Barry and I have been wearing Tilley hats which my Mom gave us before we left Canada for the first time. I lost mine in a big storm just west of Tahiti but Barry managed to hang on to his. It has a lot of sun damage and then he got a hole in it when he put it in the dryer. Tilley offers a life time guarantee with their products so Barry sent his hat in and sure enough a while later a brand new one showed up in the mail. It is amazing what the sun has done to the hat and now I know what it does to your skin, no wonder mine looks a little used!!
Life just kind of rolls along here in the north. It has been cold and windy the last few days and I am counting the weeks (just 6, maybe 5 and 1/2) until we get to return to Cat's-Paw IV and warmer weather. We did inventory at the store last week and I worked all day on Sunday and then 12 hours on Monday counting everything in the store. We had a bit of fun on Tuesday making up some interesting window displays.
Our curling season is entering it's competitive phase. This weekend is the NWT playdowns but since there are only 2 senior ladies team we both get to go on to the next level, the NWT/Yukon playdowns. The NWT Curling Assoc. in their wisdom has decided that we only have to draw to the button to see which team will be designated NWT 1 or 2. We both get a 10 minute warm up then each team member has to draw to the button, with sweepers, the cumulative distance from the pin is measured and the team with the least distance wins, Whoop Dee Do!! The other team has agreed to play a game so at least we will get one game out of the process, it will mean nothing though. We will do that this Sat. afternoon. Once we get to Whitehorse in 2 weeks there is only 1 team from the Yukon so we have to beat 2 teams to get to the Nationals which take place in Ottawa in mid March. We have a pretty good team so I am quite confident at this point that we have a good chance, but anything can happen.

Barry has been busy spending our hard earned "cold cash." He has bought a new wind vane, ours getting really old and we bent the paddle the last time out in NZ. We have also decided to install a wind generator as our solar panels are great but the sun only shines 12 hours in the tropics and the wind can blow 24 hours at a time. He has also ordered a new ham radio so the sailing gods willing we will have a working radio when we cross to Fiji. We will have to order a new dinghy when we get to NZ as our old one was still suffering from the huge hole I put in it when I took Mom shore in Whangamumu. It still holds air but it is not reliable any more and you really need a solid boat to get to shore and back. Cat's-Paw IV should be in great shape when we leave NZ, almost as good as when we left Canada.