This morning I changed the fuel filters for both engines. That completes the routine maintenance for now. After finishing that, I got Deb to help me launch the kayak (poor thing hasn't been used in a year - just sitting on the forward deck being carried around. She wasn't ready to go yet, so i paddled around our corner of Laguna Pallos. I met several indigenous people paddling their cayugas and felt a kinship as we both moved our skinny little crafts silently through the water. One mother and son were obviously headed for the school (which is closed for vacation) because they had many 5 gallon buckets to fill with water.. Although most native houses are still thatch, each village had a government built concrete school building with a tin roof. In most of the little villages around here Gringos have helps the locals install water catchment on the schools and it becomes a water source for the whole community. I paddled around several mangrove islands and into shallow backwaters just enjoying the solitude. The water was amazingly clear and I could see tons of bait fish, but very few larger fish. I think the locals keep the population of edible size fish right above the non-existent level.. By the time I got back to our island, my arms knew that I was using different muscles, but Deb was ready to go out, so we did. First we paddled along the sore of our island and saw from above the water the areas we had seen below it the other day. Then we headed over to Dave's island (my brother has the island next to us.) and circumnavigated it. We discovered a beautiful shallow 'beach' on the North side of his island. It would take little work to build a dock out far enough to be a great swimming spot, or maybe you could get beach sand to fill in the area next to the land - they still do that down here. After our paddle, we took the dinghy over to see Ken & Vonnie's place. They have a Deltek (US 'kit' house like Cynde's) that is built on one of their five hills. The views were great and the land is maintained in a beautiful fashion. They have a full time caretaker who lives on the property and maintains it. They border on the little village with the school abutting their land. I was curious about their relationship with the village, but they said it was great - just like and small town in New England, the village has all types and once they found out that Ken & Vonnie were not "rich Gringos" to take advantage of, but were nice people who were willing to be part of the community (if a somewhat distant part) and help as appropriate, relations have been warm and rewarding. We wpent most of the afternoon enjoying a delicious lunch and just sitting around chatting. That evening we had our first dinner on the boat! We've been such the socialites. I made a Caesar salad and grill filet mignon on the barbecue. A little red wine (in crystal glasses of course) on our newly refinished cockpit table and it was a wonderful evening. Tomorrow morning I am going over to Mick & Lizza's house to see the power cat that he is building.