heading north.

We also had a quick visit this day with John and Alida of VOYAGER II. We crossed the paths of John and Alida several times in the Chesapeake and going north last spring, talked with them on the radio a lot, emailed them, and almost had them visit us in Massachusetts, but never met them! Them have a mobile home in Ft. Lauderdale and keep their boat in Virginia.

The next day, after lunch and a walk on South Beach in Miami, we backtracked to Ft. Lauderdale as our friends Addison and Pat Chan had driven up there from Marathon where they are living on THREE PENNY OPERA. We had a great visit with them and two of their friends, at a nautical flea market(the friends had a booth), and later that day at dinner.

We spent our second week in Florida at a condo in land-locked Kissimmee. We did miss being on the water and watching sunsets everyday, but not having anchor watch sort of made up for it. Since we had never been to the Florida west coast, we took a side trip from Kissimmee to Tarpon Springs one day and hung around the docks there. We also visited Maitland, Florida (they have a great Audobon Center there with birds of prey) and rode bikes on a bike trail in Winter Garden.