Today was a productive day for boat maintenance. The mechanic I'm hooked up with is really experienced and knows exactly what he's doing. The packing in the packing gland was replaced and the gland nuts (so to speak) were lubricated and adjusted so that only a few drops of water come through each minute and only a bit more when the propellor shaft is turning (necessary for lubrication). This repair has stopped the need for regular bilge pump activation, which takes one more thing off my mind. While in the rear engine compartment, he replaced the main fuel filter, the heat-exchanger zink (the most important zink because it sacrifices itself to prevent engine rust), and checked the transmission fluid and alignment of the propellor shaft. All is now well in that compartment. However, the experience of the last few weeks dealing with the bilge water has shown me that my existing system was just not sufficiently safe for offshore cruising. If that one old looking pump should fail, I would be left with hand pumping the emergency bellows pump or, more likely, employing the old bucket system. It's hard to manage a boat and two dogs singlehanded while pumping water out, especially if the conditions are snotty as they probably would be in that situation. So I had a twin 1500 gph pump and float switch installed and wired directly to the battery so it will work even of the electical panel blows. I also had the float switch I bought in Beaufort for the old pump properly installed. Now I've doubled my bilge pumping capacity. I shouldn't need even one pump since essentially no water is flowing into the bilge anymore. But the Catalina 36 has a shallow bilge so if I ever do get a bunch of water inside the boat, I will have plenty of pump power to get it out automatically. And if I'm in the middle of nowhere and one of my bilge pumps dies, I've got a back-up already on line. We also installed back-flow valves in both pump lines since there is a long run to the back of the boat and the old pump was cycling on and off repeatedly as water came back down the line into the bilge after it turned itself off. The new-looking pump in the center section of the picture is now primary and activates first, so the old pump will get much less use than the primary and will only be needed as a back-up. I know this seems technical and boring and maybe a little excessive, but having experienced the need to sleep with one foot on the cabin sole (figuratively speaking - it was never even close to that bad), it is a big relief to know that the boat isn't leaking and even if it does, I've got two electric pumps, two manual pumps, and two buckets. Since it's Friday, I can't get anymore work done here until Monday. We are making such good progress that I'm going to stay the weekend and continue the refit on Monday. We should be done that day. I'm in a nice spot, I've got hook-ups for free, there are friendly people here, and I've got a court hearing that I'm appearing telephonically at on Monday, so its all good. We might get a little bored, but we'll be in air conditioning, which is nice.