Muddling through in Mallorca

We're having a heat wave in Mallorca, so I'm going to take the lazy route and just copy notes from our ship's log:

July 4-8: Sparrow arrived safely from her trans-Atlantic journey via the good ship Snoekgracht. We boarded her on the ship (note: that's Sparrow, strapped in, below)...

...and were hoisted up, then lowered down over the side into the bay of Palma at 2:00a.m.(note: the photo below was taken aboard Sparrow as she was held aloft by a crane above other sailboats on Snoekgracht).

We motored to the Real Club Nautico, a lovely sailing club/marina, where we spent the next four nights. Nora likes our next-door neighbors--young Kiwi men here for the King's Cup Race. Rosie likes the pool and the gym and the air-conditioned reading room. The city of Palma is absolutely gorgeous.

JULY 8: PALMA TO LAS ILLETAS Sparrow's first glorious sail in foreign waters. We fly along at about seven knots in a moderate breeze. Las Illetas is a tiny cluster of islands off the mainland, just a few miles SW of Palma. Pretty, but very crowded. We catch our first glimpse of nude yachties.

JULY 9: LAS ILLETAS TO ANDRAITX Another gorgeous sail, southwest to Punta de Cala Figueroa then NW to Porto De Andraitx--about 3.5 hours, averaging 7 knots. In the last hour, we set the spinnaker for the first time, with great success. We anchor in the harbour, surrounded by hills and the Sierra deTramontana in the distance. At night, the hills are a -twinkle and a full moon rises over us.

JULY 13: DAY TRIP TO ISLA DRAGONERA AND CALA EGOS Bert completes the installation of our water maker and--hallelujah!--it works. We had out for a picnic at Isla Dragonera, motoring north in 20+ knots of wind, and making water like crazy. Dragonera's tiny calas (coves) prove untenable, so we head back south to Cala Egos, just north of Andraitx. An easy downwind sail with just the mainsail up. Lunch: local baguettes, local salami, Serrano ham, Cambozola cheeze, tomatoes and olives. Yum. A swim amidst jellyfish, a kayak 'round the cala, a bit uf sunning, then it's back to Andraitx we go.

EDITOR'S NOTE: the following entries were written by Bert:

JULY 16: ANDRAITX Happily at anchor in Andraitx. Befriend Canadian couple with Spanish Waterdog puppy (Chris & Linda, aboard Mon Arch). Two U.S. flagged vessels asrrive (Jack & Patricia on Whoosh; John on Sarah). Jack helps us get Airmail up and running. Fiesta de St. Carmen over weekend: Blessing of fleet and fireworks (note: photo shows the fleet roaring out the harbour at sunset).

JULY 17: ANDRAITX TO PLAYA TRENCH (25 miles) Light downwind sail wing & wing. Stopped at Cala Pi to take a look--very tight with sheer walls dropping to water, boats tied to rings ashore. Very beautiful but not my idea of a safe anchorage. Move on to Playa la Trench off first large beach I've seen--but very protected from prevailing wind. (Below: Nora at the helm

JULY 18: ISLA DE CABRERA Beautiful harbour in national park. 14th century castle protects entrance. Nice breeze allows for good sail over. Hike up to castle, swim in clear water, snorkel in Blue Cave. Simply beautiful.

JULY 20: PORTO COLOM Wake to find alternator bracket bolt broken. Decide to push a little further to Port Colom to find mechanic. Leave in 15-20 knots, single reef. Upwind boat moves very nicely. Wind slowly dies with left-over sea--not comfortable. Solar panels keep us from losing too much charge. Find mechanic at once and he agrees to meet us at mole at 10 am tomorrow.

BACK TO AMY...
Well, that's the last entry. The good news is that the mechanic fixed us up in no time flat, and now we're back in business. Last night the harbour master told us we had to move our boat because we were too close to the spot where the town was going to be launching a fireworks display. We anchored about 20 meters further away from shore, then headed into town for a paella dinner. Returned to the boat then lounged till midnight. And then the fuegos artificiales began! Fireworks from as close a vantage point as we've ever seen. Spectacular! Scary! The next morning (today) we awoke to find our decks covered in flecks of ash. Caramba, that was close!

P.S. If you want to follow Sparrow's progress, go to winlink.org, find the "locate someone" link, click on it and punch in my callsign (kb1nly). A Google Earth image will pop up and show you a photo of our exact location!
This is Sparrow, standing by.

