It is spring in Nova Scotia and we are both rediscovering the sheer joy that fills our souls as we put in our hours in the boatyard. It's interesting that, despite the labour of cleaning and waxing the hull, varnishing the metres and metres of teak rub-rails and eyebrows and handrails, of checking the engine and the water, septic, electrical, and navigation systems, of cleaning lockers and cushions and putting the interior back together, it hasn't yet gotten old.

As I perched on a ladder last week with sandpaper in hand, watching the beautiful colour of the teak rub-rail emerge, listening to the lapping of water on the rocks and bits of conversation from the fellows polishing the boat next door, feeling the sun on my back, I noticed that bubbly feeling that means, "I am HAPPY right here and right now!"

A couple of days later, it was Jim's turn. He was in Gold River - doing more of the prep work, and sleeping in our camper-van at nights. When he called me to say good morning, his voice was so joyful as he exclaimed, "I just love being here!"

Mind you, we have lots of work left to do and potential for all sorts of things to go wrong so this happy bubble might go Poof! but it's here now and we are paying attention to it.

And that camper-van I just mentioned? We have been thinking about one for a while now - ever since we had such a good time traipsing around New Zealand for 2 months in "Chewy Chester - a Ford Transit van. We thought, "Some day when we sell the boat" but then we remembered how useful it could be in shoulder seasons when we weren't sailing, and we remembered people we saw in yards all up and down the coast, camping out while they worked on their boats, and we thought about how we could explore inland more, instead of just coastal locations ... and we switched from thinking to looking. We narrowed down the choices - smallish, affordable, fully self-contained with toilet and shower, good galley space and decent bed, and decided we wanted an older-model Pleasureway van conversion. They are hard to come by in Canada so after missing out on vans advertised online in Ottawa and Quebec, Jim grabbed the phone quickly when he saw just the right 2012 Ford Pleasureway in Calgary. Several phone calls and two weeks later, we flew to Calgary to put our money down and drive it home. 5,000 kilometres in March in Canada! Thank goodness it has a good little furnace because we parked with the transport trucks beside service stations and slept cosily aboard 5 nights out of 7. We named her "Rosie" because she comes from Wild Rose Country (aka Alberta) and now she and our Madcap live happily together in Bluenose territory (aka Nova Scotia).

I'm sure there will be shadows, but this day we are soaking up the light, doing satisfying work in a place that feels good.