Our good friend Trish Lambert has been helping us out with trying to market the books that we have put together. You all probably know how these situations arise - somebody, in this case, me, writes a book that he feels that although might not be deathless prose, in these days of the internet should sell a couple of dozen books a month or at least a quarter, and gets really surprised when it doesn't. The problem with selling through the internet is simply that just like normal marketing channels you have to do something to draw customers into your website. That's where Trish has broken the ice for us. She has offered us several suggestions that range from absolutely free to very small charge that we are going to take her up on. The first is a site that you publish articles upon to establish your bonifides and then point the reader to your website to show them other things that you have done which happen to be for sale. I already have numerous articles written that I plan to put out on the site within the next few weeks so we will see how things go.

We were off to do the laundry this morning back to Gloucester. I think that the car is beginning to know its own way there and we could probably do the trip on auto pilot if we wished. Much to our very pleasant surprise we discovered that Gloucester also has its own fresh fruit and vegetable market. It isn't particularly big by any stretch of the imagination but it sufficed and even had some fresh scallops for us to splurge on for dinner. Bacon wrapped prepared under the grill with sautéed asparagus on the side. Yummmmm!

When we got back to Nelleke we got started on some of the carpentry projects that the rain had been delaying. As I may have mentioned before the first will be a bookshelf to fit on top of the bureau in the middle cabin. That will clean up several bags of cruising guides that we have occupying space in the v-berth. I have marked out the pattern and cut the pieces, sanded and routed the edges and glued them together. Since there is no rain today, much of it was done on the deck and on the dock which is good for my marriage for no matter how much I try to tidy up there is always some sawdust left behind which really irritates Barb. Then, while I was waiting for the glue to dry and before starting the staining and varnishing process, I got to work building the shelf for the Yamaha 2K generator in the port lazarette. That is a job that doesn't need to be pretty, just strong and functional. At least, that was the plan, but unfortunately I got as far as cutting out 95% of the pieces when the front that had been threatening all day came through and I had barely enough time to get the raw wood inside the cabin and start off to get Barb and Peri who had gone for a walk. Our CPS weather courses had done us in good stead as Barb had recognized the signs of the advancing front and had started walking back. I met them in the parking lot.

One thing that I hadn't mentioned was pretty much the only drawback of staying on the service dock is that we are right beside where they launch and haul all the boats. That's not a bad thing, it's just that when they launch one they have to hand-raulically move it along to its spot on the service dock which is ahead of us. This means that they are dragging the boat along ours. They are very careful and know what they are doing, it's just that they like to grab onto the stanchions and life lines to do the pulling. Our lifelines happen to be attached to the pulpit by a sort of plastic toggle. It's a British thing which means that they have been on the boat for 33 years and are, shall we say, past their first flush of youth. One of the yard crew happened to grab hold of the upper stanchion and gave it a good strong shove only to have it crack in his hand and brake off. He was pretty agile otherwise we would have been treated to the site of him paddling about in the water while the customer's boat drifted away. The staff all felt bad about breaking the toggle, but as I said, it was over 30 years old so it was past its usefulness, plus I would rather it break off at the dock than at sea when someone's life was depending on it. The marina bought me four replacements for the uppers and lowers on the theory that if one broke, the others weren't likely to be too far behind. So, putting the new stainless toggles on was one of my jobs today that I didn't get too far with.

AS I said yesterday I also finally got around to putting up the drapery. National flag astern and courtesy flag on the main. I am also going to raise the Nova Scotia flag off the starboard mizzen so now everyone will know that there is a Canadian boat in the harbour. At this time of year we are fairly scarce to we need to make our presence felt, especially now that Changing Lanes is on their way south. They were kind enough to report their progress Tuesday evening by phone. At that time they were at the Visitor's Centre on the Dismal Swamp Canal and planning to make for Elizabeth City on Wednesday where they were going to be staying for a couple of days both to celebrate John's birthday and to wait for a weather window to get along the next sound and along Alligator Rover to Pungo Creek. Given the weather over the last couple of days they may still be at the free dock in Elizabeth City or they may have gotten as far as Oriental. I keep watching their blog on Sailblogs to see if they have reported from beyond Deltaville but so far no news other than the telephone call.

I am also starting to think that the poor old laptop is due for retirement. I have had it since 2000, that's eleven years which is pretty good in the life of a computer these days. I can easily replace it for less than $400 with a more current model. Then I can do a low level reformat on the hard drive and reload an operating system and it would do nicely as a backup computer.