We put in a long day of physical labor on Wednesday, but we managed to get all of the sanding and scrubbing done on the hull so that we could proceed to the next step in the morning. That step was for John to do some patching with epoxy, so I picked up the car by myself. (Actually, I had Enterprise pick me up and take me to get the car.) When I got back, John had been at work on the problem with the gauges. He ruled out one possible source of the problem, and we're going to have an electrical specialist look at it this afternoon.

We took the afternoon off and went driving around Vancouver a bit, ending up at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. We thought we'd seen a lot of totem poles in Alaska last year, but this place topped that — with both old, preserved totems and newer examples by First Nation (Canadian for native) carvers. They also have the collections that they're using for research in display cases. That means that we don't necessarily know what we're looking at because not everything is labeled, but there sure is a lot to look at. We only spent a couple of hours there, but we could have spent all day.

While we were gone, the professionals were going to be looking under the sole (floor boards on a boat) at the bolts that hold our keel on, and our time at the museum was limited because we wanted to get back to talk with Jeff about what they'd found. They were looking because I'd noticed wet spots on the keel when I was prepping it. Usually they were where there was a paint chip, but one in particular was unusual and prompted the further investigation. It wasn't good news. Water has seeped into our keel. That's a problem if it corrodes the bolts. The bolts look OK, so John's drying it out. Then we'll seal it up and proceed with the bottom job. But it's adding time and cost. It seems that always happens in a boatyard. We should be used to it by now.

Meanwhile, we've also found fun things to do while we have the car, and we also have errands to do. For example, M�rzen really needs her nails trimmed, and I've found a place to get that done. Unless we do something exciting, though, I probably won't update the blog for a few days.