Our daughter, Celeste teaches fifth grade. Her students thought we should have a mascot to keep us company and to help us with all the work involved, so they sent us a little stuffed piglet named Toots. He's so capable and energetic that we made him captain. That's a pretty big hat for a little piglet to fill, but we think he'll do just fine.

Tomorrow morning we leave Scappoose for St. Helens (just two hours away) where we will be joined by Tom and Jeanne Becker for a short shake down sail. We hope the conditions will be right to fly our new spinnaker for the first time.