Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, 44 years since we tied the knot in Berlin (West Berlin, as it was called then). Burger surprised me with a dozen pink roses, and I pampered him with a special breakfast, his favorite Haribo gummi-bears, and an apropos card (Sailboat with hearts on the sails. Message: "Year after year ... the adventure continues. Happy Anniversary.")

In the evening we celebrated with dinner at one of Puerto de Mogan's many romantic, candlelit restaurants.

In between, we got down to the business at hand: Day Three of repairing the mainsail roller furling mechanism that lets us roll the sail in and out. The roller furling spindle had sheared off and needed reengineering and then welding at the boatyard. The biggest and most frustrating part of the job was dismantling and reinstalling the spindle parts.


Photo: Burger performing surgery inside the mast.

Screws needed to be bored out, shooting minuscule bits of metal everywhere. Tiny needle bearings and ball bearings threatened to scatter and disappear overboard, as a few did. But with trial and error and great perseverance Burger got the job done, with a little help from me (vacuuming bits of metal and searching for tiny bearings!).

Today we reinstalled the sail and put the boat back together again.
Now all we need do is await the next weather window, likely on Sunday, a full week since our first attempt to leave. Instead of Christmas in Cape Verde, we'll sing carols and eat Lebkuchen at sea, and hopefully celebrate New Year's Eve in our next port. Follow our tracks on any or all of the three satellite map links on the right side of this blog's home page.