YIPPEE! We are in the water. The mast was put back on without a hitch and we managed to get the stays reattached without too much problem. We haven't got the hole where the mast goes in recaulked yet but that is on our to do list.

Yesterday we got a real surprise and her a voice from our other life on the VHF radio. Our buddy George Diveky from Yellowknife was in town. He is down here looking to buy a boat, what a lovely chance to show off Cat's-Paw IV to another Yellowknifer. He took us out for supper and then he came aboard and spent the night floating his way into dreamland. He had brought his Sat. phone with him and we were able to chat with Janet in Yellowknife for a few minutes.

I wanted to share some of the mast stepping pictures with you. It was a real experience, one I hope not to have to repeat any time soon. We are planning on leaving the anchorage on Sat. and will head north in the Sea of Cortez for awhile and then head on south. It is great to be back on the water.

Believe it or not that is me under all that covering. One side has the first coat on, red and the other side has the anit-fouling paint on. Barry says that the light blue strip above the paint is actually 6 inch masking tape, the yard boys use 1 inch tape, they are that good!!! Good thing I put that covering on, it looks like I paint in the same manner that I eat, I end up with it all over me!

We put on two coats of bottom paint today, so it acutally felt like we are getting somewhere. First we washed and scrubbed the whole bottom, then we wiped it off with fibreglass cleaner. Then the first coat was a barrier coat, a 2 part epoxy paint, we waited 3 hours and then added the first coat of anti-fouling paint. We will add another coat of anti-fouling tomorrow and that will be that. Out paint job does not look as good as the yard guys but as Barry says it will pass the 10 foot test. Hopefully the new paint will help keep the barnacles away. It worked well on another level the almost lethal fumes kept the bugs away all day, they would come within 10 feet of the boat and fall out of the sky.

The plan is to get the mast restepped on Tues. and if there is time we will be put in the water on Tues, the tides may not be right. Otherwise we are hoping to be in the water by Wed. for sure. Hasta Luego.

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Well we did it. We managed to get all the halyards strung and this morning we put the sheaves (the pulleys at the top of the mast that the ropes go around) back in and it all seems to work. The main halyard which was very hard to pull last year seems to be working quite nicely although we do not have a sail attached to it yet so I guess it is a BIT early to tell!

We had 4 of the internal halyards in yesterday and we were working on the last one and it would not come through so one final yank and the stupid tracer line broke and we had to start all over and restring the tracer line. It was another 2 hours of work but it was just as well because once we were done the line seemed very free and worked very well. There was some whopping and hollering going on once we had completed the last one let me tell you. Whew, that was a very frustrating, expensive lesson on the quality of line to use for your tracers!!!

I hope this conveys the reason why we chose to have the boatyard guys grind off the old paint, what a horrible job!

Today we headed to the marine store and bought bottom paint. The guys are working on the bottom again and will fill the blisters tomorrow and hopefully we will be able to start painting on Sat. We may actually be able to put the boat in the water on Monday or Tuesday. That will be 2 weeks since we arrived and about what I figured. Maybe I should just say we should be in the water before the end of the next week and then I won't get my hopes up and be disappointed if we don't manage it before then. Yesterday a couple asked us if we wanted to go to the grocery store with them and their car so we hopped in and bought tons of groceries. That was very kind of them.

Getting a haircut Mexican style, on the ground in the boatyard, where anyone can walk by and gawk.

There is something wrong with this picture!!!

We have made some progress on rectifying the mess we left ourselves with. Barry was hauled up the mast on Friday and the structure they had was not tall enough to get him up to the top. He did reach one line that was coming out the top, but it was not connected to anything at the bottom. We did the only other thing we could do and took the mast down. It came down without a hitch yesterday, and we have been slaving and swearing away trying to get lines but in it.

The structure to enable you to work on your mast was not QUITE tall enough.

In order to get a line strung you have to put a long steel wire up or down the mast, from one end to the other and then get it to come out the top, or out of the teeny tiny holes that the halyards go through. We are still talking to one another and Hallelujah we got all 5 internal tracer lines in place today. NOW we have to attach the halyards, which are the ropes that haul the sails up and down the mast, to the tracer lines and get them to feed through the mast. We are crossing our fingers that we should be able to manage this feat.

