This post is a little delayed due to technical difficulties....... poor internet. I've tried to post this several times over several days -- hope it's successful today.

Last Friday we got the last of the big old iron fuel tank out of the boat! That was a monumental task that we were happy to have behind us. We then spent the next couple days cleaning out the gunk and then painting the bilge so it looks clean and nice and is ready for some new tanks. But that will wait until next fall. This way we not only have plenty of time to research our options and plan and prepare for that project, but we can still salvage the good cruising season down here in The Sea of Cortez.

To accomplish this the ever resourceful Terry has rigged up a "day tank" that can keep us fueled to move about. He built this temporary tank out of our old 5 gallon outboard gasoline tank.

He was able to modify it a bit so it has a a fuel return line (that diesel engines use but not used on gas tanks) as well as attaching the vent on the tank to the old vent hose so the venting diesel fumes will be expelled outside the boat instead of into the bilge -- a very good thing. And the piece d'resistance is that he also used a three way valve to attach it to a recirculating pump that he used to "polish" or clean the fuel in the old diesel tank. This new connection allows another line to be attached that can be switched to when we want to fill the little tank from a Jerry jug. A lot less mess that having to siphon it in -- brilliant!

The tests here at the dock have it working perfectly -- and since we only burn 1/2 gallon per hour that little tank can give us at least 8 ours of motoring at a time. And we shouldn't have to ever motor that far in any one day because the wonderful anchorages are actually very close together, and we are a sailboat so we don't have to motor all the time as long as we have a bit of wind. Then at the end of a day of travel we will refill the little tank from a Jerry jug and be all set to travel again.

We plan to leave the dock on Friday for a short 2 mile trip to Bahia Falso and then from there up in the Sea hopefully as far as Loreto where our favorite cruising grounds are.

Now we can go enjoy the best months for cruising in the Sea: April and May. So a big thank you to Terry getting us going again in a relatively short period of time when you consider the enormity of the problem we were faced with.

Hurray!