It has been blowing a good 20-25 knots most days in the anchorage mid day here at the MYC. Mornings and nights benefit from the island breeze shutting the trades down. So around 7AM Hideko sent me up the mast today. Make sure that your wife hasn't taken out any large insurance policies before you attempt this.

We had lost our radar reflector in a nasty squall in the Solomons a few months back and our mast head light went out shortly thereafter. We ordered replacements from Defender.com and received them via our Saint Brendan's Isle mail box in Florida and then via US Post (reliable and cheap to Guam) via the MYC.

After giving the rig a good once over we headed ashore to look for distilled water to top up the batteries. Our new Trojans are doing well but I'm not liking the maintenance part. We have been going through about 1.5 liters of water a month (our batteries cycle every night due to the fridge and freezer). We searched all five Napas, Diamond Auto, all of the Shell stations, Mobil and other, as well as KMart. No luck. The island was dry as far as our batteries were concerned.

Hideko stopped at the Payless to get some last minute provisions on the way back to the yacht club and as she walked back to the car I saw she had 3 gallons of distilled water in her hands. Who knew. We could have spent 30 minutes instead of 3 hours getting water.

With batteries topped up and rig checked out we're one step closer to Yap.