I'm not sure that I will be awake to post any photos, so forgive me if I don't .

We were up at 0600, started work at 0700, and stopped at 1530. It was a long day, and very hot. Were it not for some clouds and rain, it would certainly have been unbearable. Jeez, this equatorial island sure is hot! We must be much closer to Sun!

We got the solar panels installed, clearing some much needed space in the boat. We "fired 'em up" and they put in about 8 A of good, clean energy. I got the propeller greased: we have a "Max Prop" feathering propeller and it needs lubrication in its gears. I changed out the main zinc and, surprisingly to me, it was nearly spent. I washed the hull, stem to stern, finally making Wings look like a boat that someone cared about.

Conni made her usual excellent progress below and on the outside stainless steel. We're getting there.

We've decided to try and splash Wings on Friday or Monday, depending on how we're doing. We'll also stay in our little bungalow until the boat's in the water, too. It's too convenient to be off her rather than living in a construction zone.

We've noticed that we receive a little shock when we are on the top of the ladder and we touch a metal stanchion. By the way, the boat's up on a cradle, so we have a ten-foot ladder to climb in order to board her. Forget a tool? Up and down that damned ladder! At any rate, I decided to use my multimeter today and see what voltage was causing the problem. Wow! There's 140 VAC between the boat and that ladder! There's so much current leaking at that yard, that the ground's hot! Crazy! Since it's 140 VAC, we know that it's not us since the best that we can do is 120 VAC: we're Americans! Europe, and French Polynesia, of course, are 240 VAC and 50 Hz. Ain't no OSHA in French Polynesia.

We discarded our old outboard, at long last. John Steinbeck, an American author, wrote a book called, "The Sea of Cortez", that's about, well, the Sea of Cortez. In it, he described a malevolent outboard that he dubbed (so that he didn't have to disclose the actual model) his "Hanson Sea Cow". We've laughed at the similarities between the two outboards on many occasions and we've taken to calling this 1970s vintage Sears 5 HP outboard our Hansen Sea Cow. It's become something of a goal for me to keep it running long past its prime, a condition that it might never have enjoyed. I've never seen it, anyway. It wasn't a great engine when it was new, and the preceding 40 years haven't made it more reliable, to say nothing of the practical impossibility of acquiring parts. I was the only one who could start and operate it. Its single reason for continued use, though, was that it only weighed 37 pounds. Shoot, Conni could lift it! The 9 months that it spent here has not made it better, and we do have a brand new Mercury 6 HP on the way, so we decided that it was time to say goodbye.

Goodbye, Hansen Sea Cow. Thanks for the many laughs and occasional utility. I'm quite sure that I'll find some other outlet for my need to fix things.

Whether one eats in a restaurant or in the bungalow, food here is very expensive. We've been eating in the bungalow, buying prepared foods. Last night we had cassoulet, a white beans and duck meal: yummy! We decided on pasta and canned sauce tonight, and splurged on a bottle of cheap French red.

Do we have either a bottle or can opener in the bungalow? No. Did I have one on a knife? No. Solution? Ask the neighbor for his bottle opener, and improvise a way to open the can of sauce. I have a shark-themed bottle opener attached to my knife, and Conni set about opening the can with this blunt bottle opener's shark nose, hammering with a frying pan. Really! I had insisted on chunky sauce, so the damned hole in the can had to much larger, but Sharky survived and we had a fine dinner of pasta and sauce, accompanied by palatable red wine. The effort and ingenuity that it required to open the wine and can added to the cuisine.

Nope, no photos tonight.