Earendil was pulled on Wednesday. Here she is up on jack stands. Our new car is parked next to her. We bought that on Tuesday, it's a 1998 Ford Crown Victoria. So we are officially Americans again. I put photos of Earendil coming out of the water and being moved across the marina in a new album in the gallery.

As soon as we got the car, we went out and bought a room air conditioner, which sits in the companionway and keeps the salon pretty livable in the 90+ heat. We have a hard time getting the cool air back to the aft cabin, but it's OK. What's worse is having no usable toilet on board. It's not very convenient to have to climb up out of the companionway and over the air conditioner, then down a ladder and then walk across the yard to the bathroom.

We are trying to get all our business done and things lined up so we can come north for a while. So far the insurance survey is finished, the sails are at the sail shop, the dinghy is being evaluated to find the slow leak, the bottom is scraped and the chip in the keel partially repaired. Bud emptied our extra cans of fuel into the tanks and our dinghy fuel into the car. We have a contract for replacing the engine, and a quote for cleaning the engine room and bilge while the engine is out. The rigger has been on board and will give us a quote soon. We still have to get a quote from the fabricator on reinforcing the floor under the batteries (which we will do) and building an arch (which we want to do, but may not depending on the other estimates).

Just before we leave we'll take everything we can off the deck and lash down everything else. We also need to disconnect the companionway steps and the batteries, to make it easier for the marina to pull the old engine out and install the new one.

We hope to head for Detroit later this week. I'll post when we do.