First the fun stuff. I am having fun catching and releasing fish in the marina, and today we had a dolphin in the marina right behind the boat! While I enjoyed seeing him, we should tell him the fish are not safe to eat in this marina because there used to be a wood creosoting plant here about 2000 feet from the bayou. It was closed and made a superfund site 20 years ago but it is still leaking PCBs and other nasty stuff into the bayou today.

I thought I would explain to everybody what kind of work we are having to do to Paradox to get her ready to sail away to remote islands. Anybody planning to to make the same lifestyle change will know what to expect this way.

We got a mechanic to come over and find the reason why the starter on the engine is intermittent. He found an old repair to a cut engine wire that was not done properly. Those kind are difficult to troubleshoot.

Well Paradox is shaping up but we still have a laundry list of repairs. I learned to clean out the sea water filters for the air conditioner today.

I replace a seacock handle that had rusted off one of the through hull fittings.

Yesterday I wired a new courtesy light on the dining table in the cockpit so that we could eat dinner under the stars.

We were having some trouble with the roller furling main so tomorrow I have to take the mainsail down if the winds are light enough. On a roller furling main you have pull the sail all the way out take it down. We are going to try another main out and see if it gives us trouble too.

Next week about Tuesday or Wednesday we should get our dinghy davits mounted so our dinghy can go along without being towed. We have to name her still. She also needs registration numbers put on her.

We also have to get the fresh water meter working so that we know how much water is on board.

Peace, Love and it is a lifestyle not a vacation.

Our water maker is crippled but usable. It has a valve that causes the water maker to flush salty water over the side when the system starts up and diverts it into our tank when the water gets fresh. We can operate the valves manually and taste test the water until then. We cannot get an automatic valve. Nobody can find the part.