Today the boat was moved in the grubby work area and they are sanding the hull and getting it ready for us to paint. They are also repairing the blisters that we popped last spring, they are holes that go through the gelcoat, most are about 1/2 inch in diameter, some an inch. The guy in the yard wanted us to strip the whole boat and have it all redone but that could take up to 3 to 4 months so we declined. Hopefully we won't be sorry.

We did manage to get some recreation time in, we attended a going away party for the girl that looked after out boat all summer, it was a pirate party so plenty of arrrhhhh's were heard. A sword fight broke out at one point over the booty so it was fun. Our buddies Pat and Carole had us over for dinner and dice the other night so although it seems like we are slaving away we are managing to have fun. More friends are showing up everyday and soon our buddy boat people from last year will be here (Sandi and Steve) so it will be wonderful to see them again.

We are safe and sound in San Carlos, MX. We had a good flight to Tucson and then caught the bus to San Carlos despite having to wait 25 minutes for a cab to get to the bus station. I was basically starting to panic but I should have remembered that it was a Mexican bus we were taking and it left 20 minutes late. Our buddies from Espiritu, Pat and Carole, very kindly picked us up from the bus station and drove us to the boat after a lovely dinner which featured out first Mexican margarita!!

It was basically a great trip except I bought some duty free Baileys when we passed through Calgary. I had it in my hand and the salesclerk said that I had to pack it in my luggage, I couldn't carry it on. I was going to give it back and she said she had bubble wrap so I reconsidered and stuck it in our luggage. Duty free after all. WRONG!! The bottle broke and we had very sweet sticky luggage. It actually dripped on all the bags and I have some lovely brown stains on some of my shirts, as well as sticky stuff all over the front of our floater jackets.

It was wonderful to see the boat again. It looked pretty good, a bit grimy, but not nearly as dirty as I had expected and best of all there are not bugs inside, bonus. We have a fairly large problem to deal with though. We took all our lines off the boat. We put in replacement lines to the top of the mast to enable us to just pull the original lines through when we returned. WELL, we chose the wrong type of replacement line and the line is disintegrating, it falls apart in your hands when you try to pull on it. We have no way of getting up to the top our mast to pull the lines through. I think the lines inside the mast may still be good but that is not a guarantee. The work yard where the boat is has a large standing structure for working on masts so the boat will have to be moved over there and we can hoist someone up to see if we can manage to get the lines back where they belong, or we will have to take the mast down, fun, fun, fun.

We are finding it very hot here and are drinking a lot of water and having siestas in the afternoon. Hope all is well with everyone back in Canada. we miss you all.

We are in Sidney, BC, set to take the plane tomorrow morning to Tucson, AZ. Then on Tues. we will take a bus to San Carlos in Mexico and reaquaint ourselves with Cat's-Paw IV. It will be very nice to get back aboard, although we will have alot of work to get it ready to put it back in the water.

The last few days in Winderemere were very busy, my Mom arrived and we had a wonderful visit, we managed to get some four generation shots. Then Barry showed up (the car made it) and he spent a day visiting with Trish, Graeme and Quinn. Quinn did not crawl or get a tooth before I left and I miss his bouncy enthusiaism. Trish was working very hard on getting her knee back in working order and I am sure she still is.

We stopped in Vancouver and saw some sailing buddies from Mexico, Phil and Trudi on Williwaw. They had Williwaw shipped up from Mexico on Dockside and enjoyed her over the summer. One of the great joys I had from traveling was meeting wonderful people and it was so nice to extend our acquaintance by visiting them in their home.

Quinn checking out a ring his great grandma made, good taste buddy.

Once we reached Vancouver Island we raced around buying boat parts. We visited with Barry's Mom and both of his sisters. One night I sorted all our clothing out in Sherran's living room. We emptied all our suitcases and packed away all of our work clothes and our cool weather duds to take to our storage area, then I packed our cruising gear and all our boat stuff and managed to close the bags. We are in a hotel about 10 minutes from the airport tonight so we do not have any excuse for missing the flight.

