The frustrations of trying to repair and make changes to a 20 year old boat are sometimes quite overwhelming. Yesterday we tried to get our diesel heater going. We put about 10 liters of fuel in the tank and then tried to light the stove. Well after nearly burning off my eyebrows lighting the methyl hydrate that we are supposed to use to heat up the element so that the diesel will burn nicely we discovered that we think the tank was leaking. There were pools of diesel fuel under the stove that we soaked up with Scott paper towels. Then we went and pumped out all the diesel that we could from the tank. This involved shoving a hose down the pipe and having a leaky pump suck up the diesel. Well we got diesel on the deck on the cockpit cushions and on my nice shirt. YUCK. We went inside the boat to see if we could discover where the leak was, if it was just a fitting or if the tank is defective. After taking off a piece of the teak hiding the tank and scrunching our bodies up inside the cupboard in the bathroom and forcing our hands through a small hole in the bulkhead we concluded that the tank might be leaky. We are hoping to have it pressure tested to see if it is indeed the culprit. If that is so we will probably just put in a propane heater and BOAT (break out another thousand). We were so discouraged that we went to DQ and drowned our sorrows in ice cream.

Oh, by the way we got the transmission fixed, just a loose connection, and we now have a working VHS and our SSB radio seems to send and transmit and our auto pilot works we just have to have the hydraulic pump that it uses rebuilt because it leaks oil like a sieve. We are planning to have the boat hauled out in early Oct. and have a new depth sounder thru hull put in, so after that we should have a fairly safe boat that we should be able to enjoy.

The one aspect of living down here that we are truly enjoying is the weather. It has been gorgeous lately, sunny, plus 19 or 20 during the day and only about 10 in the evenings. We listen to the weather and chuckle every time we here the temperatures in Yellowknife, the weather has been atrocious up there this past week.

My uncle flew in from Washington State to visit with us yesterday. We took him out for a brief cruise which he seemed to really enjoy. Our daughter Trish and her SO Graeme will be arriving tonight for about a 3 day cruise. We are hoping to hoist Graeme up the mast to repair our deck lights and also get some tips from him regarding our electrical system (he is an electrician), We are looking forward to having some fun with the rather expensive toy we have purchased, as I often put it we are going to go out and play.