Wow! What a weekend. I almost hate to say it, as a dyed in the wool cruiser, but it was fun to be ashore this weekend. We started off Friday with some friends over for our first of the year BBQ and then on Saturday morning we started off with a visit to the town's Farmer's Market. This was quite good although it was a bit early in the season for locally grown crops. Still we had baked goods and crafts as well as a Petite Riviere Vineyard's booth selling their wines and Ironworks, a distillery selling their hooch. Concurrently there was the Town Wide Yard Sale so Barb and I walked the streets looking for bargains. Herself bough a few more plants and a couple of crockery thing-a-me-bobs and I scored a dart board made from pigs bristles which struck me as kind of interesting. It is apparently unused and I got it for $5! Now I just need to buy some darts.

During the PM we finished planting the remaining transplants that we had and settled back to relax. The stress of the earlier part of the day was hard on Barb's knees and she had to slap on the cold packs. But we weren't done for the day quite yet. That evening we went to the Osprey Arts Centre for a perfromance of "The Brier Island Wail", the story of Joshua Slocum and teh sirens of Brier Island. No, this isn't a part of Captain Slocum's life that you missed. It's all fabrication but a really good one performed by a young woman's choir. Apparently according to the story the reason Capt Slocum was able to successfully sail around the world was because as a young man he was friends with a "flock" of sirens that had made their home on Brier Island. Interesting concept eh?

Sunday we were up early and down to Nelleke. I began by flushing out the holding tank which took a couple of swishes as apparently I hadn't quite drained it out when we put the lady to bed last year. Then I got to work on the bilge pump. The situation with that piece of equipment was that the manual cycle works fine but the automatic doesn't. I took it out and tested the auto portion with my finger and I am afraid that I have to admit that it must have sat in some ice over the winter and the little mercury switch was discombobulated! Nothing for it. It must be replaced, but at least I know. I couldn't finish the wiring for the engine as I needed to think it out, which I have now done and I think I know what I need to do. Next work session aboard I will get on with it. We reinstalled the ship's computer and were quite happy that this time it seemed to work perfectly. We still need to hook up the speakers so we can watch the movies, but that is small stuff by comparison.

We are planning our first "gunkhole" this coming weekend out to McNutt's Island for Friday and Saturday night. This'll give us a chance to shake out some more bugs in particular to test out the Suki Suzuki our little outboard and make sure that it doesn't need another tune up. It will also let us go ashore for an explore and walk about the island. Peri the wonder hound will be quite happy to stretch his legs on a beach and I will enjoy exploring the south east side of the place. If the outboard is performing I might even try some fishing. There are numerous salmon aquaculture cages around the island and some of the little devils are always escaping. I am hoping to catch one of the truants.