Oh, I have been working on a tropical fish cross stitch for Quinn all summer. I bought the kit in Calgary in early June and have been working very hard. I basically became obsessed with getting it done. I cross stitched from Calgary to Winnipeg to Cape Breton to Yellowknife to Windermere. I stitched in the car, on the bus, on the plane, on the ferry, on a sailboat, in bed, in front of the TV, and while I waited for appointments. Trish and I visited a framer last week and picked out a frame and I put the last stitch in about a week ago. I felt pretty good about getting in finished. Yippee!!!

We had an outing to the hot springs today. Quinn had a great time as did the rest of us. It is such a relaxing place to go. There were lots of little kids there and watching the toddlers play in the shallow end was entertaining. Trish went in the really hot pool and did her knee exercises, it is coming along but she has to work at making her quads work and stretching out her hamstring.

Quinn is almost crawling. He has been getting up on his hands and knees but just has not figured out how to move forward yet. It won't be long now. He is also cutting some teeth and I wonder if he will either crawl or get a tooth before I leave on Tuesday morning. Barry supposedly left Fort Simpson today and is headed south. He should be here sometime on Monday.

It was a beautiful day yesterday and we went and played in the leaves. The leaves here are huge compared to the ones up north. It was not hard to accumulate a large pile and then almost cover Quinn in them. We also finished digging up Trish's garden, harvesting the rest of the carrots, beets and onions. We had picked the peppers the other day and made a batch of green salsa. It was pretty tasty, it had 10 home grown jalapenos in it and I was pretty scared to taste the concoction, but it was very tasty and not too hot at all.

Last Tuesday we went to see Trish's doctor in Cranbrook. He was not happy with the amount of swelling that was still in her knee and he told her she should still be on her crutches until she could walk without a limp. That was not happy news and Trish was very grumpy for the rest of the day. She has been attempting to remember to use her crutches in the house but she is not very good at it and she is getting tired of Graeme and I getting after her for walking around too much. I keep threatening to take a video of her so that she can see how she is walking.

We did a developmental questionnaire for Quinn, at six months, the other day. He is doing everything a normal bouncing baby boy should be doing and believe me he does love to bounce. He is rolling all over the floor now and he demonstrated his turning techinique on the furniture the other day, pushing off with his feet and swiveling his body on his back to get out of the corner, Trish and I were fascinated.

Barry, in the mean time, is still working North of 60. Here he is checking out the Merv Hardie Ferry with Michel Lafrance, the Regional Superintendent of the Department of Transportation, Government of the Northwest Territories, (he must be taking the picture) which crosses the mighty Mackenzie River. Everyone that drives to Yellowknife has to go across the Mackenzie River which drains the eighth largest freshwater lake in the world, Great Slave Lake. The Mackenzie moves the water past the Arctic Circle and deposits it into the Arctic Ocean. For the past number of years there has been a movement afoot in Yellowknife to put a bridge across the Mackenzie, it is going to be built right where the red bouy is in the background of the picture ( I can't pick it out, but it is probably there). Barry says they started surveying last week and they will start bringing in materials this winter and the bridge is scheduled to be finished in 2010. There was a big dump of snow the previous week in Hay River and Yellowknife but it has all but disappeared here. Barry's last day of work in Fort Simpson, where he is currently stationed, will be Oct. 18. On the 19 he will fly to Yellowknife to get his hip checked out again and then return to Fort Simpson and start making his way south. I am hoping he will be here on Oct 21 or 22. It will be interesting to see if the doctor in Yellowknife thinks he is a candidate for a new hip.

Well I know you have all been wondering about "the car". Greame and Trish bought a 65 mustang and Graeme is in the process of restoring it. He is at the stage where the car has been completely stripped and he has straightened the frame, now he is working on the body panels. The watchamadoeys are finished and the thingamjiggers are perfect, that is about as far as my car smarts takes me.

Graeme is also a surfer, (being a cool Aussie dude, of course he is into surfing). Trish got him an Indo board for his birthday. The board is a snazzy oval shaped piece of plywood that you put a roller underneath and you practise your balance on it. Greame is quite amazing to watch on it, that has been our entertainment for the last few days. Quinn is going to get some yams tonight for his Thanksgiving dinner, Trish and I are pretty excited about that!! The turkey is smelling, the pumpkin pie is ready and we have garden potatoes for mashing. Life is good!

