At last it looks as though the engine troubles are behind us. The fuel filter housing and a new fuel pump were installed yesterday. The big test was whether we could cold-start the engine today. We were greatly relieved when she fired up right away and never missed a beat. So we threw the lines off and motored out into the bay and spent 4 hours at cruising RPM. This now means we have our first 10 hours on the engine. Tom wants to get 50 hours (or close to it) done before we leave - so he can do the first oil and fuel filter change, valve adjustment etc. before we leave. So, we are going to be doing a lot of motoring around over the next few weeks. We are very happy with the new engine (now it is running!), it is much quieter than the old Perkins and moves us along quite a bit quicker, which is nice too. I just had to post one more photo showing the final installation with all the hoses connected - looks good I think. No more engine pictures - I promise.

In between getting the engine sorted out we have been pressing on with the job list - which never seems to get any shorter. We have done a lot of the "bigger" jobs - like changing the bilge hoses and cleaning and servicing the bilge pumps. Tom is very busy with a number of carpentry jobs (his speciality) - we have a lovely hinging screen in the overhead hatch, an extra shelf for one of the food lockers is also in the works.

Oh! and by the way there is another Blob of Doom out there - "Danny" may impact the New England Coast this weekend.