Same old, same old

Not a whole lot to report, really, except that we finally got the fricking boat on the freighter and we’ve moved to Spain. That’s about it.

If you must have the interminable details, read on.

After we knew we were going to miss the May 9 ship from Fort Lauderdale to Mallorca (due to a shockingly endless series of brand-new boat malfunctions), we sent the kids up to New England to hang out with Bert’s parents for a few days, then to visit with the Wicker family on Star Island. I’m sure you recall from your geography lessons that Star Island is part of the Isles of Shoals, a small group of islands about ten miles off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Anyway, there they hung, Rosie running feral with her friend Bea, and Nora working in the kitchen as pastry chef, under Sarah Wicker’s tutelage. (Need a chocolate torte for 50? Nora’s your girl.)

Meanwhile, Bert and I sailed the boat from Palm Beach to the Pier 66 Marina in Fort Lauderdale. We spent the next six weeks sweating like whores in church as we labored to get Sparrow ready for the big trip. We replaced the old, ill-fitting propeller. We replaced the Furuno GPS chart-plotter with a Raymarine one. We moved the autopilot panel and the cockpit shower head to more sensible locations. I realize suddenly that I’m saying ‘we’ a lot—actually, I didn’t do a lick of this work. But I did sweat a lot and I offered many extremely well-received opinions.

We spent our last week in air-conditioned splendor at the marina’s adjoining Hyatt Regency hotel (below is a picture of Sparrow, taken from our room).

Then, on the 17th of June, at about 8pm, we got word that the time was right to load our boat onto the good ship Snoekgracht (try saying that name out loud. Now say it out loud really loudly. Gesundheit! Hah!). We dashed out of our hotel room, untied the boat and motored under the 17th Street Causeway bridge. There, in the distance, under a suitably dramatic sky, lay Snoekgracht, or Snoeky, as I like to think of her.



We drew close and circled around a few times, until a guy from waaaay up on the deck of the ship shouted down to us to bring Sparrow alongside. Bert generously allowed me to take the helm for this tricky maneuver, and I executed the landing with a most singular feeling of exhilaration (and a most copious flow of sweat). The tiny man at the top of the container ship lowered two lines to us, and in no time we were holding fast and fending off with great care to keep the spreaders from banging alongside the great hulking metal sides of Snoeky.

Then the tiny man up top shouted down and asked us if we wanted to get off our boat and take a launch back to the hotel, or if we’d like to stay aboard while they hoisted Sparrow up with a crane. “But you’ll have to climb off on the rope ladder after you get up here,” he added. Bert yelled, “Sure,” as I nervously eyed the ladder. A two-hundred-foot descent from that swaying piece of line seemed, I don’t know, like something I would NEVER DO IN A MILLION YEARS AND BERT OUGHT TO KNOW THAT BY NOW.
“I’m not doing that,” I said.
“Oh, come on, you can do it,” he said, smiling encouragingly.
Just then, a man in a wetsuit began climbing down the ladder, Or, rather, he took a step down, swung a bit, then was slammed, twisting, elbows and knees, against the side of the ship. This action was repeated until he reached bottom. Bert and I watched in silence, then Bert yelled up to the the tiny little guy, “Actually, we’ll just take the launch.”

At this point, it was about 10pm. We stayed aboard long enough to watch a sailboat in front of us get hoisted up, and to swig a few drams of rum and eat some Pirouline cookies. We gave the remaining cookies to the guy in the wetsuit (that rum was gone) and hopped onto the launch. When we got back to the hotel, we dashed off and grabbed a pizza, then drove to an empty lot across from the harbor, and watched as Sparrow was lifted onto the Snoekgracht. If you look at the photo below closely, you can kind of see her, just left of center, raised just above the great ship's decks. I'm sorry. It was late, there'd been rum, and my camera sucks.


Oy, this is taking forever. So then we hightailed it to Rhode Island, got the kids from the Wickers, said goodbye to family and friends (and it was so great seeing you all, we miss you already), and on Wednesday, June 28, we flew to Mallorca, where we await the July 4th arrival of Sparrow.

We’re comfortably ensconced at the stunningly beautiful Hotel Dalt Murada, (check out their website, www.hoteldaltmurada.com, we’re in suite 3) in the achingly beautiful town of Palma. That's Nora out on the terrace, and Rosie in the living room of our suite.