Graeme is currently trying to decide what colour to make his car. He wants to know what you think? Please e-mail me at ann_lange@yahoo.com to register your vote for a black or a red mustang. THIS IS IMPORTANT, he really wants to know.

Trish and I have been indulging in recovery from surgery using the Grey's Anatomy method. The fellow renting the downstairs suite owns season 1, 2 and 3 of Grey's Anatomy, a TV show about interns in a hospital. We have just completed season 3 after a marathon week of uninterrupted shows, no commercial, no breaks. It was great, I guess! Trish managed to sit still and put her leg up most of the time, so that is a REALLY GOOD thing. There were days when I had cried so much from watching all sorts of wonderful actors loose their limbs, their lives and their lovers that I had a headache. Graeme seemed quite disgusted some days to find us sniffling away when he walked in for lunch.

Graeme cut his head with a pipe at work today and when he came home, I had immediate worries about thrombosis and shock and the possibility that we might have to amputate his head if the cut became infected and became septic!! Oh my, oh my, oh my, way too many hours watching that doctor stuff. In all seriousness, he had a huge bump with a cut on his forehead and Trish bandaged it up and we made him lie down and put his feet up and he put ice on the bump until the colour returned to his face, he looked a big green when he came in. He complained that the mixed veggies that Trish had been using for her knee weren't the right shape for his head and we thought that the remainder of the ice cream might do the trick. He could just lick off the drips as the ice cream melted down his face.

Trish's knee is coming along. She is able to walk around without crutches, she says she feels like Uncle Bruce when she is walking. We went into town today and bought groceries for Thanksgiving. That was her first foray into town since the accident and she seemed to handle it quite well, although she did say tonight that she needed to put her leg up and rest.

Why don't they have medium sized turkeys, we had a choice between a $10.00 turkey or a $30.00 turkey, what we would have liked was a $20.00 turkey, but there was no such animal in the freezer we were checking out. Do you think they don't grow medium ones??? Hope you all find just the size of turkey that you are looking for and enjoy the process of getting it ready and sharing it with other people.

Trish is on the mend. Quinn tried to put the crutches in his mouth, all things are normal.

Graeme took Trish into the hospital in Cranbrook on Monday to get her knee fixed. That was a good thing (that Graeme went with her instead of Quinn and I) they didn't get home until after 9:00 at night and Trish was still very groggy from the anesthetic. She looked pretty rough, I have never seen her so pale, it was a bit scary seeing her like that. Apparently the surgery went really well and she has to go back in 2 weeks to have the doctor look at it. When you watch her try and move her leg to a comfortable position you realize how much pain she must be in and how truly uncomfortable she is. She is not a complainer though and says very little about how much it hurts, believe me, she gets that from her Dad.

While they were gone I saw 2 bears cavorting around on the pasture about 300 meters from the house. Trish figures they were last years cubs. They seemed to be getting on quite well with each other and I just loved watching them put their heads down and scooch under a rail fence, amazing. One stood on his/her hind legs and helped herself to something in the bushes and then they wandered up to the neighbors deck to check it out and then headed off, after boxing each others ears. I make sure I am talking loudly to someone whenever I head down the driveway and I went and picked all the apples off of the tree, maybe they will figure out they are gone and take us off their snack route.

Quinn experiencing '"solid" foods

Trish and I have been busy the last few days. We went to Radium Hot Springs and soaked away our troubles for the morning. Quinn really enjoyed the warm water and seemed quite happy to get his face wet and float around on his back. Yesterday we joined in a yogathon to raise money for people that plant trees around the world. Apparently people all over the world were doing "sun salutations" for 108 minutes to raise awareness about world peace and other stuff. The girl that organized it showed a video about this organization that has planted 50 milliion trees around the world, replanting a barren mountain slope in the Phillipines that had been deforested for over a 100 years. They planted 3 species of trees and over 30 other species started growing once the planted trees had taken root, that was a pretty awesome fact. Amazing that seeds could lay dormant for over 100 years and then florish!!

Blue Eyes Squared

We saw a bear hanging about the yard yesterday and when I went down to the bottom of the yard to put the composting in it's spot, the bear had broken the top off the crabapple tree and leaned ]on a branch of the tree with the MacIntosh apples and busted it, to get at those apples. He was a pretty good size, bigger than the 2 we saw on our drive from Yellowknife to Innisfail for the wedding.

