It's been a while since my fingers have caressed this keyboard immersed have they have been the last while in epoxy and fibreglass and diesel oil. However we are now back on the high seas and on our final leg home. We set out from Radio bay at 3 yesterday afternoon into grey and black clouds with the occasional shower. Kind of matched our moods as, although we are all anxious to get home, none of us are enthralled at the prospect of a 3 plus week passage in which the temperatures are going to steadily drop and the weather become less clement. I'm sitting at the cockpit table now as we sail along in 12 knots of wind at around 6 knots and the temperature is a balmy 29 degrees...just about right! Soon the foul weather gear is going to have to be deployed more frequently and Fi has dig the toques and gloves out of storage.

We spent 10 days in Hawaii all of it in Radio Bay, Hilo on the northwest side of the island. Radio Bay is a small anchorage tucked into a corner of the harbour and caters solely to transient boats. It cost us about $10 a day and there is a 30 day limit. We tied stern-to to the wall and in the absence of a long plank used the rowing dinghy to get back and forth. The main drawback of Radio Bay is that one is locked into the dock area and to get out one has to call security at the front gate. They then drive over, unlock the gate and escort you out of the harbour. Post 9/11 fallout I guess. We were abour 4kms from town and ended up renting a car for the duration of our stay. While I was working on the boat Fi and the rest of the crew were doing copious amounts of laundry at the space age laundromat in Hilo....a far cry from when Lara was with us in the Tuamotus and she and Cam set up Lard and Crumb Laundry Service using a dinghy full of rainwater. Their motto was, "It might not be clean, but it'll smell good!". We had developed a few more cracks in the bridgedeck en route from Papeete. These were less worrisome than the one we sustained beating to the Tuamotus as they involved the outer skin only and were along the join of 2 long stringers that Bill had added to the underside of the bridgedeck to deflect slamming waves. However they did require repair and so Monday and Tuesday saw me on my back in the dinghy grinding away paint and fiberglass before applying 3 layers of biaxial cloth and epoxy. Painting will have to wait until Victoria as after a couple of days I was tired of doing the Michelangelo thing.

Next on the list were the engine mounts. Keith, the Bukh dealer in Ontario, came through for us and arranged shipping of the necessary parts direct from Denmark. They were supposed to arrive Thursday so we delayed our planned trip around the island to Saturday wanting to make sure we had the engines operational before the end of the week. As it turned out they arrived late Friday and, although I stayed up late, I couldn't finish in time. Saturday morning the rest of the crew took off on their circumnavigation of the island while I worked on the engines to the accompaniment of opera on National Public Radio. After the opera came a surprise...My Music, a musical quiz programme from the BBC with Frank Muir that we used to listen to in South Africa decades ago. A couple of hours of Celtic music and the new mounts were installed with the engine running smoothly. Time for a cold beer, a shower, a glass of red wine with leftovers from the night before....bliss. It's quite satisfying this mechanical work, especially when one can do it tied up to a dock with access to Home Depot and advice from fellow cruisers when one has a problem...(thanks to Tim on Lucky Star from Sausilito who gave me a propane torch to heat up some seized bolts on the flywheel and Sam who lent me his bike to go and buy a gear puller). Along the way I have also acquired a torque wrench and angle grinder...suitably manly stuff.

One item I was unable to cross of the to do list was getting the heater going. The manual says to run it weekly, a task we neglected in the tropics. After taking it apart several times and getting the blower and fuel pump working it still won't run and I think the problem is the spark plug. And, no I don't have a spare on board. So we'll just have to add extra layers as we approach the 49th parallel.

Lack of warmth is not something we have to worry about now. More pressing is checking the fishing line to see if supper has arrived and planning my backgammon strategy in order to win back some of the sour candies I lost on the last passage. Cam has just challenged me to a game so I'd better go...