We're in the bungalow tonight, enduring unending rain, torrential downpours of it. Sheesh! This is winter and it's not supposed to be this way.

As you know, we got back to the Carenage on Friday and spent our first night in the bungalow that night. Hot, standup showers, air conditioned rooms, and a working refrigerator, all were most welcomed.

Let's see...what have we accomplished? We got the outboard prepared for layover: flushed of saltwater, foot lube changed, and Corrosion Block in the cylinder. The main engine is done, as is the transmission, new oil in both. We take oil samples from both and send them for analysis, and we got those taken. Conni's working below decks and above, cleaning and arranging, as well as sharing many tasks with me. Today, for example, she completed preparations for our anchor storage, disconnecting the chain from the anchor and stowing it in the anchor locker. All of our new electronics have had their software updated, they're cleaned and stowed. We got the boat power-washed in preparation for my painting the hull. I taped the water line today to allow me to begin as soon as it stops raining.

And an interesting process for removing the oil from the transmission. The drain plug for the trans is completely out of reach, unfortunately, so we use a "Handy Boy" pump to remove oil from the bottom of the trans. The problem is that it's a blind operation: we can't see where the pump tube is going, and only at the beginning of our trip this season did we finally luck into removing most of the oil. We tried yesterday but it was too frustrating to move the tube, pump unproductively, and then try again. We tried again today, with the same result, then thought of using our endoscope! We taped the pump tube to the endoscope, then poked them into the trans dipstick hole to see what we were doing. Hey, it worked! We retrieved 1.5L of oil from the trans, all that we were supposed to find there.

We've done some planning for the new fridge guts. We realized that we don't have the space for the cold plate that our preferred cooler uses, at least mounting it as it's recommended. I thought of an odd configuration and the fridge designer sees no problem with it, so we have a plan. It's exciting! We are looking at various insulation to reduce heat intrusion.

Today, in a brief spell of non-rain, we got the jib lowered and stowed. As the first boat on the new concrete section, we had a unique opportunity to spread the jib on clean concrete to get it properly rolled and packed.

Weather permitting, we'll get the main stowed, a milestone in our preparation. If I can get a few coats of pain on the hull, we'll be in great shape for next Monday's departure.

We've hit a wall with our old dinghy. The 34-year-old Avon has a bad valve and although I think that I can repair it next season, it's not possible this season. We need to re-attach the rub rail but have no glue since it's highly flammable so can't be transported. We're using caulk instead, but need the inflatable tubes to be inflated; something that we can't do just now. And about caulk: we buy it in Anchorage and keep tubes stowed aboard. All three of the tubes were dried after a year in the heat here. We'll just buy it hear and keep only what we will use. What a waste.

We did order the two new batteries today, too.

Working away...