Today we made 4 apple pies. The lady next door had given Trish some apples so we made a Dutch topping for one of the pies as she had requested, 2 were ordinary and we made a lattice top for the last one, as they say variety is the spice of life. We picked the potatoes yesterday so have to get them ready for storing today. I helped Trish plant them in May when I was here so it was very nice to be here to help her take them out of the ground. Trish goes in for her surgery tomorrow, so I hope that all goes as planned.

Quinn giving his Mom a kiss

I made it to Windermere by the skin of my teeth. I had left my luggage in Bob's office downtown and he said he would give me a ride to the bus station. Lovely idea, BUT, he got caught in traffic and when we got to the bus station I had to butt in line because the bus was scheduled to leave the moment we got there. The teller phoned and asked if the bus had left yet and the lovely people at Greyhound actually held the bus for me while Bob ran around lugging my truly voluminous luggage around the terminal for me while I got the ticket.

Trish left here at 0500 this morning in order to be at the hospital at 0630 for pre op to fix her Anterior Cruciate Ligament in her knee. When she was in the hospital bed waiting to go into surgery they told her that a machine that was necessary for her surgery wasn't there. They do not have a permanent machine so have to share with other hospitals. It was supposed to be flown in last night, someone went to the airport to get it and it wasn't there. Rather than sit around all day and starve, waiting to fit into the surgery schedule they decided to do her knee on Monday morning. Quinn and I got to know each other, I had so much fun blowing on his feet when I was changing his pants. Trish and Graeme had some time alone together to do some shopping and I had a good practise run for Monday.

Before I left Yellowknife I took Cassidy and Elijah to the store and Elijah chose racing cars on a little track as his treat. He kept me busy putting the track together and changing the tops of his cars. The electical connection did not always work the way it should so it made for a busy afternoon. He asked to take it to his Dad's house, so we dismantled it and packed it up for transportation, someone else can wrestle with it now!!

So I am in Calgary now, headed for Windermere later today. It had snowed in Yellowknife on Saturday so I was looking forward to some warmer weather the further south I got. So, today in Calgary it snowed. I have been accused by my brother and my nephew of bringing the weather with me and I probably did. Hopefully it will be a tad warmer in Windermere, I was counting on a lovely southern fall. Barry said it snowed all day on Sunday in Fort Simpson. He will stay in Simpson until the middle of October and then he will drive out to meet me at our daughter's place in Windermere. I see to have accumulated a lot of luggage in my travels and had to pay extra on the plane and on the bus. ON THE BUS, my goodness they have the whole bottom of the bus to fill up and there wasn't room to squeeze a couple of extra bags on, give me a break. Oh well, the extra baggage on the bus was a lot cheaper than what I had to pay on the plane. Must go and catch my bus now.

I had a simply marvelous September long weekend. I went to Moose Bay with our good friends Janet and George Diveky and thier granddaughter Jackie, on their 35 foot Ericson, YOLA. It is a 25 mile race out on Saturday, we stay over on Sunday and have a grand potluck supper and then on Monday we race back to Yellowknife. Well, let's not talk about the racing, on the way out the winds were very fickle, to put it kindly, and we motored after 5 hours of torture and then started again only to have the wind gods frown on us once more, causing the first leg to be scrubbed. On the way home we started off the day motoring again, although the wind did come up and we were able to tack our way slowly towards YK. When we were 4 miles from home we hit a dearth of wind in the dreaded Dettah wind hole. As it was getting to be late in the day the Captain, very correctly, made the call to take the sails down and surrender and we would have to register a very unsatisfying DNF. AWWWWWWW!!





While we were in Moose Bay we checked out the cranberry situation, took a side trip to Drybones to check out the forest fire and the old Dene settlement, watched Jackie and the birthday boy Julian negotiate a floating bridge and dregded up many wonderful September long weekend memories. I am so glad I was able to go, the only thing that could have made it any better would have been if I could have shared it with Barry. He is just being a busy beaver working as hard as he possibly can in Fort Simpson. I have two weeks until I leave Yellowknife and then I will return to Invermere to be my daughter's legs for a week or so while she gets her knee repaired.