Trying again

Well, I just tried to upload a picture from the F drive on this computer and had no luck. Seems to be a communication problem. :-( Oh, well, I will just continue without any pics.

As I mentioned before my husband, Dave, and I about umpteen years ago went on a winter sail from Whittier, Alaska to Valdez over Veterans Day. As you can imagine it was very cold and since we were in Alaska, the day light was only about 4-5 hours long. This does not give you much time for sailing in a 40' sailboat.
It was clear when we departed and a few hours later we were anchored up in a very quiet [who else would be out in below freezing weather?] and secluded bit. We had our diesel stove running full blast and it was warm and cozy inside. After a game or two or three of backgammon, we were snuggled under our comforter.
When we woke in the morning, it was very, very quiet. No wind, just lots of snow falling. The boat was thoroughly covered. We had to shovel the snow away so we could get to the anchor. We had a child's size snow shovel that worked well on the narrow deck.
At last we pulled the anchor and motored out of the bit into the passage for Valdez. It continued to snow. We took turns standing out in the snow steering the boat while the person inside kept gloves warmed to hand out to the person on deck. I am not sure now how many layers of clothes we had on in order to stay warm. Thankfully there was no wind so we did not have to deal with the wind chill factor.
It was dark as we approached Valdez Arm. The Coast Guard gave us a call as we came up on their radar. [They monitor the approaches in the Arm because of the tanker traffic]. We explained who we were and where we were heading. They warned us of some outgoing traffic. We let them know we were hugging the western shore so there shouldn't be any problem.
At long last we were tied up to the dock in Valdez. It felt good to be secure.