On the north-south thing, when I moved to Florida from New Hampshire 12 years ago, I bought a house on a lake and I thought I would be sailing Every Day! Yee Haw! The Sun, The Sand, The....lack of wind!

I've sailed maybe 2 days in the past month, I wanted to get out there today but it's flat right now, as it is most days here in central Fla. all [96 degree average] summer long. The seabreeze never gets this far inland and the cold fronts don't come trough unitl mid November.

I got in much more racing up there than I do down here, because up there the season is so short, from May-Sept, that they race every weekend, big boats on Saturday, Lasers on Sunday and on weeknights too, so there was always a race to go to, until you pull the boat in Oct. Of course I was single when I was racing up there. A wife and 4 kids will put a quick end to any racing you -think- you are going to do.

Down here they are much more "laid back" about racing. When I first arrived in Miami I asked the local J24 fleet captain why they only did one or two races a month. He said, "What's the rush? We have all year. If we raced every weekend people would be burned out in no time. Besides, we like golf too..."

But now it seems like every time there is a cat regatta the wife has other plans, or the kids, or both, and on the weekends when they don't there's no race to go to!

So, come on down, it's plenty warm, but please bring some wind!