Beautiful morning; photographed a heron fishing on the tide flat this morning, followed 90 mins later by a fisherman in hip waders -- he's out there now.

The little boat has been cleaned (think it will take some time before my ears stop ringing from the ShopVac in such an enclosed space!), and now if only we can get a cruise in before the weather closes down for the fall -- but it's so beautiful right now! :-)

Derek redid the rotting and springy cockpit seats by cutting, glueing, sanding and painting (we helped a litle with that last part) two new heavy duty ply seats, in white with a bit of white sand in the paint for grippiness. I plan on redoing the V berth -- the covers are vinyl (ewww!) and they are splitting along the seam next to the zipper (ewww!); it's time for a foam and canvas refit of the interior soft furnishings. At least she's been vacuumed and wiped down, so the storage areas are pretty clean. Found some good stuff stowed in there, as well as some scary stuff (mayonnaise from the previous owner, probably 2 yrs old, unopened but likely lethal).

Well, hadn't thought we could spend a summer so close to the San Juans and not do a weekender, but so far that is the way it has worked out -- and my next two weekends are spoken for. Canada did eat a few of our weekends, including Labor Day, but it was a wonderful time for our family; it's in the way of a tradition, going up to the lake. And the Labor Day weekend was the BC RenFest -- I got my music fix and the guys got a full dose of Ren!

Here is the heron, fishing patiently this morning...