It's cold in SW FL! No heat on WL.  Who would figure that you cannot buy an electric blanket at Walmart in Punta Gorda, FL!   BBBrrrrr!!!   We're back in central IL for the holidays & will definitely visit Kohl's for an electric blanket before heading back to W-Lude after Christmas!   Yikes!

Actually David's still on the boat & I'm in Honolulu waiting for Billy's Navy ship to come in so I can sail back to San Diego.  Do you think it qualifies as sailing across the Pacific?  Guess not....   :( 

Strange, our Adler Barbour refrigeration has recently decided to add an auto-defrost cycle.  Except it doesn't just defrost, it thaws everything - and then spontaneously refreezes.  NOT good! Of course to GET to the compressor and diagnose the problem, David had to completely remove the manual bilge pump... which he discovered had a hole in the diaphram which might have been why the manual bilge pump hasn't been itself over the last year or so.  So along with a new Adler Barbour compressor, we ordered a $50 rebuild kit for the Henderson MK-V manual bilge pump.   It seems like most systems on this vintage 1985 boat aren't in production anymore, so it was a pleasant surprise to find we could order a rebuild kit!  David reassembled it today.  He said it would have been MUCH easier had he read the instructions 1st, rather than assembling it, taking it apart and reassembling!   :) 

Bummer ... our trusty AB 9' aluminum RIB dinghy has developed a slow leak in the front tube section ... while sitting on the deck all summer.  Very strange.  David swabbed it all over with soapy water resulting in no bubbles indicating a leak.  Then he cleaned out the valve hoping to find a sand granule and checked the o-ring.   Nothing stood out, but we reinflated it anyway.  Here's hoping that when we wake up in the AM, the front tube will still be holding air!  Otherwise?  Next idea?????

Project for the day was to deliver the 95% jib and Mack Pack to Mack Sails at the St Pete Boat Show.    If we're going to switch sunbrella from Cadet Gray (fastest deterioration of any Sunbrella color) to Alpine Green for our cockpit enclosure, we need a new MackPack and UV canvas on our jib to match. 

Mack Sails agreed to recut our 10 year old jib - it's never worked quite right and the top third of the leech flutters so violently that it shakes the entire boat.   Customer service may be dead in America, but it is alive and well at Mack Sails.  If you're in the market for sails, we strongly recommend Mack Sails!