Our friends Fred and Cindy on Kelp Fiction II left for the US a few weeks ago. Jay was watching Kelp Fiction II over at Martin's Marina. I wasn't sure when they were coming back and although we expected to be gone before they returned Hideko and I both hoped we would see them one more time before we headed off in different directions.

I was contemplating what to do with Swingin' on a Star. I was just about out of projects to do while waiting for the yard to paint the dang bottom. As I was standing there considering the levity of doing it all by myself, the Calvary arrived. I couldn't believe it, a car drove up and out popped Jay, Fred and Cindy. After warm greetings all around, Jay looked at Swingin' on a Star and began to rant. Jay is not highly tolerant of inaction. In a matter of moments my friends were telling me to paint the boat myself and that they would help. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I knew this was going to cost me a lot of beer but that would be a comparative bargain.

If you've never painted the bottom of a boat with incredibly nasty/toxic anti fouling, you simply can't comprehend how good a friends these folks are.

Later that afternoon a few guys emerged from a thick haze of ganga smoke (typically billowing all around the yard at lunch time) and said they were going to start on the bottom paint. I asked them if they were going to prep the bare glass spot first (I had been asking this same question for a week). They decided that someone else would need to handle that. I said, "ok send him over now but I no longer require the paint work".