We are on our fourth week in the yard. Things are slow - or slower that I would like them to be. Only the Spectra water-maker dealer had impressed me. He came on the first week and took the fried control unit away. He had a replacement unit within few days and the water maker was up and running early the second week. Mark has done most of the project management and a lot of the removal and re-installation of replacements. Neither the yard nor the electronics dealer had understood our sense of urgency. To give you an example, we have been waiting for the anchor light replacement for over a week as the yard failed to ask for expedite shipping. Today, Thursday, August 23th, it finally arrived, but they had ordered the wrong one (!!! ###???? Arrrrgh!!!! - fill here with the expletives of your choice). So Mark told the yard we will take care of it ourselves. Within no time, Mark had ordered the right anchor light to be delivered two days from today to the West Marine store in Martha's Vineyard, our next destination. Electronics is another frustrating story, which I will not bother you with.

Despite our annoyance with the speed of the repairs, we have not been idle or bored. We have taken care of some pending projects: repairing the main sail cover, making a mosquito-netting curtain for the cockpit door, replacing old fans, etc. The kids have been continuing with their minimal summer homeschooling and I have been catching up with books. I have just finished John Adams by David McCullough - I highly recommend it: informative, well written and engaging. I basically did nothing, other than feeling guilty, while totally enthralled in that book.

Alec and Roan's friend Andrew is visiting us for the week. We had originally planned to leave for Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday but it was not until Thursday that we finally left the dock. Many electronics are still pending but we will have them shipped to wherever we are once they are ready (who knows when that will be). In the mean time, we will continue with our cruising plans.