Soldiering on with the paintbrush and soon the roller on a pole, to get at those inaccessible spaces aft of the engine. Oh joy.

Meantime carrying out a long and painful feasibility study on how to shoehorn a holding tank of either rigid or flexible construction into scarce locker space we haven't got. Nobody makes them small enough for our boat, and even the smallest ones need a huge footprint. Work in progress there.

Also deciding that the water tanks have been with us for ten years and probably some time beofre that, so should be ready to split seams any time now. So we're getting new ones, made to measure.

So just to cheer ourselves up and remember the good sailing last summer, here is a photograph David Stone on Nova took of us as we had just raised the new Rocna anchor and were motoring out of Canna harbour, in late June or early July. Note the small black creature in the dashing red lifejacket, rushing up the deck to keep in touch with all developments.

May 2008 can't come soon enough chaps!