We’re feasting on tapas, sipping Spanish wine, seeing the sights and tentatively trying out our rudimentary Spanish. As soon as Sparrow shows up, we’ll provision, then sail off for a summer cruise of the Balearic islands (quick, dust off the atlas!). Then, in early August we head for our future home: Port Vell Marina in Barcelona. Ya’ll come see us!
This is Sparrow, standing by.

I think, therefore I ham

You'd think that an entire month without a new blog post could only mean one thing: That Sparrow is out sailing the high seas, off the grid, over the horizon, under the spell of turquoise waters and pink sands.




If only, if only, if only, if only.

Pathetic wretches that we are, we have barely budged from the transient dock at Ft. Pierce's Harbortown Marina. We have been experiencing a series of technical difficulties that can best be described as a total buzz kill. Our brand-new boat's brand new dual-unit Furuno GPS chart-plotter with radar overlay (ooh-la-la!) refuses to function for more than 30 minutes at a time. We have sent it back to Furuno several times in exchange for replacement units, only to experience the same problem, over and over. The experts are baffled, we're baffled, but still we persevere and hope that it will all work out in the end.

Luckily, the setback has allowed us time to pursue other ventures: Bert has installed four big solar panels above the bimini, which means that when we're out at anchor we'll be able to have ice cubes in our cocktails. Nora has honed her talent for hanging out with the other teens at the marina. And Rosie has learned how to flip a cardboard coaster up off the edge of a table with the top of her hand and then catch it with the same hand in one deft motion (it's an excellent bar trick, and when she's 21 it should come in very handy, so thank you Mr. Jeff Van Peski for teaching her).

But the rest of the family's goings-on pale in comparison to MY remarkable accomplishments of the past two weeks: On April 20, I passed the exam for a ham license, technician class. Then, only five days later, I passed the exam for a ham license, general class. I am... a HAM.

So what, you say? Well, two weeks ago, if you had asked me what Ohm's Law was, I would have said that it probably has something to do with yoga. Now, I know better. It has something to do with voltage and amps and...there's definitely a third thing, but I can't remember it now, but that doesn't matter because I've already passed the test so I don't need to know it any more, so hah! I also now know scads of random words and phrases that have little or no meaning to me, but they sound kind of dirty so it's fun to say them out loud. Try these and see for yourself (it helps if you say them in a breathy whisper, while naked): dipole, spurious emissions, suppressed carrier, kilobaud, RF choke, coronal mass ejections, azimuthal projection, F-layer absorption, MUF, self-oscillations and mutual inductance.

But enough tech talk. For those of you who are wondering if we’ve ever actually sailed our boat, the answer is yes, a little: once during a brief sea trial to make sure the sails and rigging were all functioning, and once more when we were en route to West Palm Beach. The latter outing was a bit heartbreaking: We thought we were finally on our way to Fort Lauderdale, and we had hardly been out for two hours when we got to a bridge just north of Stuart, Florida, and the bridge tender hailed us on our VHF radio:


Bridge Tender: Sailboat heading south on the ICW north of the Indian River Bridge, come in.
Me: Indian River Bridge Tender, this is Sparrow, the sailboat heading south.
Bridge Tender: Sparrow, what is your mast clearance?
Me: We need about 64 feet.
Bridge Tender: Sparrow, I’m sorry but I don’t have clearance to open the bridge for you. See the scaffolding on the bridge right in front of you? There’s construction going on and I can’t open the bridge for anyone over 50 feet.
Me: But….Uh…Hmm….Okay. I guess we’ll figure something else out. This is Sparrow, standing by.

Below: Our too-high mast

So, we had to turn around. Just our luck.  Then, this past Friday, just when we thought we were ready to go, a big front came through, bringing with it winds between 20-25 knots and waves eight to eleven feet. No go.

So now we’re sitting here waiting for the weather to settle down so we can go down the coast and get to Fort Lauderdale in time to make the big trip to Spain on the MV Spiegelgracht. The ship leaves Port Everglades May 9, with or with out us. Will we make it? Will we have enough time to get the Furuno fixed? Stay tuned….

