After spending the summer at home rebuilding the cruising kitty, we are back on Robyn's Nest. It's hard to believe we have been away from the Nest for six months. We got here in Demopolis, Alabama last Sunday.

Our insurance won't cover us for a named storm until the first of November, so we need to stay above 31 degrees latitude until the first. Although we may leave earlier if the weather looks like it will cooperate. In the meantime we are doing some maintenance projects. Yesterday we cleaned our aft enclosure, and tidied up the cabin. Tuesday we made a trip down to Mobile, Alabama to the Mobile Ship Chandlery to have a repair done to our dinghy. While we waited for the repair to be done, we did a little provisioning. It is about a three hour drive to Mobile, so that made for a long day.

We have friends here in Demopolis, so we have used some of our time here catching up with Ray and Beth. Last year when we were traveling, we met Mike and Cindy in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. They had just purchased a boat in Little Rock, and were taking it to Nashville. Well they spent the last year preparing their lives and boat for the Loop, and they pulled into Demopolis yesterday. We enjoyed catching up with them.

We are starting to see at least one looper boat come through Demopolis every day now. This is a fairly important stop for a lot of boats, as this is the last fuel and provisioning stop before Mobile.

Today, we are going to begin our largest project on the boat. I have to cut away a section of the deck to repair a "soft spot". A soft spot on deck indicates where a leak has softened, or rotted away some of the core in the deck. I found the source of the leak, and so now it is time for this major repair. The deck is actually a top and bottom skin of fiberglass with a core in between. I will remove the top skin, clean out the bad core, replace the bad with new, and then glass back in the old top skin. With all of that being said, I need to close for now, and go to work.

Until next time...