Greetings fellow catsailors;

I'll make this brief. Thanks for all your concern and comments. I live in northeast Pensacola, off Scenic Hwy over looking East Bay about 3-4 miles from the beach as a crow, rather a seagull flies. Ivan kicked our butt, no way around it. I am writing on my laptop powered by my new generator (thanks Sears), and for some unknown reason, I have the only operating land line telephone working in our area. Go figure. We are in our 4th night of no power, many areas with no water, and gasoline is a luxury. As far as I know there is still no power anywhere in the city, except emergency centers like hospitals, etc. We're about to eat our way through the freezer, so it looks like we're all about to go on a diet. (I may able to sail an F18 after all.) The night that Ivan hit was pretty wild. It sounded like a freight train going over my home for about 8 hours solid. Fortunately, my family and I all made out fairly well. Lots of lost roofing, trees down, pool filled with neighbor's roof, and general chaotic mess. Oh yeah, my ARC22 and Nacra 6.0 survived just fine tucked away in the corner of my backyard. Ivan did manage to push the boats and trailers back a ways, but all remains in great conditions minus the debris covering them. The beach is a wreck as you've seen photos, but it will be back.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers, and look forward to getting back to sailing with you.