It's SO hot!

Today is Friday in Fiji. Conni's and my sailing trip will not happen. We've just had too much to do. How much time is enough? In French Polynesia, we planned for a week and a week shakedown: not enough. We planned two weeks here and a week shakedown: not enough. It seems that we spend more and more time preparing and less sailing.

Our first crew arrive at the boat tomorrow: Phil arrives. We're almost ready, but not quite.

This morning, I winched Conni to the masthead and it's drained me of energy for the day, it seems. Between that expenditure, the heat, and the humidity, we headed below about 1300 and had lunch. I was so tired that I lay down on the cabin sole (I was too dirty to be on any nice surface), used an gallon antifreeze dub as a pillow, and conked out for an hour's nap. Holy smokes!

The main is on and its protective Lazy Bag is on. We rigged the battens (fiberglass strips that help maintain the sail's shape), and even rove three reefing lines, the most ever. We're going upwind and I want as many options as I can get.

While at the masthead, Conni installed the wind instruments that we remove each season. She also found, horror of horrors, that the keeper pin for the huge steel pin that connects the forestay to the masthead was almost worn away. She has a quick eye and knew exactly what she was seeing. I sent up a collection of replacement Cotter pins, as they're known, and the big hammer. She awakened the dead around here, but got things back in place and secured. Had she not seen that problem, the big pin would have slipped out, the forestay wold have fallen, bringing the jib with it, all going overboard. Then the mast would probably have broken and we'd be in deep trouble. The forestay is the cable that supports the mast against forces from the bow, and that's exactly what we'll be facing when going upwind. And remember that we hired a rigger to find find exactly that kind of problem and fix it. We dodged a bullet, thanks to Conni.

We've gotten a lot of smaller projects completed and that's reassuring. The wind instruments that Conni installed all work, she checked all of the navigation lights that she passed on the way up, she checked all of the screws that she could reach. I installed some electrical items, stowed a lot of gear, and tried to stay hydrated.