Tom here...Although the work list on a boat never ceases to grow we seem to have it under control, for the moment. The communications and weather systems are up and running, the engines and water maker have had their fluids changed and all the spares I picked up back in the States have been installed. Fortunately we had a great person watching the boat during its 3 month stay in Antigua. If any of the cruisers reading this blog need a good place to leave your boat in Antigua, make sure you talk to Deon at Antigua Slipway. Zen was parked in Falmouth Harbor (John/Sea pony supplied the mooring) so Deon had easy access via dinghy. He visited the boat weekly and worked with a few local vendors to make sure some minor maintenance was performed while we were away. When we arrived Zen was waiting for us, cleaned top to bottom including all mooring gear that had been floating in the algae rich Caribbean water for three months, at the Falmouth Harbor Marina. I was having nightmares about the dinghy rides back and forth to the mooring with the 19 travel bags we brought down for the final move aboard. BTW...to the annoyance of the rest of the family I broke out the scale before we left and made some minor adjustments to the contents of some of the bags. All-up we kept the total weight under 500 lbs. Got to keep the weight down on the multihull. The family refused to share the same tooth brush so I compromised on that one. Instead I cut them all in half...saved a few ounces on that deal...you have to watch the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves!! Cammi and Cole have already burned through 4 books. At that pace, let's call it 4 books a week for 12 months, the kids alone will churn through more than 200 books before we reach the next major shopping metropolis (New Zealand). Thank goodness for the new Sony ebook. Got to love technology! Now, for those of you who are thinking there could be worse problems (other parents and grandparents), don't get me wrong. I love the fact that our kids are devouring books and you can be sure that Monique and I will continue to encourage this trend but, as with all cruising boats, weight is the enemy on Zen. At best it slows us down and at worst it can make the boat unsafe in bad weather. Everything is a compromise. The bottom line on this topic...it is currently 8am and both kids are contently reading away. Wait a minute...scratch that, I just checked, Cole is not currently reading. As a few of you have probably already guessed, he is playing his PSP. Oh well, I had part of it correct, at least he is content...the book will surely come out when Mumma does her morning tour of the boat.

What's next? Who knows. We are watching a very active tropic weather season and trying to make some decisions on our next stop. Do we dive South and get out of the path of the next inevitable hurricane or do we take advantage of the incredibly quiet off season anchorages (and surprisingly beautiful weather...not as hot as we feared) and enjoy some time without worrying that some whack-job will be anchoring on top of us while we are off enjoying the Island. In any case, we have a close watch on the weather and Zen is fast. The boat is ready to go at a moment�?'?=99s notice and we are only two days away from the South American Coast. Hmmmm, stay tuned.

Guess what...Mumma is up! What do you think Cole is doing now? Hope you are laughing, we all are...even Cole.