This is Sparrow, standing by.
Above and below: Our first party aboard Sparrow: Grey Wicker's birthday

Floating in Fort Pierce

FT PIERCE, FLORIDA Dearly Disgruntled, SO sorry for being a tardy bloggospondent, but I have a whole boatload of good excuses. After my last post—the one announcing the Oscar contest winner—I was contacted by said winner, who told me that a cheesy NASA souvenir was NOT her idea of a great prize so could I please get her something better. I was completely debilitated by this request (note to winner: this has nothing to do with hair removal), and spent the next few days shuffling disconsolately through the aisles of Target, K-Mart and Cobb's General Store (which specializes in Tabasco-based products), despairing that I'd never find a suitable alternative.

Luckily, my search was cut short by the arrival of daughter Rosie and her friend Bea, who were flown in fresh from Panama City last Friday. Then, the very next day, we launched Sparrow. The guys at Cracker Boy plucked her up off the hard…

…and verrrrry carefully…

…plunked her into Taylor Creek…

…whereupon Bert masterfully maneuvered her through the greasy water. Now, I'm usually the one who takes the helm when we bring a boat up to a dock or into a slip, but when I climbed aboard Sparrow, me timbers were shiverin' uncontrollably, and me heart was pounding violently, and the thought of scraping up the side of our shiny new boat against a big splintery piling was so frightening to me that I sudddenly felt quite pukish. Not wanting to let on, but not wanting to go anwhere near the wheel, I casuallly suggested that Bert should do the honors for Sparrow's maiden voyage. His eyes lit up, he took the helm, and thirty seconds later we were safely tied up at Harbortown Marina. Not a scrape, not a scratch, not a ding. Damn. (I was sort of hoping he'd screw up so I wouldn't be the first one to sully Sparrow's topsides.)

We're still tied up in this very same spot, getting the boat ready for her first real outing. Packing stuff away, then unpacking the stuff, then repacking it. But we're happy to be living aboard the boat, and we're getting into the rhythm of being together in a very small space. This is home. Life is good.

This is Sparrow, standing by.

And the moon rock (or something equally exciting) goes to...

Defying the odds, Lilyluna takes the prize in our Oscar Guess-who contest. Nora cross-dressed as Heath Ledger; Bert cross-dressed as Felicity Huffman, and I hagged up as Charlize Theron. Thanks to everyone for writing in and guessing (or writing in and not guessing).

Coming Thursday: Sparrow's progress.

Meanwhile, for those of you who are eagerly following the sailing adventures of Rosie, she and the Wicker family arrived safely in Panama three days ago:

March 11, 2006
Subject: Panama!
Dear Ma and Da,
I only threw up once!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The trip was a bit rocky the first day, but the second was calmer than lake Ontario in the winter. I had lots of fun because we watched Tomb Raiders and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban. Then I went to the cockpit and dozed for a long time. The next day we sat on deck and Sarah saw the biggest turtle in the whole wide world!!!! Then we got there and it was so hot we jumped in the water but the current was so strong that Sarah had to save us. Then we went to shore and came back. Then we did school while Sarah and Grey went to town. When they got back we ate a whole thing of bree and carrs and smoked salmon and Sarah says we can get more tomorrow!! Then we went swimming away from the current and I got stung but it was ok because it was only a sea nettle and it disappeared.
Love
Rosie N.

This is Sparrow, standing by.

Contest! Sparrow crew Oscar guess-who!

Bert, Nora and I had a tiny Oscar party in our tiny hotel room here in Vero. We dressed up as three of the nominees and feasted on pizza, wine and crispy M&Ms. It was unbelievably festive. I ran the Oscar pool and won, beating Bert by just a hair (he picked Munich for Best Picture just to be contrary--this is typical of him, and it will be his downfall). Nora went for broke with Brokeback and now... she's broke. She paid up right away, but Bert still owes me.

The contest goes like this: The first commentator to guess our identities (the name of the actor/actress and the film he/she appeared in) correctly will win a SPECIAL PRIZE. I don't know what it is yet, but Nora and I are going to the Kennedy Space Center today, so possibly a moon rock? Whatever it is, you can be sure that it will be special, and that you would be very excited if you were to win it. So guess away!

This is Sparrow, standing by.

