Although the temperature dropped slightly, it was a bright sunny day and the forecast promises more of the same for the next couple of days. Our friends Alain and Judy are probably on their way aiming for the Solomon’s tonight before heading on to Annapolis the next day. If they stay there for any length of time we may get to visit. We keep bumping into them in the most unexpected places.

We, on the other hand, are still here in Deltaville waiting for the work to be finished on the engine. Tony the mechanic went into town yesterday and found someone who still had some of the parts that we had been waiting for so he spent the day installing them and testing them out. By the end of the day we have a working helm station on deck and tomorrow morning we should have one at the inside steering station. Hurrah! I helped him out and I can tell you that it wasn’t a pleasant job. The number of years of different owners, including me, running wires are redoing other people’s work had led to a real monkey’s breakfast of wiring. We literally had to trace and test every wire leading to the binnacle and even then we ran some new ones and tossed some of the old because we just couldn’t be sure that someone hadn’t spliced into them and piggybacked another device on them.

After my rant of yesterday, we may have discovered the secret of getting Peri to eat his puke on a plate – parmesan cheese! We mix things up as usual and dust everything off with a frosting from the grater. He seems to be much more appreciative of that concoction. The secret will be to alternate it occasionally with, say, cheddar or gouda just to provide him with some variety. I am starting to think that we have misnamed him. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him Grommet if he likes cheese so much. Only problem with doing that is that someone would start to call me Wallace, I’m sure.

I also ordered the replacement propane furnaces for master cabin and the main salon. These are more modern versions of what we already have but the biggest point is that we will be able to replace the defunct one in our cabin. They also have a piezoelectric start and a thermostat control so it will be an easier and safer operation. They wouldn’t do the install but they are making up the hoses for me so I can do it myself. It will be nice to have a heater in our cabin for the next month or so, especially as we head north as I am sure that it won’t get too balmy back in Halifax until well into June or even later.

More and more of the regular denizens of the marina are showing up here to take to their boats, a sure sign of springtime and better weather. It’s also a sign of stripped bass season out in the bay as more and more of the Botel boats are being launched on a daily basis at daybreak and people go tearing out into the water in search of a record breaker. Some of these things are gi-normous. There is a photo of one that was caught just outside of the mouth of the river that weighed in at over 15 pounds and that isn’t even the record.

Barb has stained the bookshelf that I installed yesterday and is in the process of varnishing it. I expect that by tomorrow evening we should be able to stack the books in it and that’ll be one more thing off the bunks. While she was doing that I crawled down into the port lazarette and took the measurements for the aft chain locker. The space available is ideal, plus when finished it will make a great backdrop for the shelf to store the 2K generator. Once Tony is finished in the cockpit I will be able to get at that job. Don’t you just love it when two jobs can get finished for the price of one? Barb is also working on making us a new set of splash cloths for the cockpit. It doesn’t seem so but the job list is having things struck off it one at a time. We won’t get everything done that we wanted to but every one done is one less that still has to be faced and most of the remaining ones are those that could be done if we get weather bound somewhere or back in Halifax.