How did it get to be November all of a sudden? I had to face the fact that today was the day that I had to set about removing the cushions from Trouper 2.

Last year, I was removing the cushions from Trouper 2 on October 13, so I managed another full month of cruising season this year!

After the cushions were safely removed and taken home, I returned to Trouper 2 and set about sailing under storm jib for a couple of hours.

The wind was N 5 Kts so it's not like I needed to fly a small sail but the truth is, I hadn't used my jib all that much this summer and I wanted to air it out before repacking it in its sail bag.

Something happened while I was sailing that I haven't witnessed before.  A fancy, burgundy coloured helicopter landed on the front lawn of one of the mansions along Beach Drive and then took off again.