Mary is off to NY visiting a friend and her new baby, and us boys are trying to make do without her. Just like the pirates of old, not taking showers and wearing the same raggedy clothes and saying arrrggg a lot. Of course we were doing that last week too so it is hard to tell the difference. But, we all miss her. On the last trip back east Mary was one of the passengers stranded by Jet Blue airlines and I distinctly remember her calling to tell me that all the flights were canceled due to weather and she was not sure when she could get home. The Salsa music and clicking glasses in the background did make me suspicious. Hopefully she will miss us too and come back on schedule this time. I will report back on that

We are still anchored in San Diego harbor and will prepare to leave for Mexico when Mary comes home. We need to leave as soon as possible before I go broke in the local West Marine and other assorted marine stores. No matter how hard I tried to make the kids read by match light, charge their computer once a week and stopped letting Mary charge her electric tooth brush, we were not keeping our batteries up. I decided to buy a new solar panel and trooped off with Finn in tow and credit card in hand. I was soooo excited and managed to purchase the next to last one in San Diego County. Apparently there is a run on solar panels, plus some shortage of the special silicate sand used to make them and stores are running out of stock. How can you run out of sand? There I stood with my treasure trying to picture Finn and me carrying it home on the bus. It is in a box as big as I am, and we have a pile of all the stuff I think I need to attach it to the boat. This is rapidly turning into another super market story. Barry, a friend that we have been seeing all along the coast comes into the store and volunteers that they have rented a car and would be happy to run me down to the dock, but he is on his way to a Jimmy Buffet concert with his friend Pamela. Of course. The next day we meet at the store and wheel this box down to the cutest little red rental car that $14 a day can rent. After some head scratching, Pam drove back to the dingy docks with Timothy in front and Barry and me in the back leaning against the solar panel which was sticking out of the open passenger door. Rowing out to the boat in the dinghy with this thing looked just about as ridiculous and I wish I had a picture to share. It is installed now and we have been enjoying a glut of computer time for the kids and have watched movies together the last three nights. We still have to watch the usage, but it is great to be able to charge the batteries without running the engines.

I will keep everyone up to date on the planned itinerary and hopefully will post some thoughts tomorrow. Much more to say there, but need to run and get some sleep so that I can educate my two little pirates in the morning.