Whew! What a day.

Here we are from Alaska and we've been freezing at night. Jeez, I guess we've accommodated already. It's been in the low 60s and last night we added a blanket and slept very well. Holy smokes!

After morning rituals were complete, I started on rebuilding the outboard carburetor. I have been reading John Steinbeck's "Sea of Cortez", and in it, they also have a recalcitrant outboard that they named (to avoid law suites, they say) a Hanson Sea Cow. They ascribe to it a malevolent intent and demonic intelligence: it only runs when running is to an irrelevantly close destination. Otherwise, it seems to enjoy riding on the dinghy's transom and letting its propeller spin in the wake provided by the angry rowers. I empathize! Finally, I had analyzed the problem as a lacquered carburetor, caused by my not doing an adequate job of winterizing it. Leaving fuel in a carburetor is a sure way to provide hours of frustration, and I had done the job to myself. I don't accept karma as a life principle, but this had all the earmarks.

At any rate, while in Anchorage, I found and ordered the carburetor rebuild parts, a shop manual (a photocopy of one, anyway), and some spark plugs. I don't think that i mentioned that the outboard is a Sears Gamefisher 5.0 HP from the 1980s. Finding parts is, well, challenging. At any rate, I started this morning by removing and disassembling the carb, a reassuringly simple device. After a few hours of work, including half an hour of soaking in a carb cleaner solution that I purchased here in La Paz, I started reassembly. By the way, requesting a carburetor cleaner is not as easy as it sounds: I needed a cleaner into which one dips the entire carb, rather than the more common spray-on kind.

The first trial failed with gas pouring out of the carb onto the deck. After some thought, some deep reading of the manual, and some tinkering, trial 2 was successful. Really, it should be a great engine that will last for many years, I just have to give it a chance to run.

The bimini cover is on. The Sea Cow (what else can we call it now, even though it runs well?). We're starting to put our gear away since below decks is getting cleaned, thanks to Conni. The solar panels still dominate the saloon, but that's my next task: create the wiring system for them and get them working for us.

Plastic bottles of oil still litter the boat's interior. Tools are in storage boxes, but since the panels are on the port seat, I can't put them away. Conni has handled the jumble extremely well. For those of you who have been reading a while, remember that I spent a week in Petersburg ahead of Conni since I had to replace all the diesel hose and she just couldn't bring herself to live in an open diesel tank with tool everywhere.

Tomorrow, we'll try to mount sails and get the deck cleared. My job is the panels, of course. Our first set of guests arrive next Sunday.

Conni called that she wanted a cigar and asked what I thought. Well, yeah! She started a good Cubano and we slowly smoked it while dinner finished. The night was dark and our two current planets, Jupiter and Venus, were out and lightening the sky. Orion's belt and Orion, were also bright. Orion is overhead, here, rather than on the horizon. Normally, in AK, we see Orion when we're away from town in winter. It's odd when we can see him (Orion, of course) while wearing shorts.

We enjoyed dinner and our conversation moved from this and that to our plans for the next few legs. It seems that we're headed for the South Pacific! I'm so excited! Conni's completely on board. This leg in the Sea of Cortez, next leg the same but ending in Puerto Vallarta. That means in spring, 2013, we cross the Pacific. Wow! Momentous.