Today was a bittersweet day as I bid farewell to my summer job at the Binnacle. It has been 4 months of work for which I was paid for doing something I enjoy while working with and for some nice people, but it did interfere with the serious business of getting the boat ready for our cruise this winter. So leaving was sad in some ways but a relief in others. I did offer to come back in if they had any shortages or if they needed some rigging to be done.

We started the painting yesterday and I am really happy that we did such a good job in prepping the bottom. All too often we rush that phase of bottom paining only to regret it when we come to apply the paint with old paint flaking off under the roller and multi levels of wet paint wait9ng to dry in the patterns that you might expect to see on the plains of the Sahara not on the side of a loved ocean going yacht. As of Friday evening we have the first coat on her and over the next couple of days we'll get the boot stripe and accent line put on prior to launch.

We still have a pit of a leak in the forward cabin that I am trying to chase down. I think that it's because rain falling into the chain locker will run along the bracing back to the bulkhead and through that into the cabin. With any luck it should be a simple matter of putting a block in the channel on top of the stringer and redirect any water into the bilge. We'll have to see.

I had a bit of an epiphany today as I was looking at a chart that I was selling a customer at work when I realized that to go from Shelburne to Gloucester actually has us backtracking a bit and that Newport, if we go directly there only adds 12 hours to our trip. Given the right weather conditions, that makes a lot more sense to me. If we leave Halifax on 15 Oct that should get us into Newport by the evening of the 19th if the weather permits and gives us 11 days of weather delays if it does not. I like that kind of flexibility. Of course the good deal on the docks in Newport will only start on the 25th so we will either by gunk holing a bit or hanging on a mooring while waiting. One advantage of getting on the mooring early is that it will give us that much extra time to deal with whatever is required at the vets for the animals, to say nothing of the extra time to explore Newport, visit restaurants and clubs, the various neighbourhoods, etc. With any luck our friends Jan and Mary Lou will be there too and since he lived in Groton he has a pretty fair idea of the area in RI too and would be able to give us some firsthand knowledge of the area. They are bringing their boat down to visit Newport on their way south to Florida if I can't persuade them to throw caution to the winds and head out to Bermuda with us. Hear that Mary Lou and Jay?!