Veni Vidi Vero

Home base this week is Vero Beach (dubbed Velcro Beach by wags of a certain age because once you get here you never want to leave--which is definitely true if you're a golf-club-totin', Lilly-Pulitzer-lovin', lemonade-suckin' Republican, and probably also true if you're the sort that likes postcard-pretty Florida beach towns). Bert frets endlessly about whether we should park our minivan back-end in so that none of those golf-club-totin' Republicans can see our Kerry/Edwards sticker.

We're staying at the weirdly wonderful Driftwood Inn, built in the 1930s by an eccentric entrepreneur named Waldo Sexton. Legend has it that the place was constructed without the benefit of an architect or plans--just good old Waldo, standing on the beach, shouting instructions to his carpenters. The result is a very cool hodgepodge of crooked buildings made out of rough-hewn lumber and--like the name says--driftwood; all adorned with odd scraps of metal, stained-glass windows, bells, tiles, and various other beachcomber tchotchkes. Our room is tiny, but it has an amazing ocean view... it's kind of like living on a boat, except there's linen service. And there's good eating in these parts too: grits with breakfast, grilled mahi sandwiches at lunch and dreamy-creamy frozen custard across the street at Abbotts.

The boat--still in Fort Pierce at Cracker Boy--is progressing nicely. Yesterday, the keel and rudder were installed with relative ease, and tomorrow the mast goes in. Then we can give her a good scrub inside and out and start loading her up with all our stuff, which will go a long way toward making us feel less homeless. She should be in the water by the middle of next week. (Well, maybe not, today was a day of myriad minor setbacks. With any luck we'll be back on track in a day or two and nothing will prove too serious...Bert)

Let's see, what else did I want to tell you about...Oh, yes, while we were in Fort Lauderdale (dubbed Fort Liquordale by certain wags because...well, I don't really need to explain that one, do I?) we took a road trip up to Lantana to have dinner at Riggins Crab House. We weren't really going for the food, it was more about visiting with the guy that owns the place, an old family friend named Danny Callaro whom I hadn't seen in 25 years. (He also happens to be my high-school boyfriend's brother, which may explain why I felt compelled to make Bert pull over at a CVS right before we got to the restaurant so I could buy mascara and lip gloss and perform a minor makeover in the ladies' room.) Anyway, it was great seeing Danny, but the real reason I'm even mentioning this outing is that the crabs at Riggins Crab House are AMAZING. The place is all about Maryland-style blue crabs, complete with Old Bay seasoning, mallets and picks (but no bib for me, thank you). Danny served us up a dozen of the fattest crabs in the house, and we were in crab-smacking heaven. They were every bit as good as the crabs at Cantlers, in Annapolis, and I am not lying.

We also made a Disney World run and had a great visit, thanks to my sister Joann and my brother-in-law Michael Rooney. He's a mucky-muck at ESPN, and he treated us to a VIP viewing of the weigh-in at ESPN's BASS Master Classic. Not being familiar with the world of high-stakes fishing (sadly,I'm a girl), I was dumbfounded by the scale of the spectacle, not to mention the spectacle of the scale. The dazzling lights! The screaming fans! The flopping fish! Dean Kessel, BASS V.P., told me the event was the Superbowl of fishing competitions, and all I can say is...who knew!? It was a piscine-a-palooza, and my only disappointment was that there was no half-time performance by the Rolling Stones. We also had fun at the Magic Kingdom. Wait! No! Scratch that! We didn't have any fun at all. And Rosie, if you're reading this, we didn't want to go there without you--Joann made us go! Even Nora had a terrible time. She was practically crying throughout the entire ordeal.

Finally, speaking of Rosie, she has made it safely from the Vivarillos Cays to Providencia, Colombia, with no unpleasant pirate run-ins and only a few minor bouts of seasickness. I'll end again with a recent e-mail from her:

February 26, the Vivarillos
Dear Ma and Da,
This morning when we woke up I had half an apple covered in peanut butter (the last piece of fresh fruit). Then we went to booby and frigate island with weird boaters including a man that never smiles or laughs, a woman who figured out that if you mix hot water with cold water you get warm water, and a woman who never keeps flour on her boat. It is quite amusing listening to them gossip on the radio.When we were done looking at boobies acting like "bobos" or stupids, we walked back to the dingy. B found two helmet shells and we found three spotted sea hairs, big slug like creatures that squirt purple ink at you. When we got back to the boat B and I did school for a bit, whilst Grey and Sarah went spear fishing (Grey caught four fish including a giant hogfish!). Then we went to the cursed island and then back to the boat. Then we had quovaltine (or ovaltine as you weirdos call it) and wrote the outline for a report on boobies. For dinner we had fish that Grey caught. We are now listening to totally '70s.
love,
Rosie N.

