Work continues on the boat to make her ready for our return to the Bahamas.

First, we got our new dinghy. Shown at right, you can see it is a 9 foot, Livingston hard catamaran. It has a 4.5 foot beam, draws 3 inches and weighs in at 125 pounds. She is a little on the porky side, but it couldn't be helped.

Once we got her back to the Steve and Sally Marina Resort, Spa and Car Rental, we splashed her in the water and I managed to get our old outboard running. Unfortunately, the 8 horse power Honda is not able to plane the boat with both of us in it. More unfortunately, the Honda stopped running after 10 minutes.

We loaded the engine into the truck and took it out to the local Honda dealer. They said it would take a couple of weeks to look at it, so dinghy testing has been put on hold. While we were at the repair shop, I talked to the woman in charge and found out they do have a trade in program, so we may be trading up to a larger, more powerful engine.

With the dinghy situation currently stalled, we switched to the floor project. Our new floor material is called Nautolex. It almost looks like linoleum except that it is made from rubber and the surface in knubbly for traction. We got ours in the shark color, which looks like no shark I have ever seen. Maybe its like a carpet shark or something?

Anyhow, I have cut the first section to fit the main salon passage way. This involved taking up all the floor trim as well as removing the salon step. Once clear of impediments, I cleaned the area and then layed in the cut piece. Amy and I are both happy with how good it looks. See supporting evidence at right.

I haven't glued the pieces down yet, because we are house sitting next week for our neighbor Miss Pat and I figured I would do it then so as not to asphixciate any ferrets with glue fumes.

In other work related news, I have finished wiring the 3rd bedroom to take our as yet to be purchased freezer. Steve and Sally have one of those mobile freezers that work off of 12 volt or 110 that they list in the West Marine catalog. I am going to borrow theirs this week and do some energy tests to see if we can afford the power requirements with our current electrical setup.

I don't think it should be a problem as we only intend to use the freezer at times when we have a large fish that we will need to freeze part of while we eat through it, but I'd like to have a base line on power consumption to work from. Milo is happy to know that the freezer and more importantly, food, will be parked right outside the entrance to his house. I fear he may never leave his bed again.

All of our assorted gear ordered on Americna Express fequent flyer points has arrived. In the accompanying pictures you can see our new dry bag backpacks, my sweet new volleyball, Amy's underwater camera and a few new squeeky toys for the ferrets.

I also included a shot of my new fish whackers that now adorn the rear of our boat. Between the new dingy and the increased number of fish whackers, I am predicting total seafood pandamonium come this fall. Fish beware! Stay tuned.