Yesterday, when Supreme Admiral Periwinkle needed to be taken on his evening tour of inspection, we had a look through the boat yard. The Office manager refers to sections of the yard as the field of lost dreams and when we went up there I could easily see why. There are a number of the boats that clearly haven't seen any tender loving care for several years. Indeed some of them have obviously been abandoned. The reason I wanted to go up there was to determine the damage that could be done by the soot from the sugar cane burn offs. I noticed that almost none of the boats that had activity around them, either now or recently, were not covered. Indeed very few of any of the boats are covered, and from what the other tenets here tell me the soot easily washes off with a hose, so we have decided to not cover Nelleke this summer. As for the abandoned boats, if you look under the neglect many of them have great cruising possibilities. If someone wanted to get into the lifestyle cheaply and was prepared to spend the first several months here in Indiantown getting the boat back into shape, this would be a place to check out: trawlers and tugs, schooners and ketches, mono and multihull, boats of all shapes and sizes. I'm sure you could probably work out some sort of deal with the marina to pay the yard bill and walk, or sail, away with would could become a really nice boat. I hope someone reading this will try to act on it. These poor old ladies look so very sad sitting up there on the hard, collecting sugar cane soot and having the varnish burn off them. They need someone to love them.

Last night's pot luck was wonderful. Not only was the food excellent but the company was wonderful and no small number of them were Canadians with a couple from Halifax, one guy from Zimbabwe, a fellow from Quebec, another from Edmonton etc. there were a few Americans as well but I imagine they must have felt them selves to be rather missionaries at a canibal feast.

After last night the only negative thing that I could say about this marina is the number of bugs. We had a mosquito coil and citronella candle burning all last night to combat the little perkerwoods and still we weren't 100% successful. Oh well. Small thing really. And we did win the fight.

We are looking at US military hotels to break up our trip on the way to Durham and from there to the Canadian border. The US military has a wonderful list of campgrounds hotels and marinas that military types both active and retired can stay at. Some of them do honour the reciprocity that others have with Canadian facilities and some do not. One of our missions will be to find one in each of Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. We won't need one in North Carolina immediately since we will be visiting with our friends Peter and Lynn.

This morning I walked in to the hardware store and en route I looked in to the small inn that is here in Indiantown and discovered that it is no more expensive than the Economy hotel that we found on the Internet in Vero Beach and has way more charm, plus we won't be so rushed after hauling to boat to meet the check in times so as not to incur a penalty. Plus, as we booked it through Expedia and were led to believe that the room would be $10 less than it turned out to be I have an aversion to the old bait and switch routine.

On the walk I also came across one of those street walk fresh produce vendors selling corn on the cob 4 for a dollar. I bought four and he wound up giving me six. I have found that's quite common for these folk. Very generous. $1/4 ears of corn is a great price to start with.

We have been quite brutal in our triage this year sorting things into several piles: stuff to leave on the boat as we will definitely be using it next year and will not be using it this summer at home; stuff to take home which we will be bringing back this fall as we will be using it next year but would also like to use this summer at home; stuff to permanently take home; and stuff that we both looked at each other and said, "what were we thinking?" and which will be given away to a good home here at the Marina. We have started at the bow in the v-berth cabin and have begun to work our way aft. It's amazing how much the "don't leave on the boat piles accumulate". I am beginning to wonder if the minivan will be big enough. Oh well. We have that eventuality cased as well. Worst case scenario is that we have to leave some of the stuff packed for home on the boat but that in the fall when we come down again we will move the packed stuff from the boat into the van we will have with us to leave in Indiantown until the following spring when we shall take it back to Shelburne. In other words we might be making two trips just space them a year apart.

We have also run fresh water through the two outboards. All I have still to do is drain the oil out of the 4 stroke and the lower unit lube out of both of them. Looks like we may be taking the Yamaha home with us as there is a thunderous silence from the folks who are not interested in buying it. If may be one of the things that gets left behind for the next trip. We also have the dingy on the cabin top and its shade effect in the pilot house is wonderful. It means that another project for this summer will be to make a shade cover for the pilot house using the main boom as a guy. It's amazing how much affect a little shade has. If, while we are out at an a orange we add a wind scoop in the forward cabin to that although it won't be quite air conditioning it might be getting close.

Barb has been slaving away sorting out the cabins getting stuff put places for storage for the summer. She has some great thoughts go where things should go in the fall. Shock on shock. I think I agree with all of them. For myself the thing that I am looking forward to msg is to have the middle cabin as what I had intended it as, an office with a desk, lighting, printer and Internet connection. Right now it's a suppository of a storage area which I find extremely frustrating especially when I am looking for a place to write, paint or even just sit and compose myself to thoughts. The more we take off the boat and the less useless crap we find ourselves carrying about the happier I am becoming. It was so tempting when we began this to have everything with us but, reality check? you don't need all of that!