This is Sparrow, standing by.

Loitering in Lauderdale

So, we made it to Florida without incident, and so did the boat, which arrived two days behind us. My mom, who's been down here hanging out with my Aunt Dot (Dorothy to you) at her Fort Lauderdale condo, tried to find us a decent motel to stay at, but everything was booked up because of the always-popular Miami Boat Show. She said our only option appeared to be the Fort Lauderdale Beach Palace, which she described disdainfully as "not very palatial." It wasn't. And may I be so bold as to suggest to the Palace's head decorator that covering a motel-room floor with the kind of green carpeting typically found at miniature golf courses is not only a decorating faux pas, but it also does NOT hide the stains and sins of previous tenants as well as you might expect it to. But the bugs didn't seem bothered by it, so who am I to complain?

Bert and I spent our first couple of days here driving back and forth to the Miami Boat Show, haranguing the owner of Saga Marine to help us come up with a plan to get Sparrow finished. After several heated pow-wows, a plan did indeed emerge, and the next few days should see the keel and rudder installed, followed swiftly thereafter by the mast and rigging (all work being done at the most excellent Cracker Boy Boatworks, in Fort Pierce, and overseen by the fabulous Colin Mack at Mack Sails).

Right now, I'm just hanging out with my family (Bert, Nora, my mom, sisters Nancy & Joann, brother-in-law David, niece Molly and nephew Sam--and more family still to come later in the week). We're all ensconced in two huge suites at the Marriott Beach Place, just down the A1A from Aunt Dot's condo. (I wish everyone had an Aunt Dot--she makes you feel very welcome and is extremely generous with the Scotch.) We're good to stay here through next Saturday, then we'll have to find another place to stay at while work on the boat continues. Anyone know of a cheap rental near Fort Pierce? Preferably one with hardwood floors.

One last thing--Rosie has been sending us daily emails from Honduras (that's her, below, in Roatan). They're very entertaining, so I'll end this entry with a recent favorite.




February 13

Dear Mama and Papa,
This morning I took a shower in a gale. First you jump into the water, then you get out and shampoo your hair, next you jump in and get the shampoo out of your hair, after that you put conditioner in your hair and pour a pitcher of water over your head. Then we took Roxy for a walk and saw a passive dog named Shloopy, who just didn't care. Then we went to town and got soaking wet and it started to hail!!! Then we came back to the boat and had hot cocoa and mac and cheese. Yesterday I got really sea sick and threw up. it was not very fun. Sarah says the wind is blowing like snot!!! But we are in a veryveryveryvery superdy duperdy safe anchorage. last night we watched "A Mighty Wind". It was very funny. Sarah taught me how to play chess.
l-o-v-e,
Rosie

This is Sparrow, standing by.

The birth of Sparrow

On February 10, 2006, after a lengthy, arduous and sadly incomplete gestation period, our SAGA 409 (hull #6), from here on to be known as Sparrow, was delivered from the rather chilly SAGA Marine womb in St Catharines, Ontario.
She's missing a mast, a keel and a rudder, so it's a good thing we weren't planning to sail her from Canada to Florida. Instead, she'll roll down various Interstates to Fort Pierce, where the Paulsen/Nalle family (that's me, Amy Paulsen, my huband, Bert Nalle, and daughters Nora and Rosie) will meet up with her and she will finally be made whole. Before we go broke. We hope.

Earlier today, Bert, Nora and I bid a fond, final farewell to our temporary hometown of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario (we're minus Rosie, who's sailing off the coast of Honduras with our good friends Sarah, Grey, Beatrice and Roxie Wicker aboard their Peterson 46, Sa Lako. Now, many hours later, we are crashing at the low-budget, slightly seedy, but perfectly-acceptable-as-long-as-the-lights-are-turned-out Quality Inn in Morgantown, West Virginia. And now is when I must end this entry, because the glow from my computer is proving way too illuminating for sleepy Nora's eyes.
Tomorrow: Savannah or bust. Soon to come: The full SAGA saga. This is Sparrow, standing by.