Sorry about the missing blog, but we were just too bushed to bother with anything but hydration and sleep.

Things are looking up a bit. We're starting to work on the tasks for which we had planned and purchased items in Alaska. Conni continues to soldier on, getting rigging set, "Flitzing"(polishing metalwork with the product, "Flitz") metalwork, and taking care of us. We so enjoy returning for the heat and work at the boatyard and basking in a shower and air conditioning. We're in bed and asleep by 2000 hours!

We had the work crew repair the boom vang bolts, as we had mentioned. The guy did a fine job and we're done with those projects: gooseneck and boom vang.

I found out that the YachtHelp mechanic had changed the oil and had simply drained the oil INTO THE BILGE! What a mess! I strolled over the the office and made my displeasure known and they immediately sent a young man to the boat with orders to clean the bilge. He did a passable job, but the cause was the result of poor work, and it will take a long time to remove all of that oil.

We have lost another battery: the windlass battery is sitting at 5.2 VDC rather than 12-14 VDC. Damn! I've got the chandlery guy looking for a replacement. The new battery charger is sitting in Australia awaiting a trip to Fiji. It's supposed to arrive by Wednesday, but I wish it were here earlier. We need to give these poor batteries a good dose of charge. We paid for a 2-3 day flight, so I'm not sure what the schedule is.

We have planned to move the boat to stands rather than to sit in the pit. Being up on stands means that we'll be ten feet in the air and carrying anything entails an effort. And a fall…to ugly to contemplate. However, being on stands means that THE JOB of the trip will begin: Bill removes the old Probe transducer and installs the new one. It's been the main source of anxiety for me for months and the task looms. That starts on Thursday and I imagine spending a day to remove the old one and a day to install the new one. Lots of work is involved. I've been spraying a sealant solvent into the inside hole for days, now, in hopes of starting the process early.

I finally got the new bilge pump completed, and the process was considerably more complex that I had anticipated since the location that I had used before was completely unsuitable for this pump. I refused to drop the new pump into the oil slime in the bilge, so I'll do that at the last minute. We can't go into the water without a working bilge pump!

Conni located a few more damaged through-hulls, and the team will begin their repair of those tomorrow. She's taken on that task and I'm glad that she has.

As Conni and I were discussing the extra work that we've requested, the price is half what we'd pay anywhere else even if we could get the work competently done.

I Jerry-rigged the new Simrad Wifi unit to the Simrad display and after the usual discussion with the units, they began to communicate and the system worked! The Simrad display has charting and the sonar image. The display sends any of that information to the Wifi unit and the Wifi sends it to my iPad's software so that we have a repeater anywhere aboard. It's remarkable, really. When Conni is setting the hook, she'll have access to real-time sonar information on bottom conditions. Now, I only rigged it and it's not permanent, but the system worked.

We hope to get most of our remaining small tasks completed tomorrow and begin moving it for our Wednesday move aboard. The AC and roomy showers will be a thing of the past and we'll become boatyard beings.